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Circuit Judge · First Judicial Circuit Court
What applies in this courtroom
579 verified requirements and 6 rule deadlines govern practice before Judge John Jay Gontarek across the judge, division, county, circuit, and statewide layers.
The tabs below show the judge-and-division layer only. The Full Premium Report assembles the complete stack — every requirement, deadline table, ruling intelligence, live case-type scan, and source appendix in one cited document.
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Division 005
Okaloosa County Courthouse 101 James Lee Boulevard East Crestview, FL 32536, Judicial Assistant: Cheryl Gary, cheryl.gary@flcourts1.gov, 850-689-4671
Verified against Judge John Jay Gontarek's own court profile page, 2026-07-24.
Okaloosa County Courthouse 101 James Lee Boulevard East Crestview, FL 32536
Harvested live by BenchPath 2026-07-24 from the circuit's own published record.
Verified 2026-08-02: this circuit publishes NO judge portraits. The 1st's Sanity CMS judge documents carry no image field at all (38 checked via the content API), and the 12th's Judges page serves only a logo, an email-signature graphic and an Adobe button. The missing photo is a court fact, not a harvest gap.
Captured verbatim from the court's own published pages and orders during circuit verification. Chambers practices change without notice — confirm anything time-critical with the judicial assistant. Procedural information only; not legal advice.
Appeals from this courtroom go to the First District Court of Appeal (Tallahassee).
● LiveThat court's published bench (13): Joseph Lewis, Jr., L. Clayton Roberts, Lance E. Neff, Lori S. Rowe, M. Kemmerly Thomas, Rachel E. Nordby, Raymond F. Treadwell, Robert E. Long, Jr., Ross L. Bilbrey, Stephanie W. Ray, Susan L. Kelsey, Thomas D. Winokur, Timothy D. Osterhaus
Jurisdiction per § 35.043, Fla. Stat. (six-district alignment eff. Jan. 1, 2023).
Profile upgraded 2026-07-24: bio_url now points to this judge's own page (https://www.firstjudicialcircuit.org/legal-professionals/judges/john-jay-gontarek/), confirmed to name them before extraction. The court publishes no biography paragraph for this judge.
2 verified rules specific to this judge's division, grouped by requirement category. 579 total requirements apply in this courtroom across all layers — the Full Premium Report assembles the complete stack.
No judge-level deadline on record runs shorter than a statewide deadline with the same trigger. The sentinel compares quoted timing across every published rule scoped to this judge on each visit — a clean result today is re-earned tomorrow.
No judge-scoped deadlines on this tab. Deadlines are extracted only when the source rule text states them — we never infer or calculate dates the rule does not explicitly contain. 6 rule deadlines apply in this courtroom across all layers — assembled with citations in the Full Premium Report.
Timing shown here is quoted from the rule text. Compute your actual date against the court's calendar and the rule itself — not legal advice.
No verified ruling summary yet. BenchPath generates ruling summaries from opinion and docket corpora (CourtListener where covered) and publishes them only after human review — fabricated judicial analytics are exactly what this platform refuses to ship.
Use the live case-law search below to see what exists for this judge today.
How Florida’s appellate courts disposed of the 108 opinions in BenchPath’s corpus (June 18, 2014–June 30, 2026) that name this judge as the lower-tribunal judge — the courts’ own disposition labels, counted verbatim. This is a census of the appellate record we hold, not a complete case history, an affirmance rate, or a performance rating.
Florida appellate and Supreme Court opinions naming this judge as the lower-tribunal judge, taken verbatim from each court’s official slip opinion (source-hashed). Descriptive record, not a rating. Showing the 50 most recent; all 108 are counted in the outcome census above.
last checked September 5, 2026
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Monitor: content changed at 1st Circuit — official site. Review before republishing dependent rules.
