Crist Selects New Jurist

Gov. Charlie Crist named a Cuban-born judge from South Florida to the Florida Supreme Court on Friday.

Judge Jorge Labarga will take over for retiring Justice Harry Lee Anstead, who was appointed in 1994 by the late Gov. Lawton Chiles.

This is Crist's third appointment to the state's high court. The retirement of Justice Charles Wells in March will give the Republican governor an unprecedented opportunity to appoint a majority of the seven-member panel.

Labarga, 56, has served in the Circuit Court Criminal Division of the 15th Judicial Circuit in West Palm Beach since 2004. He received his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Florida and served as both an assistant public defender and an assistant state attorney in the 15th Circuit.

Chiles appointed Labarga to the circuit court in 1996.

Labarga was a candidate last month to fill the earlier Supreme Court vacancy, but Crist passed him over to appoint Charles Canady, a former Republican congressman and state lawmaker.

Crist then named Labarga to an appellate court and said the appointment eliminated Labarga from Supreme Court contention. He asked the Supreme Court Nominating Commission to send him more names, with an eye toward diversity, and the new list included Frank Jiminez, former aide to Jeb Bush, now U.S. Navy general counsel.

Some commission members and lawyers complained about the politics of the process. In the end, Crist chose Labarga.

"I chose him for his competency, integrity, fairness and compassion as well as an added dimension, his diversity," Crist said during a news conference Friday in St. Petersburg.

The Supreme Court has one black justice and two female justices - Chief Justice Peggy Quince is in both those categories - but no Hispanics, until now.

The other contenders included 5th District Court of Appeal Judge C. Alan Lawson of Daytona Beach, and circuit judges Kevin Emas of Miami, Waddell Wallace III of Jacksonville and Gill Freeman of Miami, the lone woman.

The first two justices Crist appointed replaced conservative members of the court. But Labarga and the next pick will replace justices appointed by Chiles, a Democrat. This has caused speculation that Crist will push the court in a conservative direction. But Labarga is considered to be a moderate Republican.

The Florida Supreme Court rules on the constitutionality of state law. It also administers the statewide judicial system and reviews amendments to the state's constitution and death penalty cases.

It is best known for ordering a statewide recount in Bush v. Gore, a decision overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. It also ruled against government intervention in the Terri Schiavo life-support case and stopped the state's first school voucher program.