State justice system stakeholders in recent weeks have become more vocal in their criticism of a proposal to consolidate Florida’s system of circuit courts, which often serve as the entry point for civil litigation and criminal prosecutions.
The consolidation idea was touched off in June when Florida House Speaker Paul Renner (R-Palm Coast) suggested in a letter to Chief Justice Carlos Muniz that the circuit court boundaries have not been altered in decades despite major demographic changes.
“The size of our judicial circuits varies widely, ranging from approximately 2.7 million people (in the 11th Circuit) to less than 100,000 people in the 16th Circuit,” Renner said.
He suggested that circuit consolidation could result in more efficiencies and uniformity within the judicial system, leading to increased public confidence in judicial decisions.
“I also believe that the consolidation of circuits would result in improved economies of scale in the judiciary’s back-office operations, leading to substantial cost savings for Florida’s taxpayers,” Renner told Muniz in his June 15 letter.
In turn, Muniz appointed a 14-member Judicial Circuit Assessment Committee, made up of judges, other judicial officers, a public defender, a prosecutor, and private attorneys, to hold hearings and examine whether consolidation would be beneficial.
“The (Supreme Court chief justice’s) administrative order calls for the committee to submit its report to the court on Dec. 1,” Paul Flemming, the Supreme Court’s spokesman, told the Florida Record in an email.
A Florida Bar examination of 7,000 responses received by the assessment committee showed that 93.5% of respondents said the consolidation of circuit courts would not improve the effectiveness of the system.
“The survey results, comments from interested (Florida) Bar constituencies, and individual bar members demonstrate that both judges and practitioners believe our current circuit structure works effectively and efficiently, and suggest that less dramatic changes than consolidation could be implemented to save costs, expedite caseloads and promote public confidence in the judicial system,” an Oct. 11 report from the Florida Bar to the committee states.
The bar also recommended that in lieu of moving forward on consolidation, the committee should consider less disruptive means to improve the operation of circuit courts, including expanded use of technology, the wider use of specialty courts, more online dispute resolutions and added staffing and funding.
The Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (FACDL), which represents 1,300 attorneys who regularly practice in the state’s circuit courts, opposes consolidation as well. The FACDL’s president, Luke Newman, said in comments provided to the Record that the operation of the courts would likely have “harmful if not disastrous effects.”
Newman called the current diversity in the makeup of circuit courts – large and small, urban and rural, blue collar vs. white collar – a good thing and that the courts reflect the personality of each circuit.
“Consolidation, by contrast, would create large schizophrenic circuits that do not respect the needs and desires of the largest portion of the citizenry,” he said, adding that consolidation would also disrupt current relationships among stakeholders and lead to decreased public trust in the system.
The FACDL has yet to hear any support for consolidation from either civil or criminal practitioners, according to Newman.