After weekend of speculation about whether he would challenge an order to select a new Supreme Court justice by Monday, Gov. Ron DeSantis waited until 5 p.m. – five hours after the deadline – to announce he would comply.
DeSantis named 5th District Court of Appeals Judge Jamie Grosshans to the vacant seat on the state’s highest court after the Supreme Court blocked his selection Friday of Palm Beach County Judge Renatha Francis.
Noting Grosshans was on both finalist lists presented to him by the Supreme Court Judicial Nominating Commission (JNC) since January 2019, DeSantis said Grosshans will do “a fantastic job for the people of Florida. It was not the way we envisioned the process, but I think the result will be very, very good.”
Grosshans’ selection ends three weeks of legal wrangling over Francis’ appointment.
DeSantis announced in May that Miami attorney John Couriel, 42, and Francis, 43, would succeed Robert Luck and Barbara Lagoa on the bench after their ascension in December to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal.
Couriel assumed his seat immediately. Francis’ appointment was to be effective Sept. 24, when she accrued the 10-year membership in the Florida Bar constitutionally mandated for state Supreme Court justices.
State Rep. Geraldine Thompson, D-Windermere, challenged Francis’ appointment in a lawsuit filed before the Supreme Court.
Justices ruled Aug. 17 that DeSantis exceeded executive privilege when he named a “constitutionally ineligible applicant” to the court. On Friday, the court ordered him to select another justice from the remaining seven JNC finalists.
Before announcing his selection of Grosshans, DeSantis said Francis withdrew her name from consideration, which he said is “testament to her character.”
“I think she was treated very poorly through this process, so I picked up the phone and called the president of the United States and told him what happened,” DeSantis said. “I think she will make a great federal judge for the Southern District in the state of Florida. Hopefully, we’ll get some news on that in the near future. One door closes, another door opens.”
Francis, who was born in Jamaica, was appointed by DeSantis to the 15th Circuit Court in Palm Beach County in October. She would have been the only woman and Black jurist on the panel.
“Sometimes life doesn’t work out the way we plan it, but who am I to complain?” said Francis, who attended Monday’s announcement. “I have been so incredibly blessed in my life. Stuff like this doesn’t happen to a small island girl immigrant who came here just hoping to get a piece of the American Dream.”
In naming Grosshans, DeSantis said she is a “working mom” with “a great breadth of experience. She ran her own her own private practice and she’s also served as a trial judge and currently now as an appeals court judge. She understands the proper role of the court is to apply the law as it’s written, apply the constitution as it’s written – not to legislate from the bench.”
As the fifth woman to serve on the Florida Supreme Court, Grosshans said, “I stand on the shoulders of champions who have fought for equality and leadership. No one comes to a position like this alone, and I have been carried to this moment by the generosity of countless people. You can trust I will bring a fidelity to the law and an unyielding respect for the separation of powers.”
Grosshans, 41, a University of Mississippi Law School graduate, was appointed to the 5th Circuit in 2018 by Gov. Rick Scott. Before that appointment, she was an Orange County Court Judge in the 9th Circuit.
