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43 verbatim mandatory provisions from Policies and Procedures.
Eighteenth Judicial Circuit. Check the order's own effective and rescission dates before relying on it. Procedural information only; not legal advice.
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. • Pursuant to Rule 8.255, Florida Rule of Juvenile Procedure, evidentiary hearings must be conducted in person unless the requirements under the rule have been met otherwise for a hybrid or virtual hearing. • Please share this Microsoft Teams link/phone number with necessary parties: https://fl18.org/gmdf1 For those who must call-in using audio only, the following phone number and designated pin number are as follows: • To ensure that virtual hearings run smoothly, all participants shall abide by the following procedures: • Participants shall download the free Microsoft Teams App from http://teams.microsoft.com/downloads (for a computer) or from the App Store for their smartphone or electronic device. • Each participant shall ensure that he or she has sufficient bandwidth to permit the hearing to proceed. • Each participant shall also ensure that he or she has the proper equipment to fully participate in the proceeding and that any device being used is sufficiently/completely charged to ensure full participation. • EVIDENTIARY HEARING PROCEDURES As noted, pursuant to Rule 8.255, Florida Rule of Juvenile Procedure, evidentiary hearings must be conducted in person unless the requirements under the rule have been met -- 2 of 6 -- otherwise for a hybrid or virtual hearing. • Parties are encouraged and required to discuss any stipulation for a hybrid or virtual hearing and ensure that an order is entered prior to such evidentiary hearing. • If no agreement is reached, pursuant to the rule, a motion must be filed setting forth good cause for the hybrid or virtual hearing. • If a hybrid or virtual hearing is approved by the Court/General Magistrate, to ensure that virtual or hybrid evidentiary hearings run smoothly, all participants shall abide by the procedures noted above along with the following procedures: • No later than five (5) business days before the hearing, counsel shall exchange any and all exhibits and have a substantive, good faith telephone conference to address stipulations and objections to the admissibility of exhibits. • Exhibits to be entered by way of other witnesses shall be shared with those persons as well. 2. • After the substantive, good faith telephone conference, and no later than three (3) business days before the hearing, the parties are to scan and email their exhibits to the Court/General Magistrate. • Each document shall be in .pdf format and compiled into a single file. • The first document in the file shall be an index identifying each document by title. • After review, the Court/General Magistrate may require that any voluminous evidence packages be printed by counsel and delivered to the courthouse prior to the hearing. 3. • The proponent of any exhibit which will be entered without objection shall note that on the index page. 4. • If there are objections to the admissibility of any exhibits, the party raising the objection shall identify the exhibit and identify the ground(s) of the objection. • Such objections shall be emailed to the Court/General Magistrate and the opposing side and all parties shall be copied on any such correspondence. • Identification of witnesses, and the administration of an oath shall be governed by the rules of procedure. 6. • In lieu of witness testimony, the parties may stipulate to the facts to be considered by the Court/General Magistrate by emailing a signed stipulation, with the facts set forth, to the Court/General Magistrate prior to the hearing. 7. • For any evidentiary motion hearings before the Court/General Magistrate, at which witness testimony is expected to be presented, counsel shall exchange witness lists that include the witnesses’ names, email address, cell phone number, and/or landline phone number, unless subject to confidentiality. -- 3 of 6 -- 8. • Counsel shall identify any witness for whom an interpreter or an accommodation under the ADA will be required sufficiently before the hearing so that accommodations can be arranged. • The witness must be provided copies of all identified exhibits that pertain to that witness, prior to the hearing. 3. • The witness shall be instructed not to look at or to refer to any document or electronic device during his or her testimony, nor have any communication of any kind with anyone that is not the lawyer questioning them or without the authorization of the Court/General Magistrate. 4. • The witness may be required to use his or her camera to scan the room before and after testimony and may not use a virtual background. 5. • The attorney or self-represented party may not assist the witness with answers in any way, including, but not limited to, gestures, notes, or facial expressions, or otherwise impact or influence the witness’ testimony “off camera”. 6. • All participants shall place their microphone on mute (on a cellular device, press *6) unless they are speaking or wish to make an objection. • All proceedings before the Court/General Magistrate are recorded by Brevard Digital Court Reporters. -- 4 of 6 -- Participants MAY NOT use the Microsoft Teams App or any other device to record the virtual evidentiary hearing. 4. • No one shall interrupt, or “talk over” other speakers during the hearing, unless it is necessary to assert an objection. • Attorneys are advised to instruct all witnesses that if they hear someone talking after a question, they must pause before answering so the Court/General Magistrate can address any objections. 5. • If an interpreter is necessary, all participants shall speak slowly, in short, complete sentences or questions, and allow time for translation. • No one shall respond to a question posed by another participant until the question has been translated fully. • Any case with interpreters must be designated as such in any request for a hearing. • All participants are required to ensure that no children are able to hear or see the virtual evidentiary hearing, unless children are participating. 7. • All participants are required to identify anyone that may be observing the proceedings with them. • All proposed Reports & Recommendations shall be submitted as an e-mail attachment to the workflow account* within 15 days after a hearing, unless otherwise specified by the General Magistrate. a. *Separate instructions are available upon request. 2. • All proposed Reports & Recommendations where all parties have waived the 10-day exceptions period, shall also include the Order Adopting the Report & Recommendation language and proper coding for the judge’s signature. • Effective immediately, all orders must include the nunc pro tunc date of the original hearing date in the “DONE and ORDERED” line of the order where the judge will sign. • Your email must indicate how much hearing time is being requested, and a statement that all parties have stipulated to the amount of hearing time requested. 4. • After a hearing date and time is confirmed, the moving party must e-file the Notice of Hearing within 3 days noting the time allotted for the hearing. -- 5 of 6 -- 6. • All hearings set on the General Magistrate’s docket must indicate “set before General Magistrate Edward Park” on the Notice, as it will now be a separate calendar. • Please contact the ADA Coordinator, Moore Justice Center, 2825 Judge Fran Jamieson Way, 3rd Floor, Viera, FL, 32940, 321-633-2171, ext. 3, at least 7 days before your scheduled court appearance, or immediately on receiving this notification if the time before the scheduled appearance is less than 7 days; if you are hearing or voice impaired, call 711. -- 6 of 6 --
Pursuant to Rule 8.255, Florida Rule of Juvenile Procedure, evidentiary hearings must be conducted in person unless the requirements under the rule have been met otherwise for a hybrid or virtual hearing.
Reviewer note: Document sha256: bf647dd62c048b1884083458478c2f98874270faf63a95c221d948ea76033196 (183419 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.
A DV injunction petition is reviewed promptly; the court may issue a temporary injunction ex parte, and when it does, a full evidentiary hearing is generally set within 15 days. There is no filing fee.
Judge Lee requires a detailed emergency motion stating the issues, why an emergency hearing is necessary, and the presentation time needed — the FSC-template standard now appearing across 2026 division procedures.
Judge Thomas: an emergency motion not properly filed with the clerk will not be treated as an emergency — the clerk channel is the only emergency channel.