Florida appellate judges are first appointed by the governor. They then face a merit-retention vote within two years of taking office and, if retained, another vote every six years. Voters decide whether a judge stays; candidates do not run against one another in these retention contests.

Based in Daytona Beach, the 5th DCA reviews appeals from local courts across a territory that includes Jacksonville, Daytona Beach and communities in Central Florida. Its district encompasses the Fourth, Fifth, Seventh and 18th judicial circuits, serving about 5.3 million residents. The court has 12 judges and generally considers cases in three-judge panels.

Harris, a Brevard County native, joined the court in 2018 after serving as chief judge of the 18th Judicial Circuit. He had spent 16 years as a county and circuit judge and holds a Florida Supreme Court certification as a judicial mentor.

Among the cases Harris participated in was a 2020 ruling that investigators could not force an Orange County man accused of vandalism to disclose his cellphone passcode. The court concluded that doing so would violate the Fifth Amendment protection against compelled self-incrimination. The Florida Supreme Court later upheld the decision.

Makar, a former Jacksonville attorney and University of Florida law graduate, was appointed to the 1st District Court of Appeal in 2012 and reassigned to the 5th DCA in 2023, when the Fourth Judicial Circuit moved into the 5th District’s territory.

In 2022, Makar dissented from a panel decision that would have ended a University of Florida student’s class-action lawsuit over campus fees charged while classes were online during the COVID-19 pandemic. “Little doubt exists that an enforceable written contract of some sort exists,” he wrote. In 2025, the Florida Supreme Court overturned the panel’s ruling and allowed the lawsuit to proceed toward trial.

Wallis, a Central Florida native and Stetson University law school graduate, served as a Ninth Judicial Circuit judge for five years before his appointment to the 5th DCA in 2013.

A notable ruling Wallis wrote in 2019 ordered a new trial for a woman whose first-degree murder conviction was overturned. The defendant had been 17 when questioned by police in connection with a killing. The panel found that police kept her under their control for nine and a half hours, questioned her intermittently and sent away her father before reading her Miranda rights. She was later convicted of second-degree murder and released from prison in 2023.

Appellate decisions can shape how laws are applied across the district, and some cases may go on to the Florida Supreme Court. The retention votes give eligible voters a direct say in whether the three judges continue serving on the court.