TALLAHASSEE – Ricky Polston, a fourteen-year Justice on the Florida State Supreme Court, has announced his resignation from the bench. Polston informed Governor Ron DeSantis this week that, effective at the end of the month, he’d be vacating his seat.
The biggest implication of Polston’s resignation is that it provides DeSantis with the opportunity to appoint yet another justice to the bench, the fifth of his administration. Leading up to the resignation of Polston the Florida Supreme Court consisted of four DeSantis appointees (Carlos Muñiz, John Couriel, Jamie Grosshans, Renatha Francis), and three picks of Governor Charlie Crist (Charles Canady, Polston, Jorge Labarga).
With a 5-2 majority of DeSantis appointees, the likelihood of DeSantis-backed legislative efforts being struck down in the court will become increasingly lesser. Already activists who have hoped to see some of the Governor’s policies defeated in the courts have been met with disappointment over the first four years of DeSantis’s administration.
Polston has been placed on the ballot three times since being appointed in 2008 by Governor Crist. In 2010 he was retained with a 66.1% majority, then again in 2016 with 67.8%, and again in 2022 with 63.0%. All justices on the Florida Supreme Court are subject to voter approval two years into their tenure, and again every six years thereafter.
There’s been no word in the days following Polston’s announcement of who Ron DeSantis may choose as his successor, but it will likely be a socially conservative judge who’d likely uphold ambitious recent restrictions in a variety of cultural arenas.
