- November 14, 2024
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Sharon Feliciano
Age: 47
Family: 2 dogs and 3 cats, long term relationship (12yrs)
Quirky Fact: figure skate, won a completion, can do a scratch spin, roller blade every weekend
Bio: Sharon Feliciano earned her degree from Touro Law School in 1993. Upon graduation, she worked for two separate brokerage firms on Wall Street. A resident of Palm Coast since 2000, she has been an assistant public defender and counsel for the Putnam County Sheriff’s Department.
What is one experience that led you to want to become a judge?
I always knew that I wanted to become an attorney, and shortly after that I always knew I wanted to become a judge. But if I were to narrow down a series of experiences, not just one, it would probably be practicing in front of a specific judge in Putnam County and observing the way he conducted himself, and observing the way the courtroom was run while he was on the bench. I have great admiration and respect for that particular judge. And since I always knew I wanted to become a judge, I thought to myself, “That is how I would like to be respected, and treat other people with the same amount of respect with which he treated people, and that’s how I would like to run my courtroom.” So I don’t think it’s one experience but perhaps one individual.
What qualities are essential in a county judge?
Respect for other people. Not just getting that respect, but treating other people with the same respect. I think patience. You probably get a lot of pro se litigants, litigants who aren’t represented by attorneys, and you have to be very careful in the sense that you want them to have their day in court without sacrificing their rights that they have to be there. So I think respect and patience are tremendous.
What makes you the most qualified out of all the candidates in this race?
I’ve been admitted to the Florida Bar since 1997; I moved down to Florida in 1998. I had a serious accident and had to go through some physical therapy and that’s what delayed my move down. I have been practicing for almost 14 years, seven of those were with the public defender’s office in Palatka. The main offices for both the state attorney and public defender are in Daytona, and they kind of farm you out to wherever you’re needed. And they farmed this New York City girl to Palatka. I worked there for seven years in the misdemeanor division, then got promoted to felony. I left in 2005.
I’ve been in private practice since 2005 with a gentleman who’s been practicing for almost 50 years. So he took me under his wing, so to speak, and I’m still doing criminal defense. I do family law, small claims and dependency. Criminal law and small claims are the two areas of law that the elected judge will be hearing. So I have experience in both of those areas.
If elected, what changes would you make to the way county court is run?
This kind of a difficult question to answer because judicial candidates’ rules are different from every other elected position in that we cannot give specific ways that we would rule or things of that nature. So I think the thing that I’ve thought about the most is to expeditiously move the docket without sacrificing anybody’s rights. So everybody who comes into the courtroom is going to have their day in court so to speak. You’ve really got to learn how to manage the docket, but you cannot do that at the expense of the people who are coming before you, especially in the criminal area.
I think you need to encourage the prosecutors and the public defenders to work together to resolving cases. Again, not to the detriment of either the victims or the defense, but I think there needs to be encouragement for them to work together and try to move those cases along. And also allow both sides sufficient times to prepare for trial, if a case is going to go to trial, but it has to be done within a specific period of time so that there aren’t cases that are a year old and in misdemeanor. I think that’s what you need to do you need to encourage a good relationship between those two, but also encourage movement of the cases. You know look, if you cannot agree on a negotiated plea then this case needs to be set for trial. And dispose of it that way. But again you cannot do that at expense of the victims or the defense. But I think that’s the key way to probably get the docket to be moving.
I worked in misdemeanor docket in county court, by myself when I was an assistant public defender in Palatka. And you’re talking about a real heavy case load, you know over 100 cases. But they need to be moved because defendants have rights, victims have rights, and you can’t sacrifice those rights for either one of them. They each need to have their day in court. And you need to make sure that that happens.
