Two years after the Florida Supreme Court blocked Jamaican American judge Renatha Francis from taking her seat on the court, Francis is now back in the running.
She is one of 17 people who have applied to fill the at-large vacancy on the court created by the retirement of Justice Alan Lawson, effective August 31.
Francis was to become the first Caribbean-American to be appointed to the Florida Supreme Court, but the court blocked her appointment because she hadn’t belonged to the Florida Bar for the ten years stipulated in the state Constitution. Judge Jamie Grosshans was picked as her replacement.
Now, Francis has passed the ten-year threshold as a Bar member and is back in the running for the seat.
According to Florida Bulldog, Governor DeSantis again has his eyes on Judge Francis to fill the seat.
“There is talk here that [Gov. Ron] DeSantis told the justices he is going to name Judge Renatha Francis to replace Justice Lawson because now she meets the qualifications,” an insider told Florida Bulldog.
The Florida Supreme Court Judicial Nominating Commission (JNC) is tasked with fielding candidates, conducting interviews, and presenting between three to six top contenders. The governor can either pick one of those contenders or ask the commission to consider other persons.
If Judge Francis is appointed, she will be the only Black judge currently on the Florida Supreme Court. She will also be the first non-Cuban Caribbean-American Judge to sit on the court.
Governor DeSantis previously stated that “Judge Francis’ story demonstrates that anyone who comes to the United States has an opportunity to make the most of their God-given talents.”
Francis, 45, was born and raised in Jamaica. She attended St Hugh’s High School and the University of the West Indies, receiving a Bachelor of Science, magna cum laude, in 2001. Francis operated a bar and a trucking company while attending college in Jamaica.
She moved to Florida in 2004 and graduated from Florida Coastal School of Law with a Juris Doctor. She became a lawyer on September 24, 2010, and began her legal career as a law clerk at Florida’s First District Court of Appeal in Tallahassee from 2011–2017.
Francis worked briefly as a litigator at the law firm Shutts & Bowen in Miami before being appointed to the Miami-Dade County Court in 2017 by Governor Rick Scott. Scott elevated her to Miami-Dade’s Eleventh Judicial Circuit Court in 2018, and Governor Ron DeSantis laterally appointed her to the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit Court in Palm Beach County in 2019. Francis was assigned to the probate and family division at the Fifteenth Circuit.
She and her husband Phillip are the parents of two sons.
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