Common pleasantries aside, it isn’t usually the place for an attorney–or anyone–appearing before a judge to wonder out loud, to the judge, if the judge is getting enough sleep. It is also tactically risky.
But when Scott DuPont is in the courtroom, surprises can happen, some of them startling.
DuPont is a former judge who sat on the Flagler and Putnam County benches until the Florida Judicial Qualifications Commission concluded in 2018 that his conduct in and out of court was “outrageous,” “disturbing,” “scurrilous,” “beyond reckless,” and “unfit,” among other characterizations and that he should be removed from the bench. Two months later a unanimous Supreme Court ordered his removal, and a few months later excoriated him in terms echoing those of the commission for his violations of the Code of Judicial Conduct.
The Florida Bar suspended him in October 2019, but did not disbar him. He was reinstated the following year and opened a private practice in St. Augustine he calls “My DUI Guy,” a two-attorney firm that brands itself as “A Division of Douglas Law Firm.” The Douglas Law Firm’s city attorneys represent Palm Coast and Marineland, among other local and regional governments.
DuPont, who had initially been elected to the bench in 2010, when he defeated Donald Holmes, and was reelected in 2016, ran again in 2024 in the Seventh Judicial Circuit, which includes Flagler, Volusia, St. Johns and Putnam counties. Incumbent Judge Rose Marie Preddy sued, charging that he was not eligible to run until five years had elapsed since his bar suspension. She prevailed, he was booted off the ballot, and Preddy was reelected.
Circuit Judge Dawn Nichols was holding pre-trial hearings for several dozen defendants this afternoon, as she had this morning–as she does most Wednesdays. DuPont appeared before her, representing Fred Johnson, who will tender a plea next month to driving while his license was permanently revoked, a third-degree felony.
DuPont summarized the case for the judge, explaining that the state had made an offer that his client had accepted, that the client is 65, lives in New Hampshire and would need to prepare for the June 3 hearing.
“8:30?” the judge asked him. He agreed. “We’ll do it,” Nichols said.
Barely a second passed when DuPont, speaking as if he was still addressing the case, asked: “Would you like to have a nap?”
There was a startled silence from the bench.
“Not that you don’t look good,” DuPont told the judge, “I’m just saying, you know, it looks like you could probably use a nap.”
That, too, was probably not the most diplomatic thing to say to a judge in front of a courtroom still busy with inmates, other defendants, attorneys and a pair of prosecutors.
Nichols is usually quick on her feet. Today was no different, nap or no nap. “I probably could, but no, we had a full morning,” she told DuPont–who was only lengthening the judge’s day– “of course you know how it goes morning into a full afternoon but–”
“I know that look,” DuPont said.
“I think I’ve got just enough energy to get through. But thank you,” Nichols said, her intonation fit for the words dismissed.
“If the state nolle-prosses everything,” he said, using the Latin terms for dropping or dismissing cases, “then this will go a whole lot quicker, you know.”
“Certainly. All right, I’ll see you then,” the judge told him.
Whether because he’d been concerned about the judge’s rest or other matters, the time for his next hearing hadn’t registered with him, and when he was reminded, he asked for a different date and got the plea date pushed to June 16.
DuPont had not responded to an email asking him about the appearance before this article initially published.
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