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Judge Coates requires defendants not in custody to be physically present for plea conferences, arraignments, calendar calls, motion hearings, and trials; Zoom is allowed only for dispositions and status checks.
Florida > Fifteenth Judicial Circuit > Palm Beach County > Criminal Division V (Judge Howard Coates, Jr.)
Defendants not in custody must be physically present for "plea conferences, arraignments, calendar calls, motion hearings, and trials" / "For other matters such as case dispositions or status checks, the defendant may appear in person or via Zoom."
Reviewer note: Verified against the live official page on 2026-07-05. 30-day recheck scheduled. | 2026-08-03: the source (rendered DOM (headless Chromium)) no longer contains this rule's quoted text; dropped to medium pending re-composition against the current version. | Superseded in practice by fl15-div-v-instructions (composed 2026-08-03 from the current page after the July rotation). [MEDIUM CONFIRMED 2026-08-03 (paraphrase-class): source re-fetched live (sha256 8794e5be91e184a16f44b93d908f95342971d32744159d753e9bbed5f558e549); all 2 quoted source fragment(s) verified live. Text remains a summary — verbatim recomposition queued.] [RECOMPOSED VERBATIM 2026-08-04 (campaign wave, fully-anchored): 1 bullet(s) quoted whole from the live page, sha256 02737741ac016bb2bb389dd36c01277be963696fb604705aa570e3c3f4f0a257; the prior summary-class text is superseded.]
1 verbatim requirement published by Palm Beach Division FC on remote appearance policy.
Judge Hooi does not usually allow hybrid hearings (one side in person, one virtual); if both sides prefer, everyone may appear in person instead; emergencies route through the clerk to a judge-entered handling order.
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