The results of a Tallahassee Bar Association (TBA) poll shows that judicial candidate Amanda Wall received the highest percentage of qualified responses when compared to her competitors. The poll asks members of the TBA to rate the candidates in two categories – legal ability and temperament.
Wall received a 96% qualified rating for legal ability and 94% for temperament.
A table with results for all candidates is provided below.
Wall and Tiffany Baker advanced to the general election from the field of four candidates.
Why does the TBA do the poll?
“The public at large has a difficult time getting to know judicial candidates due to limitations on what the candidates can say; therefore the views of area lawyers, regarding the legal ability and temperament of judicial candidates, are an important consideration in the election process,” said Gregory Noonan, President of the association.
Because of these limitations, in 2007 the Board of Directors of The Tallahassee Bar Association decided that judicial polls should be conducted for all contested races in the Second Judicial Circuit of Florida (Leon, Gadsden, Jefferson, Wakulla, Franklin, and Liberty counties).
Amanda Wall Finishes Ahead in Tallahassee Bar Association Poll Ratings added by Staff on
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Again, Ms. Palmer you are confusing Amanda Wall with Judge Angela Dempsey. And if you are the Rosemary N. Palmer that is an attorney here in Tallahassee, you should know better.
NO, I’m talking about a person who wants to be a judge who thinks it alright to respond to valid critiques of competence with personal attacks. That may be political, but what it says is that she has no defense against the incompetence issues and she thinks dirty politics is appropriate within what is supposed to be non-political judge races. It says she’s not fair judge material (whomever her current opponent may be).
I’m sorry, but you are mixing up two different races. The race you are talking about is Kevin Alvarez vs. Judge Angela Dempsey. Here’s a link to the article – https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/local/state/2020/06/19/judicial-candidate-tallahassee-has-history-derogatory-sexist-social-media-posts/3212719001/
I will not be voting for Ms. Wall. Early in the primary season, her challenger emailed all attorneys in Tallahassee (the Tallahassee Bar membership is many fewer than all attorneys licensed in the 2nd Circuit) listing how often Ms. Wall’s rulings had been overturned on appeal (some of which rulings had been covered in the Democrat at the time). A few weeks later, the Tallahassee Democrat printed an article calling the challenger unfit because of personal facebook posts that preceded his attorney licensure and that were a number of years before now (and yes they were very wrong). The sources the Democrat quoted were members of the Committee to Elect Ms. Wall, though they apparently failed to disclose that to the reporter or the Democrat failed to report it. There are a number of members of the Tallahassee Bar who are also on the Committee and without knowing what the poll response rate was, it is hard to know whether this supposed reflection is just members of the Committee or really what an unaffiliated group of attorneys think. Although Ms. Wall may not directly control the Committee, she has failed to speak up to rebuke it. I cannot vote for a judge who responds to challenges of her competence with personal attacks on the person who raised those challenges.