A judge was expected to decide by Monday whether the Florida law behind the fake Republican voter guide prosecutions is constitutional. It is Tuesday evening and no account of a decision has been published anywhere this paper can find.

That is not the same as no decision. A ruling can be signed, docketed and sitting in a courthouse for days before anyone outside it knows.

This paper read 261 headlines across six regional outlets at ten past four on Tuesday afternoon against that one question, and none of them answers it. The outlet that has carried this case earliest and in the most detail has thirteen stories on it, and the newest is still Oct. 2.

What is waiting on it

The hearing on Oct. 2 did two things, and only one of them has an outcome.

The first was jurisdiction. A judge agreed that the misdemeanour-only cases had been filed in circuit court when they belonged in county court, and dismissed four sets of charges. Two sitting county commissioners and a city commissioner are among those four. This paper reported that on Oct. 3.

The second was the constitutional question, and it belongs to the fifth defendant, the one whose counts survived Friday because one of them is a felony. Her attorney argued the voter guide statute restricts political speech. The state answered. The judge said he wanted more time with the case law.

A ruling that the statute is unconstitutional does not stop at this courthouse. It reaches every prosecution brought under the same section anywhere in Florida. A ruling the other way sends the remaining defendant toward trial on three counts.

And the other question nobody has

Whether the four dismissed counts come back in county court is also unknown, five days on.

The Citizen reported on Oct. 2 that further details, including whether prosecutors intend to pursue the charges there, were not immediately available. Nothing has been published since that answers it.

The calendar is the reason that matters. Prosecutors allege the conduct ran between Aug. 1 and Aug. 15, 2024. Section 775.15 gives a first-degree misdemeanour two years, which puts the ordinary deadline in August of this year, and the charges were filed in July. The same section extends the period by three months where a charging document filed in time is later dismissed “because of a defect in its content or form.”

Whether a dismissal for being in the wrong court is a defect in content or form, or something the statute does not reach, is a question with four prosecutions behind it. This paper is not going to answer it in a sentence, and neither has anybody else.

What we have asked

The Office of the State Attorney for the Seventh Judicial Circuit was sent six questions at 3:48 Tuesday afternoon: the case number and charging document for each defendant, the status of each, whether anyone has moved to consolidate the cases or to sever them, whether any charge has been dismissed and whether the state intends to refile, the next court date, and one more.

That last one is this. In February 2024 the governor signed an executive order reciting that the Seventh Circuit’s state attorney had disqualified himself from a matter involving a St. Johns County commissioner, to avoid a conflict of interest or any appearance of impropriety, and assigned the Eighth Circuit instead. A search of the governor’s executive order index on Oct. 6 returns that order when the commissioner’s name is entered, and returns nothing at all for any of the five people charged in this case. The index carries names in its summaries, which is why it is a question and not an assertion.

The judge who heard Friday’s hearing is not on the Seventh Circuit’s own roster of judges. The bench, at least, was brought in from elsewhere.

Nothing had come back from the state attorney by the time this was published, which is a few hours and is not a refusal.

Why this runs now

A court that has been asked whether a criminal statute survives the First Amendment said it would answer on a particular day. That day was yesterday.

The paper said on Oct. 3 that it would publish what the judge decided. It cannot publish what it cannot find, so it is publishing the gap instead, with the date the answer was due and the list of places that do not have it.

The St. Johns County Clerk’s case search requires credentials this newsroom does not hold, and returns HTTP 403 to anyone without them. That is the one place a docket entry would settle all of this in a minute.

A criminal charge is an accusation. All defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. The Tattler tracks the cases it reports and publishes the outcome, including when charges are dropped or reduced. If you are named in this story and the case has resolved, write to corrections@stjohnstattler.org and we will update it.
What we asked, and what came back.
  • Office of the State Attorney, 7th Judicial Circuit, publicrecords@sao7.org, asked 2026-10-06. Six questions: the case number and charging document for each defendant, the status of each case, whether anyone has moved to consolidate or sever, whether any charge has been dismissed and whether the State intends to refile, the next court date, and whether an executive assignment was sought given two defendants are sitting county commissioners. Sent at 3:48 p.m. Oct. 6. Nothing back at publication, which is a few hours and not a refusal.