Jorge Labarga


Jorge Labarga is a Justice of the Florida Supreme Court, taking office on January 6, 2009. On June 30, 2014, he was sworn in as Florida's 56th Chief Justice and the first Cuban-American to hold the post. He was succeeded on July 1, 2018, by Charles T. Canady.

Life

Labarga was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1952

Education

Labarga grew up and graduated high school in Pahokee, Florida, in the heavily agricultural Lake Okeechobee region of western Palm Beach County, and received his bachelor's degree from the University of Florida. He also received his Juris Doctor from this institution in 1979. After law school he became an Assistant Public Defender. In 1996, Governor Lawton Chiles appointed him a Circuit Court Judge.

Judicial career

Previously, he was a Judge for the 15th Circuit Court in Palm Beach County, Florida, from 1996 until 2009. He is notable as the judge who refused a new vote during the 2000 U.S. Presidential election on the grounds that the Constitution stated that an election must be held everywhere in the United States on the same day, not just in one area.
Prior to his Supreme Court appointment, Labarga had been appointed by Governor Charlie Crist to the Fourth District Court of Appeal for Florida, an intermediate appellate court based in West Palm Beach, Florida. He served in that position only a single day, January 5, 2009. His term on that court was cut short when Governor Crist quickly elevated Labarga to the Florida Supreme Court to replace retiring Justice Harry Lee Anstead. On June 30, 2014, Larbarga was sworn in as the 56th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Florida, replacing former Chief Justice Ricky Polston. Labarga is the first person of Hispanic descent to lead the state of Florida's judicial branch.