On these facts, a judge who once worked at the law firm that represented a defendant on an earlier appeal did not have to step aside. The Florida Supreme Court said so on November 5, 2026, in Guzman v. State, No. SC2024-1191, affirming James Guzman’s fourth death sentence for the murder of David Colvin. The judge joined the firm in 1994, three weeks before oral argument in Guzman’s first appeal, and did not work on his case. Justice Grosshans wrote the opinion. Chief Justice Couriel and Justices Muñiz, Francis, Barrios and Tanenbaum concurred. Justice Labarga concurred in the result with an opinion.
The history. The court’s opinion describes a long and complicated case. Guzman’s first trial was in 1992 and the most recent was in 2016. The 2016 conviction still stands. The court cited its earlier decisions in the case, including a 1994 reversal and new trial, and a 2018 decision that affirmed the conviction but vacated the death sentence under Hurst v. State. The sentence at issue in this appeal came from the fourth penalty phase, tried in Volusia County before Circuit Judge Dawn D. Nichols. Jury selection began on March 11, 2024.
The disqualification issue. After the second day of jury selection, Jim Rose, who represented Guzman on his first appeal in 1994, emailed the judge. He told her that his firm, Rice and Rose, had hired her in May 1994, three weeks before oral argument in that appeal and after the briefs were filed. The judge disclosed this to both sides the next day. She explained that Mr. Rose had completed all substantive legal work on the case except oral argument, and that she did not work on Guzman’s case or any other criminal matter while at the firm. The opinion does not say how long she worked there; it describes her affiliation as one that “briefly overlapped” with the firm’s handling of the first appeal.
Guzman moved to disqualify her. His affidavit pointed to her prior employment and to her failure to disclose it when the case was first assigned to her. The judge denied the motion in an unelaborated order as legally insufficient. The supreme court reviewed that ruling without deference and affirmed it.
The court said a motion to disqualify is legally insufficient if it does not state specific facts and reasons, or if the facts alleged, assumed true, do not show an objectively reasonable fear of an unfair trial. The fear must be “objectively reasonable.” On appeal Guzman suggested that the judge could have learned confidential information at the firm. The court called those assertions untimely and “purely speculative.” It held that “the judge’s mere affiliation with the firm, which briefly overlapped with its handling of Guzman’s first appeal, is insufficient to show that Guzman’s concerns about receiving a fair trial were reasonable.”
The court distinguished its earlier decisions requiring recusal, Maharaj v. State, Reed v. State and Steinhorst v. State. The court said it has found an objectively reasonable fear where a judge previously worked for a party opposing the defendant, namely the State or victims, and “had direct or supervisory input into the case.” Here, the court said, the judge “never took on a role adversarial to Guzman,” and the firm she worked for advanced an argument that won him a new trial.
On the late disclosure, the court said it was “aware of no such duty” for a trial judge to search the record at assignment for possible grounds for disqualification and declined to recognize one. It added that a claim that a judge knew of an arguable ground and failed to disclose it “could be a meaningful fact” in a different case. A footnote observes that Guzman did not seek immediate review of the denial through a petition for a writ of prohibition. Guzman also argued for the first time on appeal that a court rule requires categorical disqualification. The court declined to consider that argument because he did not raise it in the trial court.
The other two issues. Guzman argued that the jury was not properly instructed on victim impact testimony. The court held the issue was not preserved. Guzman never presented the instruction-based argument to the trial court or received a ruling on it, and the court treated his claim as an as-applied challenge, which must be raised at trial. He filed a motion before jury selection, but the trial court never ruled on it after the lawyers agreed on the content of the victim impact statements, and he did not object during the penalty phase. It added that even if the issue had been preserved, the claim lacked merit. The trial judge told the jury that victim impact evidence was presented only to show the victim’s uniqueness and the community’s loss, and that it must not be considered as an aggravating factor. She gave that instruction five times, including once during the final charge.
Guzman also argued that the death penalty is inherently cruel and unusual. The court said it has rejected similar challenges before and declined to revisit them.
The sentence. The jury unanimously found the State’s four aggravating circumstances and recommended death. The trial court found four aggravating factors, including six violent felony convictions from 1982, and 22 mitigating circumstances. It agreed with the jury and imposed the death sentence.
The concurrence. Justice Labarga wrote that he acknowledged the significant aggravating factors but continues to adhere to his dissenting opinion in Lawrence v. State, 308 So. 3d 544 (Fla. 2020), which “receded from decades of proportionality review in cases involving a direct appeal of a sentence of death.” For that reason he concurred in the result.
The opinion is not final until the time to file a rehearing motion expires and any motion filed is decided.
Read the opinion (PDF): Download the opinion (PDF)
Also covered at Florida Lawyer News.
Source: Guzman v. State, No. SC2024-1191 (Fla. Nov. 5, 2026). This article is general information, not legal advice.