Eight veteran judges serving in the Ninth Judicial Circuit have announced their departures from the local bench during the past 18 months.
The most recent — and newsy — resignation came from Judge Stan Strickland, the popular jurist who gained national attention from his early handling of the Casey Anthony case.
Most of the resignation letters from this group — which represents 12 percent of the Orange and Osceola circuit’s 65 judicial slots — are generally worded and do not give specific reasons for leaving.
But Chief Judge Belvin Perry attributes the departures, at least in part, to increasing caseloads, dwindling court resources, lack of judicial pay raises for several years and statewide policies that have effectively reduced take-home pay for judges.
“You’ve seen people gradually grow weary,” Perry said. “They burn out and see no end in sight.”
A judge’s broad skill set encompasses legal knowledge and the ability to move a docket, but, like other professional disciplines, quality generally improves during time.
“My concern is that when you lose people like that — that have had a great deal of experience — you lose a lot,” Perry said. “You just cannot beat experience, particularly when you start losing a lot of it within a span of two years.”
Gov. Rick Scott’s office could not immediately provide a count for the number of judicial resignations statewide during 2010 and 2011. However, his news office indicated that Scott has appointed 36 judges so far this year, while former Gov. Charlie Crist appointed 61 judges in 2010.
Patrick T. Christiansen is chairman of the Ninth Judicial Circuit Nominating Commission, the body that selects and sends names of judicial applicants to the governor for appointment consideration. His group is advertising for two county-court jobs and one circuit-court position. The other judicial vacancies have been filled.
He noted that many of the recent judges to resign here “have reached a point where they are retiring” after 25 or 30 years. Most are not younger judges leaving the bench to head into private practice, Christiansen observed.
Christiansen said his commission has received enough applications to consistently send six qualified candidates to the governor for consideration each time a judge leaves the circuit.
When Ninth Circuit Judge Cynthia Mackinnon announced her resignation in September 2010, after 17 years on the Central Florida bench, she gave 90 days’ notice with her “sincere hope that my early retirement will cause minimum disruption to this already understaffed circuit.”
In April, Circuit Judge Maura Smith also gave three months’ notice so her appointed replacement could be made “without damage to the docket.”
“The family court division I now handle is an extremely busy one with unscheduled emergencies every day,” Smith noted.
Statewide court statistics consistently show the Ninth Circuit is one of the state’s busiest — in terms of number of cases handled in its trial-court divisions. In criminal cases, in particular, judges here frequently go to trial more often than their counterparts in larger circuits, including Miami.
Trends toward longer trials and the need for more-detailed orders are also stressing the system. The 65 judges here have only 14 staff attorneys assisting them.
Perry recently rattled off a series of court divisions with hundreds of pending cases. Some judges currently face far more than 600 cases awaiting resolution; in one Osceola division, 704. Perry said a “manageable” pending caseload might fall in the 300- to 350-case range.
Osceola, with just two felony divisions, is “drowning” and could benefit greatly from a new judicial post, he said.
Circuitwide, judges faced an avalanche of 6,848 pending felony criminal cases, according to the circuit statistics Perry reviewed one day late last month.
Perry said the current economic conditions will likely make systemic fixes such as new judicial appointments or judicial raises difficult to come by.
“The salary that a judge makes is a great deal of money to a large segment of our population, particularly if you are unemployed,” Perry said. “We understand the economic conditions.”
But, he added: “It’s something that’s going to have to be addressed when the economy turns around.”
The state’s circuit judges make $142,178. The county judges make $134,280.
Though recent judicial appointments by the governor to replace the outgoing jurists have been “excellent selections,” Perry added, he is concerned about longer-term impacts: a slower system, less-qualified applicants in the future, the public losing confidence in the system.
“We’ll always have people apply for the job,” Perry said. “The question is: Who will those people be in the future?”
Perry also fears a “perfect storm” in which an avalanche of cases with speedy-trial issues could force many to be discharged because the system could not possibly handle so many trials at one time. Only a small percentage of overall criminal cases are disposed of at trial.
The question going forward for Christiansen, Perry and other stakeholders in the legal community will be whether the bench will continue to attract the best and brightest.
“There’s no pattern or general observation except the fact that government service is requiring greater sacrifice every year,” said Orange-Osceola Public Defender Robert Wesley.
acolarossi@tribune.com or 407-420-5447
