PANAMA CITY — Should they stay or should they go?
Robert T. Benton, Joseph Lewis Jr., Scott Makar, Tim Osterhaus and Clay Roberts might not be household names, but voters will be asked to decide whether the five judges should keep their jobs on the 1st District Court of Appeal.
The 1st District Court of Appeal covers six judicial circuits, including the 14th Circuit — Bay, Calhoun, Gulf, Holmes, Jackson and Washington counties — and five of the court’s 15 judges are on the ballot for merit retention this year.
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A merit retention election asks voters to either keep the judges currently serving or give them the boot, in which case the governor would appoint their replacement from a list of nominees created by the Judicial Nominating Commission.
The judges run unopposed in nonpartisan elections. A yes vote means the judge stays; vote no and he goes. A judge who gets more yes votes than no votes gets six years until the next merit retention election.
The Florida Bar surveyed thousands of attorneys who practice in Florida and found significant support for retaining each of the 22 judges across the state on the ballot this year among the attorneys who indicated they had “considerable or limited knowledge of the judges.”
“I am proud that Florida lawyers participated in this worthy endeavor to give guidance to Florida voters about the District Court of Appeal judges on the merit retention ballot this year,” Florida Bar President Gregory W. Coleman said in a newss release. “Most Florida citizens do not have reason to be in our appeals courts, where judges review cases on appeal from the trial courts, so it can be difficult for them to assess judicial performance."
Voters also can find each judge’s decisions and video footage of the courts in session on their websites; the Florida Bar has a clearinghouse for information on the election, including biographic details on each judge, at www.FloridaBar.org/TheVotesInYouCourt.