By Dan Bushell
It is not easy to get the Supreme Court of Florida to hear a case. That is by design: the Florida Constitution was amended in 1980 to curtail the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction so that it may only review a limited number of cases that fall into discrete categories.
But the Court has a catch-all jurisdictional authority known as “All Writs” jurisdiction. All Writs jurisdiction is derived from Article V, Section 3(b)(7) of the Florida Constitution, which allows the Florida Supreme Court to “issue all writs necessary to complete exercise of its jurisdiction.”
This constitutional provision has traditionally been interpreted narrowly. It has been understood to confer something akin to supplemental jurisdiction, rather than an independent basis for jurisdiction, and is invoked only in rare cases.
But disputes involving exceptionally important issues with great time sensitivity appear to fall into the category of rare cases in which the Florida Supreme Court is willing to invoke its All Writs power. In The League of Women Voters of Florida v. Data Targeting, Inc., released May 27, 2014, the Florida Supreme Court was asked to weigh in in a pre-trial dispute in litigation over whether the 2012 apportionment of Florida’s congressional districts was designed to advance partisan political objectives in violation of the Fair District Amendments to the Florida Constitution.
A week before trial was to begin, the trial judge ruled that documents obtained from a political consultant, which the plaintiffs wanted to use to show that political consultants participated in the redistricting process, could be used as evidence in the trial but would remain confidential. On appeal, the First DCA issued a short order ruling that the documents could not be admitted into evidence, and stating that it would issue an opinion explaining its reasoning.
The plaintiffs filed an emergency petition asking the Florida Supreme Court to stay the 1st DCA’s order so that the evidence could be presented at the trial and the trial court could decide the dispute with the aid of that evidence before the 2014 midterm elections. With the trial about to begin, the Court would need to act immediately if its decision was going to have any impact.
But while the Court said it had reason to believe it would have jurisdiction to review the 1st DCA’s decision, it could not be certain as yet. Because the First DCA had not explained its
