Robinson Case With Judge Who Opposed Judicial Elections
BY BUDDY NEVINS
The lawsuit to throw County Court Judge Mary Rudd Robinson’s challenger off the ballot has landed in the courtroom of the judge who for 16 years blocked election challenges to incumbent justices Dale Ross.
The case was filed by the ubiquitous downtown Fort Lauderdale powerbroker Bill Scherer, who has become the defender of incumbent judges.
Bill Scherer
When Ross was chief judge, he made it his goal to discourage lawyers from running against judges to the point where there was at least one complaint to the Judicial Qualification Commission about him.
In 2002, a complaint requested the JQC investigate reports that Ross threatened lawyers looking at a race against now-former Judge Joyce Julian.
The Sun-Sentinel at the time named lawyers David Vinikoor and Paul Stark of Fort Lauderdale as two of those making complaints. The paper quoted from a March 8, 2002 letter to the JQC signed by them.
There might have been other lawyers who filed complaints.
I don’t remember any publicly announced results of the probe by the JQC. It is rumored that Ross got slapped on the wrist.
Ross was chief judge from 1991 to 2007 when only a handful of lawyers had the guts to challenge an incumbent judge. Those that defied Ross were ostracized.
Some attorneys complained that they were locked out of the system and that a handful of judges were abusive. But judges did not make rulings with their eyes on the next election.
The Robinson case that Ross will hear asks that her challenger Jordan Howard Breslaw be removed from the ballot. It is alleged he isn’t really Breslaw because he changed his name in 1991 to Jordan Jordan.
The complaint has Scherer’s typical tongue-in-cheek, disparaging description of the defendant:
“Jordan Howard Breslawdoes not exist. The candidates name is Jordan Jordan, an attorney, chiropractor, author, entrepenaur and “self made millionaire.
I love it.
While other downtown Fort Lauderdale types meet and wring their hands about defending incumbent judges, Scherer is doing something about it once again.
In 2008, he fought a losing case all the way to the Florida Supreme Court to defend then-Judge Pedro Dijols. The Dijols case also was over a challenger who changed her name for the ballot, but the case was filed after the judge was defeated in an election.
Here is the case.
May 18th, 2010 at 8:28 am
Big Bill always has all the luck.
May 18th, 2010 at 8:29 am
And gets the judge he wants.
As Buddy says, Hmmmmm.
May 18th, 2010 at 10:24 am
the entire circuit will get recused and it will go to dade or palm beach
FROM BUDDY: I imagine you are correct!
May 18th, 2010 at 1:16 pm
Why would he go to all of the trouble to change his name from Jordan Breslaw to Jordan Jordan, then write books as Jordan Jordan, work as a Chiropractor as Jordan Jordan, as a lawyer Jordan Jordan and even run for judge in the past as Jordan Jordan, and now run as Jordan Breslaw?
I just can’t figure this mystery out…
May 20th, 2010 at 5:55 pm
Who cares, let the voters decide. This is America.