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25 verbatim mandatory provisions from AO 2012-58 Judicial Absence/Disqualification/Recusal.
First Judicial Circuit. Check the order's own effective and rescission dates before relying on it. Procedural information only; not legal advice.
• Within each county a case in which a judge has been disqualified/recused shall be randomly reassigned within the pool of judges presiding at the same level (circuit or county) and in the same type of division. • The case types or divisions shall be categorized and identified by each Clerk as follows: • Should the pool of judges presiding over those types of cases or divisions be exhausted due to multiple recusals/disqualifications, the case shall then be randomly reassigned to a judge at the same level (circuit to circuit, or county to county) but presiding in any other division type. • For example, upon disqualification/recusal of the originally assigned judge, a felony criminal case shall first be randomly reassigned to a circuit judge presiding in a criminal division. • If no circuit judges presiding in a criminal division remain, the case shall be reassigned to a circuit judge presiding in any other type of division (i.e. civil). • In randomly reassigning cases received from another county, the Clerks shall proceed as outlined in this paragraph by assigning the incoming case to a judge in the receiving county presiding at the same level and in the same type of division. • When all Escambia County judges (circuit and county) have recused or have been disqualified in a particular case, the case shall be reassigned, but not transferred, to a judge in Okaloosa County. • The Clerk of the Court for Escambia County shall contact the Clerk of the Court for Okaloosa County who shall randomly reassign the case to a judge in Okaloosa County pursuant to the procedure outlined in Paragraph 2 above. • The Escambia Clerk of Court shall notify the Administrative Assistant to the Chief Judge of the Okaloosa judge assigned. 4. • When all Okaloosa County judges (circuit and county) have recused or have been disqualified from a case, the case shall be reassigned, but not transferred, to a judge in Escambia County. • The Clerk of the Court for Okaloosa County shall contact the Administrative Assistant to the Chief Judge, as the Chief Judge’s designee, for reassignment of the Okaloosa case to an Escambia judge pursuant to the list maintained by the Administrative Assistant to the Chief Judge. • The Administrative Assistant to the Chief Judge shall maintain a list that reflects an alphabetical rotation by case type of all Escambia Judges, both Circuit and County, according to the categories of case types as outlined in Paragraph 2. above. • Cases shall be reassigned at the discretion of the Chief Judge when all judges from Escambia County or Okaloosa County have been disqualified or recused. 6. • When all Santa Rosa County judges (circuit and county) have recused or have been disqualified from a case, the case shall be reassigned, but not transferred, to a judge in Walton County. • The Clerk of the Court for Santa Rosa County shall contact the Clerk of the Court for Walton County who shall randomly reassign the case to a judge in Walton County pursuant to the procedure outlined in Paragraph 2. above. • The Santa Rosa Clerk of Court shall notify the Administrative Assistant to the Chief Judge of the Walton judge assigned. 7. • When all Walton County judges (circuit and county) have recused or have been disqualified from a case, the case shall be reassigned, but not transferred, to a judge in Santa Rosa County. • The Clerk of the Court for Walton County shall contact the Clerk of the Court for Santa Rosa County who shall randomly reassign the case to a judge in Santa Rosa County pursuant to the procedure outlined in Paragraph 2. above. • The Walton Clerk of Court shall notify the Administrative Assistant to the Chief Judge of the Santa Rosa judge assigned. 8. • Cases shall be reassigned at the discretion of the Chief Judge when all judges from Santa Rosa County or Walton County have been disqualified or recused. 9. • In randomly reassigning cases received from another county, the Clerks shall proceed as outlined in Paragraph 2 above by assigning the incoming case to a judge in the receiving county presiding at the same level and in the same type of division. • In any case reassigned to another county pursuant to this section of this administrative order, the judge who, absent a timely, legally sufficient motion filed by a party, first voluntarily disqualified or recused in the sending county shall be responsible for traveling to and covering the docket of the judge assigned in the receiving county during any hearing or trial lasting a half day or longer in the reassigned case scheduled at any time after the effective date of this administrative order. • The undersigned further delegates responsibility to the Administrative Assistant to the Chief Judge to coordinate the assignment of a senior judge or an available active circuit or county judge to preside in matters in which the services of a senior or active judge are required due to the unavailability of the regularly assigned judge. • The Administrative Assistant to the Chief Judge shall have this authority and responsibility in all four counties comprising the First Judicial Circuit. 12. • Nothing in this order shall be construed as an order to change venue from the county in which the case was originally filed.
Within each county a case in which a judge has been disqualified/recused shall be randomly reassigned within the pool of judges presiding at the same level (circuit or county) and in the same type of division.
Reviewer note: Document sha256: dd54b252f15f6823fcb4184bed507d99e59ef3bd140209bec931bfcd10dc9738 (65705 bytes). BenchPath harvested this circuit itself because no research corpus existed for it. Extraction is conservative: mandatory-language sentences only, so this rule is a faithful subset of the order, never a summary of it. Text layer cleaned 2026-09-08 (Phase 3a): page markers removed; wording untouched. Verbatim from the order's own text layer, harvested 2026-07-24; whitespace normalised only. No OCR was used. Only sentences containing mandatory language (shall, must, may not, no later than, within N) are reproduced — the full document is in custody and is the controlling text. [moved from the text 2026-09-14]
9 verbatim requirements from 4th Circuit Administrative Order 1997-10.
6 verbatim requirements from 4th Circuit Administrative Order 1997-13.