Gov. Ron DeSantis has postponed an announcement about his choices to fill two openings on the Florida Supreme Court until May 1 as a result of the coronavirus crisis.
His selection of new justices from a list of nine finalists drawn up by the Supreme Court Judicial Nominating Commission (JNC) was supposed to have been completed by Monday. But DeSantis said the actions he has had to take to protect Floridians from the pandemic have consumed much of his time.
“Since the beginning of the month, my office has been 24/7 on Covid-19,” he said on Wednesday. “I’m putting off the Supreme Court for a while.”
“Gov. DeSantis has addressed this in multiple press conferences he has held over the past few weeks,” the governor’s press secretary, Cody McCloud, told the Florida Record in an email.
In a discussion with reporters last week, DeSantis said he had conducted interviews with the finalists, but he had not as yet had time to review all of their court opinions.
“I will most likely delay the deadline back to May 1,” he said, noting that the high court has been functioning adequately with five members. “... I just don’t see it as practical given all the things we’re dealing with as a state.”
Daniel Nordby, the chairman of the JNC and a partner at Shutts & Bowen LLP in Tallahassee, said he understood the governor’s decision to extend the 60-day deadline from the time the JNC sent DeSantis its list of finalists in January.
“The highest responsibility of a governor during a state of emergency is to take actions to keep people safe,” Nordby told the Record in an email. “This wouldn’t be the first time a judicial appointment slipped beyond the deadline, and the slate of nominees isn’t affected by the expiration of the 60 days.”
DeSantis continues to take the task of appointing new Supreme Court justices very seriously, Nordby said, adding that the governor has a talented list of nominees to choose from.
The nominees are Kobre & Kim LLP attorney John Couriel; Palm Beach Circuit Judge Renatha Francis; Judge Jonathan Gerber of the Fourth District Court of Appeal; Judge Jamie Grosshans of the Fifth District Court of Appeal; Judge Norma Lindsey of the Third District Court of Appeal; Judge Timothy Osterhaus of the First District Court of Appeal; Miami attorney Eliot Pedrosa; Judge Lori Rowe of the First District Court of Appeal; and Judge Meredith Sasso of the Fifth District Court of Appeal.
One of DeSantis’ selections has to come from either Miami-Dade or Monroe counties, which make up the Third Appellate District. The only residents of the Third District on the list are Couriel, Lindsey and Pedrosa.
Francis, if chosen, could not take a seat on the high court until late September, when she will have been a member of the Florida Bar for 10 years – a prerequisite for Supreme Court justices.