Meredith Charbula

Judge Charbula has been a member of the Florida Bar since October 15, 1987. A native Texan, she attended college in Texas on an Army ROTC scholarship. Upon graduation, she was named Distinguished Military Graduate and commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the United States Army. After serving five years on active duty as a Military Police officer, Judge Charbula attended law school at Florida State University. She was a member of the Law Review, was named to the Order of the Coif, and graduated with high honors. After law school, Judge Charbula returned to active duty as an Army Judge Advocate for nine more years. Among her many assignments on active duty in the Judge Advocate General Corps, including two deployments to the Former Yugoslavia, Judge Charbula served as a Senior Defense Counsel, Chief of Justice for the 8th Infantry and First Armored Division, and finally as the Chief of Administrative Law at West Point. Among her military decorations are the Meritorious Service Medal, the Army Commendation Medal, the Army Achievement Medal, and the Army Parachute Badge. She retired from the United States Army Reserve in December 2003. Upon leaving active duty in 1997, Judge Charbula was appointed Deputy General Counsel at the Florida State University and was later an elbow clerk to the Honorable Ricky Polston at the First District Court of Appeal. For nearly ten years, Judge Charbula was an Assistant Attorney General in the Capital Appeals division of the Office of Florida’s Attorney General. She was counsel of record in more than 200 capital and criminal cases before the First District Court of Appeal, the Florida Supreme Court, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals and the United States Supreme Court and has presented some 50 oral arguments in both state and federal appellate courts. Before moving to Jacksonville in 2013, Judge Charbula taught Employment Discrimination, Florida Criminal Procedure and Criminal Justice Ethics as an adjunct professor at the Florida State University College of Law. She is the former chair of the Florida Bar’s Rules of Criminal Procedure Committee and a current member of the Florida Supreme Court’s Criminal Instructions Committee. Judge Charbula is AV rated by Martindale-Hubbell and is Board certified in Criminal Appellate Law. Judge Charbula was appointed to the County Bench by Governor Rick Scott and assumed office on November 1, 2017. Judge Charbula was appointed to the Circuit Bench by Governor Ron DeSantis and assumed office on June 30, 2019. She now presides over one of the eight felony divisions in Duval County. Senior J