Plea Conferences, Trials & Evidentiary Hearings In Person… — Palm Beach County, FL · BenchPath

Plea Conferences, Trials & Evidentiary Hearings In Person — Division Z

High confidence· verified September 9, 2026Remote / Zoom Hearings15th Jud. Cir., Criminal Division Z Divisional Instructions

Summary

Judge Willis holds plea conferences, trials, and evidentiary hearings in person absent prior approval; orders in Word to opposing counsel within one week; e-mail subject lines must carry case number, name, and matter.

Applies to

Florida > Fifteenth Judicial Circuit > Palm Beach County > Criminal Division Z (Judge Sarah Willis)

Source of truth

"Plea Conference, Trials, and Evidentiary Hearings must be in person absent prior approval" / "All proposed orders must be submitted in Word format and provided to opposing counsel" / "The subject line of any e-mail to the judicial office must contain the case number, case name, and relevant matter"

Official source: 15th Cir. — Division Z Instructions (Judge Willis)
Source health: Healthy · checked October 23, 2026
Effective date: —
Last verified: September 9, 2026benchpath-reverify-2026-09-08 (live text containment) | prior: benchpath-cw-2026-08-04

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 | Superseded in practice by fl15-div-z-instructions (composed 2026-08-03 from the current page after the July rotation).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 23bae295ccf01063af75945ca2686a9a3c49c6d46441c0479c4b6720caf0f251); all 3 quoted source fragment(s) verified live. Text remains a summary — verbatim recomposition queued.] [RECOMPOSED VERBATIM 2026-08-04 (campaign wave, fully-anchored): 3 bullet(s) quoted whole from the live page, sha256 986ea8c8d807b0b39fca3342ad13497b76ea1e8fa833589b5ee18826e495dd6f; the prior summary-class text is superseded.] Verbatim from the division's live instruction page (https://www.15thcircuit.com/division/z/instructions), harvested 2026-08-04; each bullet is quoted whole from the page, whitespace normalised only. [moved from the text 2026-09-14]

Criminal Traffic Criminal — Felony DUI / BUI Criminal — Misdemeanor Bond & Pretrial Release Domestic Violence Battery Traffic (Civil Infractions)Post-Conviction (Rule 3.850)Sealing & Expunction Violation of Probation

Change history

August 5, 2026Monitor: content changed at 15th Cir. — Division Z Instructions (Judge Willis). Review before republishing dependent rules.
August 4, 2026Monitor: content changed at 15th Cir. — Division Z Instructions (Judge Willis). Review before republishing dependent rules.
August 3, 2026Monitor: content changed at 15th Cir. — Division Z Instructions (Judge Willis). Review before republishing dependent rules.
August 2, 2026Monitor: content changed at 15th Cir. — Division Z Instructions (Judge Willis). Review before republishing dependent rules.
August 1, 2026Monitor: content changed at 15th Cir. — Division Z Instructions (Judge Willis). Review before republishing dependent rules.
July 31, 2026Monitor: content changed at 15th Cir. — Division Z Instructions (Judge Willis). Review before republishing dependent rules.
July 30, 2026Monitor: content changed at 15th Cir. — Division Z Instructions (Judge Willis). Review before republishing dependent rules.
July 28, 2026Monitor: content changed at 15th Cir. — Division Z Instructions (Judge Willis). Review before republishing dependent rules.
July 27, 2026Monitor: content changed at 15th Cir. — Division Z Instructions (Judge Willis). Review before republishing dependent rules.