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Melissa D. Souto
Circuit Judge · Eighteenth Judicial Circuit Court · Seminole County, Florida
High confidence· verified September 17, 2026
- verified requirements
- 334
- verified requirements
- rule deadlines
- 6
- rule deadlines
- sources cited
- 20
- sources cited
- reviewed insights
- 0
- reviewed insights
- verified rulings
- 0
- verified rulings
Verification profile
- High · 329
- Medium · 5
- Low · 0
- Unverified · 0
Report generated October 24, 2026 · benchpath.ai/reports/judge/melissa-d-souto
01 Division & assignment
Circuit Criminal — Seminole County
Chambers & practice notes
- Division
- E - Criminal
- Judicial assistant
- :
- Judicial assistant
- Nicole Daniels 407-665-4926
- Prior record
- Circuit Judge
Seminiole Criminal Justice Center, Sanford, Seminole, Scheduling Hearings
Published forms & procedures: Attorney Scheduling Instructions; Judge Souto's Policies and Procedures; Felony Plea Agreement (English); Felony Plea Agreement (Espanol)
Verified against Judge Melissa D. Souto's own court profile page, 2026-08-02.
Division E — Criminal (controlling: AO 26-28-S eff. 2026-07-01)
Seminole Juvenile Justice Center, Sanford
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.
02 Live Case-Type Intelligence Scan
Live case-type intelligence scan
● LiveAnswer three quick questions. The platform pulls Melissa D. Souto's full public case-law record from the source, newest first — your matter never narrows the pull; it directs the relevance ranking and the dual-AI analysis. Every hit comes back Bluebook-cited with the opinion's own words quoted verbatim. The scan takes the time precision takes.
- 1. Case area & type
- 2. Refine
- 3. Review & scan
Case-law search
CourtListener · free connector · liveCoverage note: CourtListener is strongest for federal and state appellate courts; Florida circuit-court opinions are sparsely represented.
Research connectors
CourtListener
● liveFree Law Project
Free. Opinions, dockets, RECAP, judge metadata. Powering the case-law search on this page.
Westlaw
○ bring your licenseThomson Reuters
Bring your firm's license — enterprise connector queries your judge and related cases inside Westlaw. Phase 2.
LexisNexis
○ bring your licenseRELX
Bring your firm's license — enterprise connector for Lexis+ research tied to your matter. Phase 2.
BenchPath never scrapes licensed databases. Westlaw and LexisNexis connect only through your firm's own credentials and entitlements when the enterprise connectors ship.
03 Division intelligence
Appellate exposure
Appeals from this courtroom go to the Fifth District Court of Appeal (Daytona Beach).
● LiveThat court's published bench (11): Adrian G. Soud, Brian D. Lambert, Eric J. Eisnaugle, F. Rand Wallis, Harvey L. Jay, James A. Edwards, Joe Boatwright, John M. Harris, John MacIver, Paige Kilbane, Scott Makar
Jurisdiction per § 35.043, Fla. Stat. (six-district alignment eff. Jan. 1, 2023).
04 Appellate record (135)
05 Procedural requirements (334)
06 Deadline table
07 Ruling intelligence
No verified ruling summary yet — summaries publish only after human review of a real opinion/docket corpus. The live scan at the top of this report covers what public sources hold today.
08 Source appendix (20)
- Judge biography — David C. Koenig (18th Circuit)Healthychecked October 24, 2026
- 18th Circuit — Administrative Orders indexHealthychecked October 24, 2026
- 18th Circuit — E-Filing InstructionsHealthychecked October 24, 2026
- Florida Rules of Court Procedure — The Florida Bar rules index (floridabar.org/rules/ctproc/)Healthychecked October 22, 2026
- Judge biography — Christopher Sprysenski (18th Circuit)Healthychecked October 24, 2026
09 Recent change events
- October 13, 2026Monitor could not safely verify the registered source.
- August 6, 2026Monitor: content changed at Judge biography — Carsandra D. Buie (18th Circuit). Review before republishing dependent rules.
- August 6, 2026Monitor: content changed at 18th Circuit — E-Filing Instructions. Review before republishing dependent rules.
- August 6, 2026Monitor: content changed at Judge biography — Michael Rudisill (18th Circuit). Review before republishing dependent rules.
- August 6, 2026Monitor: content changed at Judge biography — John D. Galluzzo (18th Circuit). Review before republishing dependent rules.
- August 6, 2026Monitor: content changed at Judge biography — Mark E. Herr (18th Circuit). Review before republishing dependent rules.
10 Contribute ground truth
Intelligence skills executed on this report
Procedural FingerprintConferral Stack AnalyzerDeadline Matrix BuilderAI-Filing Policy DetectorEx Parte & Motion-Calendar DecoderProposed-Order Protocol ExtractorRuling Corpus ScannerDivision Peer DeltaReassignment & Vacancy RadarSource Freshness AuditorChambers Access CardAppellate Exposure MapperAttorney Ground-Truth IntakeLocal-Rule Conflict Sentinel
This report compiles procedural information and public-record research from the official sources cited above, with per-item verification status. It is not legal advice, contains no outcome predictions, is not a substitute for the advice of an attorney, and creates no attorney–client relationship. Items below high confidence must be verified against the official source before relying on them. Print with your browser for a clean PDF.