Newly created state appellate court begins operations inside cramped quarters in Lakeland
LAKELAND — The logo on a door inside the Lakeland office of Florida’s Sixth District Court of Appeal proclaims in gold letters: “Sat Cito Si Recte.”
That Latin phrase, the motto of the Florida Supreme Court, translates as "Soon enough if done rightly."
The statement, suggesting that genuine justice cannot be rushed, has added meaning for the newly created court. The Sixth District Court of Appeal, which officially came into existence on Jan. 1, faces a potentially long delay in attaining the physical stature of the state’s five pre-existing appellate courts.
As of now, the Sixth District Court of Appeal occupies rented space in downtown Lakeland, a building not nearly large enough to accommodate the staff of roughly 75, which includes nine judges. The office lacks a courtroom, and the court will rely on Florida Southern College for space in which to hold oral arguments.
Despite those limitations, the new court is moving forward with a full load of cases as it absorbs dockets from two existing courts.
The Florida Legislature enacted a bill in last year’s session to create the Sixth District Court of Appeal, adding to the five that handled cases from across the state. The Legislature allotted $50 million for construction of a new courthouse in Lakeland, but Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed that funding when he signed the state budget in June.
While the Sixth District Court of Appeal is entirely new, its creation continues a decades-old tradition of having a state court in Lakeland. The Legislature established a predecessor, the Second District Court of Appeal, which had been based in Lakeland since 1956.
Previously: Bills would create Sixth District Court of Appeal based in Lakeland
More: DeSantis vetoes $50 million for Lakeland courthouse to house new appellate court
Related: DeSantis appoints 3 judges to Lakeland-based appeals court, including 1 who lost election
But that court shifted most functions to Hillsborough and Pinellas counties after problems developed at the Lakeland site at 1005 E. Memorial Blvd., including the presence of mold. While the court’s administrative headquarters remained in Lakeland, hearings were held in the other counties.
The Legislature appropriated funding in 2021 to build a courthouse for the Second DCA in Pinellas County.
The Florida Supreme Court appointed a committee in 2021 to explore possible changes to the structure of the state’s appellate courts. The committee recommended adding at least one appellate district, saying in a report that the expansion would help Florida prepare for continued population growth and address the “increased complexity of cases and expansion of the law.”
The Supreme Court then issued an opinion recommending creation of a sixth appellate district.
Former state Sen. Kelli Stargel, a Lakeland Republican, led the push for new court. Stargel chaired the Senate’s Appropriations Committee, which crafted the bill to establish the Sixth Court of Appeal. Stargel’s husband, John Stargel, was a judge with the Second DCA and has since been reassigned to the new court.
From Orlando to Naples
The Sixth DCA will oversee appeals of cases from the 10th Judicial Circuit, which comprises Polk, Hardee and Highlands counties, along with the Ninth Circuit (Orange and Osceola counties) and the 20th Circuit (Charlotte, Collier, Glades, Hendry and Lee counties).
That means the new court has absorbed some existing cases from the appellate courts of the Fifth and Second Districts, said Charles Crawford, the court’s marshal, or chief administrator.
Crawford previously served as marshal for the Fifth DCA, based in Daytona Beach. He said the opening of the new court follows a long process coordinated between the Office of State Courts Administrator in Tallahassee and the district courts.
“We’ve been working at it for six months and making sure everything was ready to go,” Crawford said. “The judges at the other courts that were going to be losing the cases did their best to get as many cases resolved as they could, so there wasn't a lot (carrying over). So anything that they were working on already, they tried to get it completed before the transfer. As you can imagine, that could cause some complications if a case got transferred in the middle.”
Crawford said it helped that five judges transferred from the Fifth DCA and could retain any unresolved cases
“So now we have all the cases that are coming in to the new court, and we're in the midst of getting those managed and processed,” Crawford said.
The five judges who shifted from the Fifth District are Meredith Sasso, Jay Cohen, Dan Traver, Mary Alice “Molly” Nardella and Carrie Ann Wozniak. Stargel, a former state legislator, is the only transfer from the Second District.
DeSantis filled the rest of the nine-judge panel with the appointments of Joshua Mize, Jared Smith and Keith White.
Growth: As development comes to Lake Wales, some residents worry about changes to quality of life
In one of the court’s first acts, fellow judges elected Sasso as Chief Judge. Sasso served as Chief Deputy General Counsel under former Gov. Rick Scott before Scott appointed her to the Fifth DCA in January 2019. Sasso’s official biography identifies her as a member of the Federalist Society, the conservative legal organization with which six current members of the U.S. Supreme Court are affiliated.
Sasso did not respond to interview requests.
