John Beamer Reprimanded

The Florida Supreme Court publicly reprimanded Ninth Judicial Circuit Judge John Beamer in May 2024 for chronic delays in issuing rulings in his Osceola County domestic relations cases. By March 2023, Beamer had 24 cases with judgments pending more than 60 days after trial — seven of them pending for more than a year, and three pending for more than two years. His chief judge had already met with and counseled him repeatedly about the need for prompt rulings before the state's Judicial Qualifications Commission got involved.

When questioned, Beamer attributed the delays to a broken arm, poor time management, personal issues, and unfamiliarity with domestic relations law. The Commission reached a formal agreement with Beamer for the public reprimand, and separately required him to file regular reports on his pending orders for the following year.

Rulings that sit unresolved for a year or two aren't a paperwork backlog — they're custody arrangements, support orders, and property divisions left in limbo for the people waiting on them. A judge's own chief repeatedly asking him to keep up wasn't enough to fix it; it took the state's judicial conduct commission stepping in.