Summary
The Florida Supreme Court adopted out-of-cycle amendments to several Florida Rules of Juvenile Procedure and Form 8.947 to implement recent legislation. The amendments address discovery, competency and treatment of children, correction of disposition orders, hearing advisements, post-disposition placement, permanency hearings, and delinquency disposition orders. The amendments took effect immediately, with a sixty-day period for filing comments.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether the Supreme Court of Florida should amend the specified Florida Rules of Juvenile Procedure and Form 8.947 to implement recent legislation.
- Whether the amendments should take effect immediately despite not having been published for comment before adoption.
Holdings
- The Supreme Court of Florida adopted amendments to rules 8.060, 8.095, 8.185, 8.255, 8.345, 8.425, and Form 8.947 as set forth in the appendix.
- The amendments took effect immediately upon release of the opinion, and interested persons were given sixty days from the opinion date to file comments.
Key quotations
“After considering the proposed amendments and reviewing the relevant legislation, we amend the Florida Rules of Juvenile Procedure as reflected in the appendix to this opinion.” (123 So. 3d at 1129)
“The amendments shall take effect immediately upon the release of this opinion.” (123 So. 3d at 1129)
Factual background
The Florida Bar's Juvenile Court Rules Committee submitted a fast-track report proposing amendments to several juvenile procedure rules and a delinquency disposition form. The proposals primarily responded to statutory amendments enacted in 2012 and 2013, including changes concerning dependency, juvenile justice, competency, expert testimony, and disposition orders. The Board of Governors of The Florida Bar unanimously approved the proposals.
Procedural history
The Juvenile Court Rules Committee proposed amendments implementing recent legislative changes. The Florida Bar's Board of Governors unanimously approved the proposals. The Supreme Court adopted the amendments, effective immediately, while allowing interested persons sixty days to submit comments because the amendments had not been published for comment before adoption.