Judge who denied girl abortion over grades shortlisted for Florida’s top court

A Florida judge rejected by voters after denying a teenage girl an abortion citing her poor school grades is in line for a seat on the state supreme court as the Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, continues to turn the bench to the right.

Jared Smith will be interviewed alongside 14 others next month by a nominating commission that will make recommendations to DeSantis, who last week signed a six-week abortion ban into law.

The governor appointed Smith to the newly established sixth district court of appeal in December, four months after voters in Hillsborough county ousted him from the circuit court following his controversial ruling.

Smith said the 17-year-old was unfit to obtain an abortion as he questioned her "overall intelligence, emotional development and stability". The decision was overturned by a three-member appeals court that said Smith abused his judicial discretion.

DeSantis's decision to disregard that rebuke was the second time he had looked favorably on Smith, having first appointed him to the circuit court in 2019.

The Florida supreme court seat opened up last month when the long-serving justice Ricky Polston announced he was standing down. Filling the vacancy will mean DeSantis will have picked five of the court's seven members, a potentially crucial factor for the future of abortion laws in the state.

The panel is expected to hear arguments later this year in a lawsuit challenging the validity of Florida's existing 15-week abortion limit. A ruling to endorse it would open the way for the more extreme six-week ban to take effect.

The Tampa Bay Times on Wednesday named other candidates vying for the seat, including Meredith Sasso, chief judge of the sixth district court of appeal, of which Smith is a member; and another appellate court judge, John Stargel, a Republican state representative.

Significantly, Stargel was the only dissenting vote in the 2-1 decision that overturned Smith's ruling blocking the teenager's abortion.

DeSantis began his transformation of the Florida supreme court immediately after taking office in 2019, appointing three justices in his first month. John Stemberger, president of the Florida family policy council, said at the time the court had "the potential to have the most reliably consistent and conservative judicial philosophy in the country".

DeSantis's fourth pick, in August last year, was Renatha Francis, a Jamaica-born immigrant whose first judicial appointment was under DeSantis's predecessor, Rick Scott, now a Republican US senator.

DeSantis tried and failed to elevate her to the supreme court two years earlier, with justices ruling he exceeded his authority by naming a judge lacking the 10 years' membership of the Florida Bar required by the state constitution.

According to the Times, only three candidates applied after Polston, who the newspaper described as "reliably conservative", announced his resignation in March.

A slew of other judges and experienced prosecutors put their names forward on 4 April, when the nominating commission decided to extend the deadline.