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22 verbatim mandatory provisions from 2020 Admin Order 20-37-s.
Eighteenth Judicial Circuit. Check the order's own effective and rescission dates before relying on it. Procedural information only; not legal advice.
• The presiding judge in all cases must consider the constitutional rights of crime victims and criminal defendants and the public’s constitutional right of access to the courts. • Nothing in this order is intended to limit a chief judge’s authority to conduct court business or to approve additional court proceedings or events (except for grand jury proceedings, jury selection proceedings, and criminal and civil jury trials, all of which are suspended) that are required in the interest of justice, if doing so is consistent with protecting the health of the participants and the public health. • Judges and court personnel who can effectively conduct court and judicial branch business from a remote location shall do so. • Participants who have the capability of participating by electronic means in remote court proceedings shall do so. • All rules of procedure, court orders, and opinions applicable to court proceedings that limit or prohibit the use of communication equipment for conducting proceedings by remote electronic means shall remain suspended.3 B. • Administering of Oaths (1) Notaries and other persons qualified to administer an oath in the State of Florida may swear a witness remotely by audio-video communication technology from a location within the State of Florida, provided they can positively identify the witness.5 (2) If a witness is not located within the State of Florida, a witness may consent to being put on oath via audio-video communication technology by a person qualified to administer an oath in the State of Florida.6 (3) All rules of procedure, court orders, and opinions applicable to remote testimony, depositions, and other legal testimony, including the attestation of family law forms, that can be read to limit or prohibit the use of audio-video communications equipment to administer oaths remotely or to witness the attestation of family law forms, shall remain suspended.7 4. • All grand jury proceedings, jury selection proceedings, and criminal and civil jury trials shall remain suspended through July 2, 2020.9 A pilot project to identify and evaluate issues relating to the conduct of a jury trial through remote means has been authorized through In re: • (1) All circuit and county courts shall continue to perform essential court proceedings, including but not limited to: first appearance; criminal arraignments; hearings on motions to set or modify monetary bail for individuals who are in custody; juvenile dependency shelter hearings; juvenile delinquency detention hearings; hearings on petitions for injunctions relating to safety of an individual; hearings on petitions for risk protection orders; hearings on petitions for the appointment of an emergency temporary guardian; hearings to determine whether an individual should be involuntarily committed under the Baker Act or the Marchman Act; and hearings on petitions for extraordinary writs as necessary to protect constitutional rights. • (2) In addition to essential proceedings, all circuit and county courts shall perform, as necessary and applicable, critical proceedings related to the state of emergency or the public health emergency, including but not limited to proceedings related to: violation of quarantine or isolation; violation of 10. • When this occurs, chief judges are required to take all steps feasible to minimize the delay. • (4) In conducting essential proceedings and proceedings critical to the state of emergency or the public health emergency, circuit and county courts shall employ all methods feasible to minimize risk of COVID-19 exposure to individuals involved in the proceedings or the general public. • Non-essential and Non-critical Court Proceedings.11 Each chief judge shall continue to review cases and court events and the communications technology resources available to the circuit, each county, and each judge. • It is hereby ordered that each of the above-listed proceedings shall be conducted using telephonic or other electronic means available in the subject jurisdiction unless a judge determines that one of the following exceptions applies: 12. • Limits on In-person Hearings.13 No proceedings or other court events other than essential proceedings and proceedings critical to the state of emergency or the public health emergency shall be conducted through in-person hearings. • Speedy Trial.14 All time periods involving the speedy trial procedure in criminal and juvenile court proceedings shall remain suspended through the close of business on Monday, July 6, 2020. • This suspension shall be applied in the manner described in Sullivan v. • Persons Arrested for First Degree Murder.15 With regard to persons arrested for first degree murder, all time periods under Florida Rules of Criminal Procedure 3.133(b) and 3.134 shall remain suspended through July 2, 2020. • For capiases and violation of probation warrants, before setting monetary bond or other conditions of pretrial release, the first appearance judge, in order to make a proper decision regarding monetary bond or other conditions of pretrial release, must rely on relevant information from the following individuals in the county that issued the capias or warrant: the issuing judge, defense counsel if any, and the state attorney. • The constitutional rights of crime victims must also be considered in all cases by the presiding judge. • (AOSC20-17) other family law form that transfers the ownership of property, which must continue to be notarized or signed in the presence of a deputy clerk prior to filing. • In lieu of in-person visitation, visitation shall be conducted through electronic means with video communication as the preferred means, although telephonic contact is permitted if video communication is not feasible. • If a party seeks to reinstate in-person visitation while the suspension of in- person visitation requirements remains in effect, such reinstatement shall be determined on a case-by-case basis by the circuit court with jurisdiction over that party’s case.
The presiding judge in all cases must consider the constitutional rights of crime victims and criminal defendants and the public’s constitutional right of access to the courts.
Reviewer note: Document sha256: 6d26b39ebe1c25738ee5360ca5e815fe3421813005c47759b03b9c87f45f1147 (353021 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. Text layer cleaned 2026-09-08 (Phase 3f): page headers/footers, ligatures and letter-spaced headings normalised; 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]
3 verbatim requirements on remote appearances in CALEB S. JOHNSTON's division.
6 verbatim requirements on remote appearances in MICHAEL G. KAPLAN's division.