Cohen had served on the Fifth DCA since 2008 and was its Chief Judge from 2017 through 2018. He previously spent 18 years as a trial court judge in the Ninth Judicial Circuit.
Scott appointed Traver as a circuit judge in the Ninth Judicial Circuit in 2014, and he moved up to become an appellate judge in 2019. DeSantis appointed Nardella to the Fifth DCA in January 2021. She had previously worked in private law firms in Orlando.
Carrie Ann Wozniak gained an appointment to the Fifth DCA in 2021. During her time in private practice in Orlando she served as Vice Chair of the Fifth District Court of Appeal Judicial Nominating Commission.
Stargel gained election to the 10th Judicial Circuit in 2006. DeSantis picked him for a spot on the Second DCA in 2020.
DeSantis appointed Mize as a Circuit Judge in the Ninth Judicial Circuit in February 2021, and he gained reelection to that position last year. White became a judge in the Ninth Judicial Circuit Court in 2011.
DeSantis appointed Smith to a position with the 13th Judicial Circuit Court in 2019. The governor’s subsequent appointment of Smith to the Sixth DCA drew scrutiny because Smith had lost his campaign for reelection in the circuit court last fall amid a campaign focusing on his denial of a teenage girl’s petition for an abortion without parental consent in 2021.
In his ruling, Smith cited the girl’s changed description of her grade-point average as an indication that she wasn’t maturing enough to decide on having an abortion. An appeals court overturned Smith’s ruling.
Retaining local artwork
The Sixth District Court of Appeal took over space previously used by the Second DCA at 811 E. Main St. As of Wednesday morning, the lettering on the front the building still identified it as hosting the Second DCA, though that had been changed by Friday.
Access to the building is restricted, and a reporter and photographer were allowed only into the lobby on Wednesday morning. Behind a glass door that requires an entry card, a set of white curtains obscured the view inside. Two security guards were stationed in the lobby, which contains a walk-through metal detector.
The bill creating the new court specified that it would retain all property, furnishings, artwork and fixtures located at the former Second DCA office. That includes several paintings in the lobby depicting Florida landscapes and bearing the trademark style of the late Robert Butler, a member of the famed Highwaymen artists and a longtime Lakeland resident.
Also on display is a portrait of the late Lawton Chiles, a Lakeland native who served as a U.S. Senator and Florida’s governor from 1991 to 1998. Chiles was a Democrat, while many of the judges in the new court were appointed by Republicans. An exception is Cohen, whom Chiles appointed to a Circuit Court position in 1993.
The one-story building occupies 12,850 square feet. That means limited working space for the nine judges, each of whom has two law clerks and a judicial assistant. The court’s remaining staff includes the marshal’s and clerk’s teams and staff attorneys, Crawford said. The court clerk, Stacey Pectol, previously served as the clerk of the Arkansas Supreme Court.
Crawford acknowledged that the space is tight.
“The primary personnel that really need to be here are the clerk's office and the marshal’s staff,” he said. “A lot of our employees work remotely now because, really, we don't have space for them anyway. And so, we're getting by with what we have.”
Honor: Biden signs bill naming Post Office in Lakeland for Marine killed in Afghanistan in 2004
Crawford said that the Sixth DCA has arranged to lease space from Florida Southern College as needed for oral arguments. He said courtrooms are not as crucial for an appellate court as they are for trial courts.
“As you may or may not know, the majority of our cases do not result in an oral argument,” Crawford said. “Most of them are resolved by brief, so both sides write briefs and they don't request oral arguments. They just rest on their briefs. And the judges make decisions on the briefs after they research and their law clerks assist.”
When oral arguments are necessary, they can sometimes be conducted through videoconference, Crawford said.
“We’re using technology to its fullest,” said Holly Tidwell, the court’s chief deputy marshal.
The Legislature is expected to appropriate money for construction of a courthouse to serve the Sixth DCA in this year’s session, which opens in March. The bill passed last year specified that the courthouse would be named for Oliver L. Green, a longtime judge in the Second DCA from Lakeland who died in 2021.
The legislation creating the new appellate district said that “state or local land shall be sought” for a new courthouse in Lakeland. The state still owns the 2.6-acre property on Memorial Boulevard, the site of the former Second DCA building, which has been demolished.
During last year’s session, Kelli Stargel said that she didn’t expect that a courthouse would be built at the former Second DCA site. She said she had discussed possible locations with Lakeland officials. Lakeland City Manager Shawn Sherrouse said at the time that city officials were focused on property in "Downtown West," near the city-owned RP Funding Center.
Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or 863-802-7518. Follow on Twitter @garywhite13.
This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Florida's newest appellate court begins operations at Lakeland office