via 1st Circuit — official site
Ted Jeffery Felder Jr. vs State of Florida
First District Court of Appeal · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): Affirmed
Jeffery D. Stoudmire vs State of Florida
First District Court of Appeal · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): Affirmed
Benjamin P. Rumlin vs State of Florida
First District Court of Appeal · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): Dismissed
Julian W. Roebuck vs Vernon D. Sills, III and Sara Sills
First District Court of Appeal · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): Affirmed in Part/Reversed in Part
Jeffrey G. Hutchinson v. State of Florida
Supreme Court of Florida · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): affirmed
Maria Falduto vs R. Wayne Lewis
First District Court of Appeal · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): Reversed
P.S., mother of B.S.S., A minor child v. Department of Children and Families
First District Court of Appeal · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): Appeal - Per Curiam Affirmed
Gilkes v. Gilkes
First District Court of Appeal · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): Appeal - Per Curiam Affirmed
Carter v. State of Florida
First District Court of Appeal · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): Appeal - Per Curiam Affirmed
Christopher Crowder vs State of Florida
First District Court of Appeal · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): Affirmed
Karen Ketterling and Parker Ketterling vs Virginia M. Morris
First District Court of Appeal · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): Reversed
Tobin v. State of Florida
First District Court of Appeal · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): Appeal - Per Curiam Affirmed
Wesson v. State of Florida
First District Court of Appeal · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): Appeal - Per Curiam Affirmed
Florida High School Athletic Association, Inc. vs Kristin Tugmon; and Jayden Sheppard
First District Court of Appeal · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): Dismissed
Majka v. Department of Children and Families and Brandon Cullum
First District Court of Appeal · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): Appeal - Per Curiam Affirmed
Ashley L Lester vs State of Florida
First District Court of Appeal · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): Affirmed
Holbrook v. State of Florida
First District Court of Appeal · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): Appeal - Per Curiam Affirmed
Mazerat v. State of Florida
First District Court of Appeal · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): Appeal - Per Curiam Affirmed
Joseph Alan Wagner vs State of Florida
First District Court of Appeal · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): Affirmed
Bonafide Properties, LLC VS Deutsche Bank National Trust Company, as Trustee, etc.
First District Court of Appeal · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): Appeal - Per Curiam Affirmed
Moore v. State of Florida
First District Court of Appeal · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): Appeal - Per Curiam Affirmed
Roca v. State of Florida
First District Court of Appeal · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): Appeal - Per Curiam Affirmed
Mary Zargari, Wife v. Nick Zargari, Husband
First District Court of Appeal · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): Appeal - Authored Opinion
Boldridge v. State of Florida
First District Court of Appeal · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): Appeal - Per Curiam Affirmed
John Reeser vs State of Florida
First District Court of Appeal · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): Affirmed
Destin Fishing Fleet, Inc. vs City of Destin, BI, Inc. and Dewey Destin's Harborside, LLC
First District Court of Appeal · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): Affirmed
Alex Henson vs State of Florida
First District Court of Appeal · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): Affirmed
State of Florida v. Kristina Elaine Beaman
First District Court of Appeal · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): Appeal - Authored Opinion
Gulf Coast Solar Center I, LLC vs Mack Busbee CFA, as the Okaloosa County Property Appraiser, State of Florida, Ben Anderson, as the Okaloosa County Tax Collector, and Jim Zingale, as the Executive Director etc.
First District Court of Appeal · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): Affirmed
Romagnano v. Childers, Stafford, et al
First District Court of Appeal · Escambia County
Disposition (court’s label): Appeal - Per Curiam Affirmed
Creech v. State of Florida
First District Court of Appeal · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): Appeal - Per Curiam Affirmed
Turner v. Vera
First District Court of Appeal · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): Appeal - Per Curiam Affirmed
Johnson v. State of Florida
First District Court of Appeal · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): Appeal - Per Curiam Affirmed
Brandon Stocker vs State of Florida
First District Court of Appeal · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): Affirmed
Okaloosa County, Florida v. The Moore Law Firm, P.A., and Fort Walton Beach Area Bridge Authority
First District Court of Appeal · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): Appeal - Per Curiam Opinion
AJ Hospitality FWB, LLC vs WCS, LLC
First District Court of Appeal · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): Affirmed
Ainsworth v. State of Florida
First District Court of Appeal · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): Appeal - Per Curiam Affirmed
Williams v. Williams
First District Court of Appeal · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): Appeal - Per Curiam Affirmed
Jeffery D. Stoudmire vs State of Florida
First District Court of Appeal · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): Affirmed
Kenneth Rickerson vs State of Florida
First District Court of Appeal · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): Affirmed
Tush-ee L. Hunter VS State of Florida
First District Court of Appeal · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): Appeal - Per Curiam Affirmed
Michael Anthony Bullabough v. State of Florida
First District Court of Appeal · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): Appeal - Per Curiam Affirmed
Calhoun v. State of Florida
First District Court of Appeal · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): Appeal - Per Curiam Affirmed
Hoover v. State of Florida
First District Court of Appeal · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): Appeal - Per Curiam Affirmed
Emmanuel Pride vs State of Florida
First District Court of Appeal · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): Affirmed
Jena L. Sweeney and Michael D. Sweeney VS Islandview Beach Homeowner's Association, Inc.
First District Court of Appeal · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): Appeal - Per Curiam Opinion
R.M.D., mother of E.M.A.D., a minor child v. Department of Children and Families
First District Court of Appeal · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): Appeal - Per Curiam Opinion
Faulk v. State of Florida
First District Court of Appeal · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): Appeal - Per Curiam Affirmed
Tonisha Crowell vs State of Florida
First District Court of Appeal · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): Affirmed
Lee v. State of Florida
First District Court of Appeal · Okaloosa County
Disposition (court’s label): Appeal - Per Curiam Affirmed
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Case-law search
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