Circuit Judge Jessica Recksiedler, the woman residing over the Trayvon Martin case, is expected to surrender control and step down today.
STORY: She’s Out! Judge In Trayvon Martin Case Will Step Down
Court officials issued a statement Tuesday saying that Recksiedler is expected to decide what to do no later than Friday as she is expected to sign an order taking herself off the case today.
On Monday, Defense attorney Mark O’Mara filed paperwork asking her to step down because her husband is a partner of attorney Mark NeJame, who is under contract with CNN to provide analysis of this case.
Court officials issued a statement Tuesday saying Recksiedler is expected to decide what to do no later than Friday. But the picture should become clearer today, when Recksiedler is expected to sign an order taking herself off the case.
Defense attorney Mark O’Mara on Monday filed paperwork asking her to step down because her husband is a partner of attorney Mark NeJame, who is under contract with CNN to provide analysis of this case.
According to the Orlando Sentinel, Recksiedler’s replacement will be chosen from among three remaining felony judges in Seminole County, including:
John D. Galluzzo
Galluzzo, 56, is a criminal-trial specialist. Before becoming a judge, he represented more than two dozen murder defendants, according to his job application.
He was appointed to the bench in 2006 by then-Gov. Jeb Bush, but only after going through the selection process and being named a finalist five times.
He has spent much of his tenure since then handling civil and juvenile cases.
His mother and father were Italian immigrants who never got beyond the seventh grade. Galluzzo worked his way through the University of Central Florida, where he received a criminal-justice degree in 1979 and then a law degree at Nova Southeastern University.
He’s a former assistant state attorney who spent the bulk of his career in private practice. His office manager was his wife.
He’s a former Pop Warner football coach; board member of Kids House of Seminole County, a refuge for abused children; and has been honored by the Florida Supreme Court for his work with abused children.
Kenneth R. Lester Jr.
Lester, 58, is a veteran of high-profile cases. In 2003 he presided at the trial of Reynolds, a day laborer found guilty of flying into a rage over a dispute about a used trailer frame and savagely killing a Geneva couple and their 11-year-old daughter.
In another case, Lester sentenced ax murderer John Michael Buzia to death for attacking a 71-year-old Oviedo man who had hired him as a handyman.
And Lester eased into the outside world a schizophrenic Oviedo woman, Stephanie Gardner, who had been locked in a state mental hospital for a decade after being found not guilty by reason of insanity in the shooting deaths of her mother and father.
Lester ordered her released to a Jacksonville group home in 2001.
Debra S. Nelson
Nelson, 57, was about to have lawyers begin their opening statements at the trial of suspected hospital baby-snatcher Jennifer Latham when the woman decided to enter a guilty plea.
Latham had walked into the maternity ward of Central Florida Regional Hospital in Sanford, put on scrubs and lifted the child from the mother’s arms, then drove away. Latham was stopped a few miles down the road, with the child safe in the back seat.
Prosecutors wanted Latham sent to prison for life. Nelson chose 30 years.
Nelson also received media attention in 2006 when she threw out a $28 million jury award given a woman who had sued her gynecologist, accusing him of so badly botching an operation for minor incontinence that the woman had to catheterize herself twice a day.
Zimmerman is currently being held in the Seminole County Jail, charged with second-degree murder.
Special Prosecutor Angela Corey, the state attorney in Jacksonville, had him arrested last week on a charge of second-degree murder, and Recksiedler was assigned the case.
SOURCE: Orlando Sentinel
