Rare Chance to Change Florida Supreme Court: 4 Vacancies Expected

Judiciary

Rare Chance to Change Florida Supreme Court: 4 Vacancies Expected

Posted May 23, 2008, 02:15 pm CST
By Martha Neil

The chief justice of the Florida Supreme Court announced today that he is resigning for family reasons, giving the state's governor a rare chance to reconfigure it.

That's because Chief Justice Kenneth Bell, 52, is one of four judges on the seven-member court who will be leaving within the next year, explains the Miami Herald.

Justice Raoul Cantero announced last month that he will be in resigning in September, due to the illness of a 13-year-old daughter, so he can spend more time with family in Miami (the court is at the other end of the state, in Tallahassee). And two other justices are expected to early in 2009, when they reach age 70 and are required by the state constitution to retire.

Bell's resignation will be effective in October, and he plans to return home to Pensacola, in the state's panhandle, close to the Alabama and Mississippi borders.

Meanwhile, it isn't certain that the state's current governor, Charlie Crist, will be the one to make the new appointments: He wasn't available to comment about Bell's resignation, according to his office, because he is en route to Arizona to meet with meet with presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain, following suggestions that he might be a possible running mate, reports the Associated Press.

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