Retired or Appointed Elsewhere
Expected Retirement
5th District Court of Appeal. Appointed by Governor Rick Scott. He won the retention vote in 2022 (69.3%) and 2016 (69.4%).
* Appointed instead of running for election because of a vacancy between election cycles.
Before he became a judge, Edwards had about 35 years of experience as an attorney on state and federal cases. In that time, he argued about 30 jury trials, 5 non-jury trials, 20 arbitration cases to completion. He worked in civil cases at the state and federal levels. He specialized in commercial and civil litigation, including products liability and toxic torts, personal injury and wrongful claims, construction damage claims, legal malpractice, and others. He also handled cases on appeal and acts as a mediator. He worked for many law firms, and from 2001 to 2005 he ran his own practice.
Before that, he clerked for one summer at a private law firm.
This judge is a member of the Federalist Society.
This judge is a textualist, who uses an interpretation of the Constitution that is advocated by the Federalist Society.
Note: Some sources, like the Orlando Sentinel, Florida Today, and Tampa Bay Times, have a limited number of free articles.
