For the third election cycle in a row, no Palm Beach County circuit judge will face voters at the ballot box this year.
All 10 circuit judges who were up for election were automatically swept back into office for another six years. No one had filed to run against them when the qualifying period ended on Friday.
While there will be a contested race for a seat on the county bench, no sitting judge faces the ignominy of ouster. Two criminal defense attorneys – solo practitioner Jake Noble and Assistant Public Defender Schnelle Tonge – will vie to replace Judge Debra Moses Stephens, who opted not to seek a fifth term.
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Like their brethren who handle felony cases, divorces and big-dollar legal disputes, three county court judges were also reelected because they, too, had no opponents.
Veteran West Palm Beach attorney Jack Scarola called the reasons behind the trend disturbing.
Judges are rarely ousted
There has long been an unwritten rule that attorneys shouldn’t challenge sitting judges. Those who defied the rule typically haven’t been successful.
Circuit Judge Arthur Wroble in 2006 became the first county jurist in 22 years to get tossed off the bench by voters. Since then, there have been two others: Richard Wennet in 2008 and Diana Lewis in 2014.
Judge John Kastrenakes could have joined the list in 2022 when two attorneys filed to run against him. Instead, he dropped out of the race and returned to the bench as a senior judge.
In recent years, the trend to let sitting judges be has become the new normal.
“Running a countywide judicial race in Palm Beach County is a very expensive proposition,” Scarola said. “Because there are alternatives for those with judicial aspirations, those with judicial aspirations have used them.”
The alternative is to seek gubernatorial appointment. Scarola said he objects to the process because under the last two Republican governors – Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis – it has become politicized.
“Partisan politics are influencing the selection of the judicial candidates,” he said. “There are litmus tests being applied in the selection process that are clearly political.”
As a result, the quality of the county’s once highly regarded judiciary is being compromised, he said.
“Without getting into specific candidates, many who are seeking a judicial appointment are individuals who lack private law and trial experience and are seeking the power and prestige of a judicial position that has not been earned,” he said.
Since many veteran judges have retired in the past decade, Scott and DeSantis have had an outsized impact on the county’s judiciary.
Together, the two governors have appointed 20 of the county’s 37 circuit court judges. Two other recent vacancies will increase that number to 22.
In county court, where misdemeanor cases, evictions and small-stakes civil suits are decided, DeSantis has appointed nine of the 20 judges, most recently on Friday when he tapped Assistant State Attorney Marci Rex to fill a vacancy.
‘We don’t have a litmus test’
Attorney Gordon Dieterle, who is chair of the local commission that interviews attorneys who apply to fill judicial vacancies, disputed Scarola’s claims that politics drives the selection process.
“They’re unfortunate and they are wrong in every respect,” said Dieterle, who was appointed to the county’s Judicial Nominating Commission by Scott in 2015. “We don’t have a litmus test.”
Attorney Eric Levine, who is vice chair of the commission, agreed. “I have never asked an applicant their political party affiliation,” he said. “I want them to be faithful to the law, have a good temperament and a good work ethic.”
Both said they are well aware of the governor’s judicial philosophy. DeSantis has made no secret that he disdains what he calls “activist judges” who he claims legislate from the bench instead of following the law.
Still, Dieterle said the governor has never told the commission which lawyers to put on a short list to send to him for consideration. “We don’t screen out applicants,” he said. “We don’t judge applicants by political affiliation. There is no partisan politics.”
If an aspiring judge feels shut out of the process because they don’t think their political views mesh with the governor’s, “That would be unfortunate,” Levine said.
Like Scarola, Dieterle said he would like to see more seasoned lawyers apply to become judges. But, he said, they’re not interested.
“They’re making too much money,” Dieterle said. Becoming a circuit judge, making roughly $197,000 a year, would be a pay cut, he said.
That’s why many of the recently appointed judges have come from state agencies, particularly mid-career prosecutors from the state attorney’s office.
The county judiciary is the youngest it has been in decades, Dieterle said. On average, most judges in the county are in the mid-40s, he estimated.
But, he insisted, the quality is high. “The process works and we are getting highly qualified people on the bench,” he said.
Whether the quality would be better if they had to face voters is debatable. Even Scarola acknowledges as much.
Ethics rules prohibit judicial candidates from telling voters how they would rule if elected. They can’t make promises or stake out positions because it would violate rules that they must remain impartial. As a result, voters often don’t know how to judge the wannabe judges and sit out elections.
Scholars for years have debated whether judges should be appointed or elected and whether Florida’s hybrid approach is the best option.
For Scarola, the ultimate solution is at the ballot box. “I hope that there will be someone sitting in the chief executive position who will recognize that this should not be a political process,” he said.
Most of the 10 circuit judges who were automatically reelected on Friday have been on the bench for years. They are: longtime Chief Judge Glenn Kelley, Rosemarie Scher, Joseph Curley, James Nutt, Carolyn Bell, Jaimie Goodman, Samantha Schosberg Feuer, Karen Miller and Charles Burton. The exception is James Sherman, who was appointed by DeSantis in 2023.
County court judges who will remain on the bench are: Reginald Corlew, who was appointed to the bench in 2006, and Mary Katherine Mullinax and Santo DiGangi, who were both appointed in 2024.
This story was originally published by Stet News Palm Beach, a WLRN News partner.
