The Florida Supreme Court has suspended a sitting circuit judge for 20 days without pay and publicly reprimanded her for campaign conduct on the 2024 trail, in an order reported on Friday, November 13. Judge Jennifer Dubbeld of Florida's Sixth Judicial Circuit admitted to making a disparaging post about her opponent, sharing 'misleading' photos with public officials who had not endorsed her, and handing out flyers with QR codes soliciting donations, according to the reporting on the court's order. The suspension is unpaid, and the reprimand is public — the combination the state's judicial watchdog had recommended in a stipulation the judge signed.
Source: Law.com / Daily Business Review
The order closes a case that began with a notice of investigation in June 2025 and worked its way through the Florida Judicial Qualifications Commission, the independent body that investigates judges in the state. Dubbeld remains a circuit judge; the discipline does not remove her from the bench, and the findings concern her conduct as a candidate in the 2024 election cycle, not rulings she made in court.
What the watchdog found
In its findings and recommendations of discipline, filed in March 2026, the Judicial Qualifications Commission said its investigative panel found probable cause of improper judicial campaign activity, in violation of Canon 7(A)(1)(b), 7(A)(3)(b), 7(A)(3)(e)(ii) and 7(C)(1) of Florida's Code of Judicial Conduct. The case carries Judicial Qualifications Commission number 2025-365. Canon 7 is the part of the code that governs what judges and judicial candidates may and may not do politically — including rules against misleading campaign statements and against personally soliciting campaign support.
Source: Florida Judicial Qualifications Commission findings, JQC No. 2025-365
The three admissions at the centre of the case
Reporting on the Supreme Court's order summarised the conduct Dubbeld admitted in three parts. First, a disparaging post about her opponent during the campaign. Second, photos shared in campaign material that created a misleading impression — pictures with public officials who had not in fact endorsed her. Third, flyers handed out with QR codes that solicited donations, which sits at the heart of the personal-solicitation rule for judicial candidates: in Florida, a judicial candidate is not supposed to personally ask voters for campaign money, a restriction meant to keep the person who may later sit in judgment from owing — or appearing to owe — favours to donors.
Florida elects its circuit judges, but the Code of Judicial Conduct treats judicial campaigns differently from ordinary political races. Candidates must not mislead voters, must not trade on endorsements they do not have, and must not personally solicit campaign funds — rules designed to protect public confidence that courtrooms are not for sale and verdicts are not political.
How the sanction was set
Dubbeld and the commission entered into a stipulation recommending exactly the discipline the Supreme Court has now imposed: a public reprimand and a 20-day suspension. The commission said it believed that sanction would be sufficient to deter such behaviour by Dubbeld in the future and to remind the judiciary of the requirements of Canon 7. In reaching that recommendation, the commission pointed to a recent precedent, Inquiry Concerning Flynn (397 So. 3d 40, Fla. 2024), in which the court accepted a public reprimand and a 25-day suspension for multiple Canon 7 violations that included campaign statements that misled the public and raised an appearance of impropriety. The stipulation in Dubbeld's case, dated February 17, 2026, recommended five fewer suspension days than the Flynn sanction.
What happens next
The 20-day unpaid suspension and the public reprimand are now the final discipline in case 2025-365 unless any further court step is reported; no removal proceeding was part of the stipulation. For voters in the Sixth Circuit, the practical effect is a short absence from the bench and a permanent public record attached to the judge's name. For other Florida judges and candidates, the case is the second Canon 7 campaign sanction in two years to pair a reprimand with a multi-week suspension, following Flynn — a signal that the court is treating misleading judicial campaign material as a suspension-level offence, not a warning-level one.
Judicial elections rarely draw the attention that legislative or executive races do, yet they decide who presides over criminal trials, family cases and civil disputes in the circuit for six-year terms. This case turns on a simple principle the commission repeated in its filing: a candidate for judge may campaign, but may not mislead the public to win — and may not personally pass the hat to pay for the campaign.