DeSantis’ budget doesn’t pay for a new appeals court

TALLAHASSEE — A plan to add a new appellate district as part of a reorganization of the court system recommended by a Florida Supreme Court commission isn’t included in Gov. Ron DeSantis’ budget proposal to lawmakers.

The state high court issued a recommendation Nov. 24 asserting the need for a sixth appellate district in the Tampa Bay region, based on the commission’s Sept. 30 report. Lawmakers will consider the proposal when they meet for a 60-day session starting Jan. 11.

“As this issue is discussed in the legislature during the upcoming Session, the Governor will review and make a determination on the matter as it materializes,” DeSantis spokeswoman Christina Pushaw wrote in an email.

The plan would move the 9th Judicial Circuit, which covers Orange and Osceola counties, from the 5th DCA into the 2nd DCA, from a district that now includes the Jacksonville area to one that stretches south to include Polk, Lee, Collier and other rural counties.

Jacksonville-area counties such as Duval, Nassau and Clay, which are now in the 1st DCA that stretches into the Panhandle, would be swept into the rest of the 5th DCA, to include Flagler, Volusia, Brevard, Alachua, Seminole, Marion and Lake counties.

The counties in judicial circuits in the Tampa area — Pasco, Pinellas, Hillsborough, Manatee, DeSoto and Sarasota — would comprise the 6th DCA.

The commission’s members included judges and lawyers from all court levels, and its report stated the move would give the Jacksonville area greater representation among judges in the appellate courts. The Jacksonville area generates 29% of the cases for the 1st DCA but the court only has two judges from the area, about 13%.

A new DCA “would promote public trust and confidence,” the report states, by providing better access to oral arguments and attracting “a diverse group of well-qualified applicants for judicial vacancies, including applicants from all circuits within each district.”

The report was approved by the Florida Supreme Court, but Justice Ricky Polston dissented, noting the five chief judges of the DCAs on the panel objected to the creation of a new DCA. There have also been only two judges added to appellate courts in the past 20 years, he added. And then there’s the cost.

“The cost for a new district court of appeal is very expensive,” Polston wrote. “This certification is analogous to rebuilding a ship for what should be swapping out a couple of deck chairs at most.

The commission met six times over five months earlier this year. The meetings followed a legislative session in which lawmakers debated where to build a new 2nd DCA courthouse — in Pinellas County, where House Speaker Chris Sprowls resides, or in Lakeland, where Sen. Kelli Stargel, the Senate’s top budget writer, resides. Stargel’s husband is Judge John Stargel, who sits on the 2nd DCA.

Lawmakers opted to spend $50 million to put the courthouse in Pinellas. The reorganization plan would put the new courthouse in the new 6th DCA, leaving the 2nd DCA still in need of a new courthouse.