Florida has a merit retention system for appellate judges and Supreme Court justices.  Each are appointed by the governor, and face the voters every six years.  Voters then choose whether to retain the judge/justice, or have the governor appoint a new one.  Nationwide, judges/justices are almost always retained under this type of system.  Very rarely is one sent packing.  Four Florida Supreme Court justices face the voters this year.  Pinski recommends retaining all of them except Justice Charles Canady.

Justice Jorge Labarga, born in Cuba, was a public defender before Lawton Chiles plucked him out of that job and made him a district court judge.  Labarga was noted for his decision to rule against allowing a new vote in 2000, on the grounds that the Constitution requires that elections be held on the same day throughout the country.  Justice James Pence, who is black, is an appointee of Charlie Crist who was panned by social conservatives when appointed.  Finally, Justice Ricky Polston is a registered Republican and widely seen as one of the more conservative members of the Court.  Polston was a strong defender of the state’s “Choose Life” license plates when a state highway agency came under fire.

Pinski Recommends voting YES for retention on Justices Labarga, Pence and Polston.  They are not ideal choices, but they are not worthy of voting to fire at this time.

That leaves us with Justice Charles Canady.  Charles Canady has spent most of his career in elected office.  He was first elected as a “conservative Democrat” to the state legislature in the early 1980s, and switched parties in 1990.  In 1992, he was elected to Congress, and became known as an extreme partisan ideologue.  Canady was a leading pro-life force in the Congress.  He has often been credited with coining the term “partial-birth abortion.”  Canady left Congress after the 2000 elections, when he chose not to run for another term, after leading the charge in the impeachment and trial proceedings of then-president Bill Clinton.  Canady was one of the impeachment managers appointed by the House to prosecute Bill Clinton in the United States Senate.

When then-governor Jeb Bush appointed Charles Canady to the district court in 2002, he made an overtly partisan and political choice.  The same can be said of Charlie Crist, who appointed Justice Canady to the Supreme Court in 2008.  Voters should take this opportunity to reverse these lapses of judgment.  It is fine to have justices which represent a diverse point of views – liberal, conservative and all points in between – but we do not need political hacks making law from the bench.

Pinski Recommends voting NO on the retention of Justice Charles Canady.

View our other ballot recommendations here.

Popularity: 34% [?]