Florida District Courts of Appeal

thumb|330px|Map of the jurisdictions of Florida's district courts of appeal.

The District Courts of Appeal (DCAs) are the intermediate appellate courts of the Florida state court system. There are currently six DCAs:

The First District Court of Appeal is headquartered in Tallahassee
The Second District Court of Appeal is temporarily headquartered in Tampa until the Pinellas Courthouse is completed in St. Petersburg.

The existence of the DCAs was provided for in the Florida Constitution, which now requires the legislature to divide the state into appellate court districts, providing each with a DCA.

At the time, Florida was the second state to have district courts of appeal, as California had created its own district courts of appeal in 1904. However, in 1966, California dropped the word "district" from the names of the California Courts of Appeal, thus leaving Florida as the sole state with DCAs.

The DCAs were originally intended to serve as the final appellate courts for the vast majority of cases. During the 1960s, the Florida Supreme Court decided several cases which had the cumulative effect of turning the DCAs into non-final "way-stations in the appellate process." Chief Justice Arthur J. England Jr. played a major role in bringing about the 1980 constitutional amendment which effectively overruled those cases and again narrowed the state supreme court's jurisdiction "to resolve its uncontrollable caseload."

New DCA

In early 2021, then Florida Chief Justice Charles Canady established a 15-person District Court of Appeal Workload and Jurisdiction Assessment Committee to look into justifying a new District Court of Appeal. The last DCA expansion was the Florida Fifth District Court of Appeal in 1979. in the number of appeals over the years. DCA judges were not overwhelmed, and they were not stating that they were. Trettis and three district court judges wrote a minority report. In it they noted that all five DCA Chief Judges told Canady that no changes were needed.

Operation

As of January 1, 2023, the Second DCA will relocate to St. Petersburg and the newly formed Sixth DCA will take over the Second DCA's existing Lakeland headquarters.

Sixth DCA judges will have the freedom to decide every legal issue that comes before it without regard to precedent unless the Florida Supreme Court has a binding precedent. While judges in the Ninth, Tenth, and Twentieth Judicial Circuits may need to choose between precedents from any district court of appeal, judges in the Sixth District Court of Appeal have the power to rule in opposition to the ruling of another DCA, or instead of adopting the ruling of another district, they may create new law.

Appeals are usually heard by a three-judge panel. Occasionally a DCA will hold an en banc hearing, in which all the judges participate.

The decisions of the district courts of appeal represent the law of Florida unless and until they are overruled by the Florida Supreme Court. Thus, in the absence of interdistrict conflict, district court decisions bind all Florida trial courts. In the event of a conflict between the decisions of different district courts of appeal, county and circuit courts must adhere to the case law of their own district court of appeal.

District courts of appeal may recede from certain case law and precedent in subsequent decisions, or the Supreme Court may override a district court's precedent in favor of conflicting case law from another district. Because the Florida Supreme Court has predominantly discretionary jurisdiction (i.e., can choose which cases it wants to hear), the DCAs provide the final word on the vast majority of cases appealed in the State of Florida. Cases that are affirmed without comment by the district courts cannot be appealed to the Supreme Court, even as a request for discretionary review. Such a case may be reviewed by the United States Supreme Court pursuant to a petition for writ of certiorari.

Cases involving the death penalty are heard directly and automatically by the Florida Supreme Court, bypassing the district courts of appeal.

Florida District Courts of Appeal

New DCA

Operation

See also

References

External links