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50 Apply For State's 2 Posts On High Court

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The Associated Press

Published: July 26, 2008

TALLAHASSEE - Fifty judges and lawyers, including six from the Tampa Bay area, have applied to replace two of the most conservative members on the Florida Supreme Court as Friday's application deadline approached. The list also includes some key players in the 2000 presidential election recount.

First District Court of Appeal Judge Clay Roberts, who was the top legal adviser to then-Secretary of State Katherine Harris, is among the applicants along with two judges who ruled in recount cases and a member of President Bush's legal team.

Roberts later served as Gov. Charlie Crist's top deputy when Crist was attorney general. As governor, Crist appointed Roberts to the appellate court. Crist, a Republican, also will fill the Supreme Court vacancies.

Democrats accused Harris, a Republican, of being biased toward President Bush as the GOP candidate in 2000. Bush won Florida by 537 votes to clinch the presidency when the U.S. Supreme Court stopped the recount that the state justices had ordered. Harris, who later served in Congress, insisted her decisions were impartial.

Other applicants include a couple of former GOP legislators, Dudley Goodlette, who most recently was legal adviser to the Taxation and Budget Reform Commission, and Charles Canady, a former congressman and current state appellate judge.

All are seeking an at-large position being vacated by Justice Raoul Cantero while 21 also have applied for a seat covering most of northern Florida now held by Justice Kenneth Bell. Both are resigning, saying they want to return home for family reasons: Cantero to Miami and Bell to Pensacola.

They also are the youngest and newest justices on the seven-member high court. Bell, 52, and Cantero, 47, were appointed in 2002 by then-Gov. Jeb Bush, the president's brother.
Fifth District Court of Appeal Judge William Palmer, 55, wrote in his application for the at-large seat that he intends to hang onto the job if he gets it.

"I would hope to provide important continuity on the court by serving until the mandatory retirement age of 70," Palmer wrote.

Two other justices, Charles Wells and Harry Lee Anstead, will retire upon reaching that milestone next year. That would give Crist an opportunity to appoint a majority of the Supreme Court.

Applications were due by 5 p.m. Friday. The Supreme Court Judicial Nominating Commission then will recommend at least three finalists to the governor for each position.

The candidates include 11 appellate and 15 trial judges.

Besides Roberts, four other members of the Tallahassee-based 1st District Court of Appeal have applied for both positions: Peter Webster, Philip Padovano, Ricky Polston and James Wolf.

All except Roberts participated in one of the highest profile cases of the decade, an 8-5-1 decision that declared Bush's school voucher program unconstitutional in 2004.

The majority, including Padovano and Webster, ruled that sending students from failing public schools to private ones at taxpayer expense violated a constitutional provision banning state aid to churches and other religious organizations.

Polston wrote the dissenting opinion, saying the constitution "should not be construed in a manner that tips the scales of neutrality in favor of more restrictions and less free expression of religion."

Wolf was alone in arguing the vouchers should be struck down only for religious schools but allowed for nonsectarian private schools.

The Supreme Court declined to rule on that issue but struck down the program because it violated another constitutional provision requiring a uniform system of free public schools. Padovano was among five district judges who also advocated that position.

Third District Court of Appeal Judge Angel A. Cortinas and Circuit Judges Gisela Cardonne Ely, Israel Reyes and Jorge Labarga are among several Cuban-Americans who want to succeed Cantero, the Supreme Court's first Cuban-American justice.

Labarga ruled during the 2000 recount that Palm Beach County elections officials could not necessarily disregard those irregular chads that had not been fully punched out on ballot cards.

Circuit Judge Terry Lewis, who is applying for both seats, handled three cases related to the 2000 presidential election recount. His decisions at times favored both President Bush and his Democratic opponent, former Vice President Al Gore.

Another applicant, Frank R. Jimenez, was on President Bush's recount team. He also had served as Jeb Bush's deputy chief of staff and later became general counsel for the Navy Department.

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