At Bloomberg Law, Florida Justice Hunt Weighs ‘Bloodthirsty’ Originalist Options. From the introduction:
In Florida there’s a split between candidates for the state high court over just how “bloodthirsty” they would be as originalist jurists.
In interviews Monday, 10 conservative male applicants answered a panel’s questions in hopes their name would be passed on as a potential replacement for retiring Justice Charles T. Canady. Though all are Federalist Society members—and adherents to judicially conservative philosophies putting emphasis on the original public meaning of laws when they were enacted—several split over how aggressive jurists should be when making calls from the appellate bench.
“The higher up you go, the less stare decisis matters,” said Third District Court of Appeal Judge Alexander S. Bokor, who brought up how he considers himself a “bloodthirsty” originalist in the spirit of US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. “On an apex court it’s probably a principle that’s used more as an inappropriate shield and it’s outlived its usefulness.”
And a reference to San Diego-based Judge Patrick Bumatay:
Other candidates said they’d lean into aggressive positions taken by Judge Patrick Bumatay of the federal Ninth Circuit. He’s advocated for judges to go beyond arguments presented by the parties before them and to decide matters on originalist principles that weren’t argued. Justices and appeals court judges can even consider rejecting issues that litigants have stipulated to and reach the issues they want, Sixth District Court of Appeal Judge Roger Gannam said.
From the conclusion:
All applicants are vying to be on the list advanced to Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) by an eight-member nominating commission chaired by Jesse Panuccio, a partner at Boies Schiller Flexner LLP and a former acting associate attorney general in the first Donald Trump administration.
In his two terms DeSantis remade the judiciary, stocking the high court and appeals panels with jurists who will control Florida legal interpretation for decades to come. The unspoken question hanging over many of the interviews in Tampa Monday was how different candidates would go about addressing future challenges to precedent handed down by past generations of the Florida Supreme Court and appeals districts when liberals controlled the docket.
Posted at 6:10 AM