Last Updated: 2:37 p.m.
Scott DuPont keeps getting thrown out.
In February 2018, Raul Zambrano, then the chief judge of the Seventh Judicial Circuit–which includes Flagler, Volusia, Putnam and St. Johns counties–threw DuPont out of the Flagler County and Putnam County courthouses, forbidding him to set foot in there unless he had personal business to conduct. Zambrano was reacting to a Judicial Qualification Commission recommendation that DuPont be removed from the bench over “disturbing” and “beyond reckless” violations of the judicial canon when he ran his 2016 campaign, and when he dealt with certain people in the courtroom.
Months later the Florida Supreme Court threw him off the bench. In 2019, the Florida Bar suspended for several months, an order the Supreme Court ratified. The Bar allowed DuPont to reapply for membership several months hence. He did, and was reinstated.
Today, a judge effectively threw DuPont off the August primary ballot as he was found ineligible to run for judge in the Seventh Judicial Circuit–or anywhere in Florida, since he had not been a member of the Florida Bar in good standing for at least five years.
The court “must look for any reasonable interpretation of the words that would give meaning to both member of the bar of Florida and member in good standing of the bar of Florida,” Marsh said in comments reported by the News Service of Florida’s Dara Kam. “This court cannot envision a constitution that allows someone not eligible to practice to be OK in the highest court of the state but not OK in our rural county courts. That does not make sense. And there’s no other provision, none cited by defendant DuPont, … that doesn’t lead to that bizarre result,” he added.
DuPont had filed to run against Rose Marie Preddy, whom Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed to the bench in 2023. She serves in Putnam County. Preddy filed suit against DuPont, arguing he was ineligible to run: the Florida Constitution explicitly states that a lawyer is not eligible to be a circuit judge without having been a member of the Florida Bar for the preceding five years.
DuPont practices law in St. Augustine. He hired Anthony Sabatini, the former firebrand member of the Florida House, to represent him. Sabatini argued that the case depends on the definition of “member.” The Bar had suspended DuPont. It had not disbarred him. Sabatini reached for a sports analogy: “For example,” he offered, “a member of a sports team who is suspended from the team is still a member of the team. What is under suspension, is the privilege of playing on the team for a time. Similar to practicing law, a member of the bar is suspended from practicing law for a time, but still a member. an athlete may be suspended from his or her team.”
The reasoning relied on Orwellian doublespeak that circumvented the intended effect of the Constitution’s wording: You could be a suspended member of an organization but still be a member, rendering the suspension meaningless beyond words.
Preddy’s attorney, Daniel Nordby of Tallahassee’s Shutts and Bowen law firm, filed a motion for final judgment–basically, a request for a ruling to decide the issue–by relying on a plain reading of the law and on precedent. Circuit Judge Lee Marsh granted the motion at a hearing in Tallahassee this morning.
“We appreciate the trial court’s prompt decision enforcing the Florida Constitution’s eligibility requirements for circuit court judges,” Nordby said today.
Absent an appeal, that means Preddy has won election to a six-year term, since DuPont was her only challenger. She was the only judge in the Seventh Judicial District, out of eight facing re-election, who had drawn an opponent. She had accumulated nearly $90,000 in her campaign coffer and spent $7,340, according to the latest filings. DuPont’s campaign finance activity listed no fund-raising.
DuPont was reinstated by the Bar on June 30, 2020. That means he could be a judge starting any time after June 30, 2025. Given his history of revanchism on and off the bench, that makes him a likely candidate in the near future.
“The court takes no position as to, in a subsequent election, whether the voters would choose or not choose Mr. DuPont as their judge,” the judge said.
Joseph Debes says
Well at least the court system is “safe” from DuPont until 2025…..of course he could still APPEAL the current decision, but it’s unlikely to be heard until after the election this year.
I don’t know all the details of his removal from the bench…the words used in the ORIGINAL article, were DISTURBING, but knowing they were used to describe a SITTING JUDGE at the time of his removal….is not GOOD.
What is still disturbing, is that DuPont will probably run for his position as a judge as soon as the technically of his suspended bar membership, no longer stands in his way. Average Florida voters don’t appear to do much research on the caliber of candidates, other than the promotional ads their campaign puts out.
I guess we’ll see…