Second Judicial Circuit: No Wakulla Veterans Court; Transfer to One Elsewhere

Florida lets each circuit's chief judge set up a veterans treatment court under section 394.47891; see the Florida entry. The Second Judicial Circuit (Franklin, Gadsden, Jefferson, Leon, Liberty and Wakulla Counties) has one, and it is Leon County's: Administrative Order 2015-07 established "a Veterans Treatment Court (VTC) ... in Leon County", effective November 1, 2015, after the Legislature funded a programme in Leon County and the Leon County Board agreed to act as its fiscal agent, and AO 2016-05 sets its procedures for Leon County misdemeanour and felony cases. The circuit's Wakulla County page names no veterans court, and nothing published opens the Leon court to Wakulla cases. The transfer route. Section 910.035(5) says a person eligible for a problem-solving court, including a veterans treatment court, "shall, upon request by the person or a court, have the case transferred to a county other than that in which the charge arose" if the person agrees and the trial court's and the receiving court's representatives both agree. The trial court then orders the clerk to send the case, and the receiving court sets a hearing to admit the defendant. What Leon's court asks. Its page requires a veteran under section 1.01 or a service member under section 250.01 "who has an Honorable or General discharge", a documented military-related mental health diagnosis, traumatic brain injury or substance abuse disorder, and no earlier enrolment or rejection; it runs twelve to eighteen months, twenty-four at most. A Wakulla County defendant should ask defence counsel to raise the transfer, and see the Leon County entry for that court's contacts.