Judiciary

Yesterday, I was at a CLE where one of the speakers was Alan Bookman, who is the current president of the Florida Bar. He said that there was a tension between the legislature and the Supreme Court over the Court's control of procedural rules. Several years ago, the Court decided that competency hearings should be held before trial rather than after, so that there would not be the cost and expense of a trial if someone was incompetent. Some legislators deemed that to be a substantive, rather than procedural change, and introduced legislation to move both procedural and substantive rules to the purview of the legislature. The Court believes the judiciary is best placed to determine court procedures.

Meanwhile, last year the Supreme Court certified a need for 110 new judges and 55 were put in to place by the legislature. This year the Supreme Court has requested 67 new judges. Bookman says that Florida judges have caseloads 30% higher than the average in other states.