Incumbent Broward Circuit Court Judge Dennis Bailey is a bit of an underdog in the Nov. 3 runoff with challenger George Odom, Jr.
In the August primary, Bailey finished second in the three-person race for Group 16. Odom finished with 40.2% of the vote. Bailey ended up with 36.4%. The third candidate, Abbe Rifkin Logan, finished with 23.4% and was eliminated from the race.
The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board endorsed Bailey in the primary and we do so again in this runoff. Besides a strong work ethic, Bailey, 64, provides some needed experience and stability in a courthouse that’s often chaotic.
Bailey said being the father of two sons with special needs has taught him empathy. He’s also worked as “a house painter, a cook, a bartender, a forklift operator, a banker, a teacher” and more. Bailey said those experiences enable him to better understand the people who appear before him.
Bailey says on his campaign website that since his election in 2014, he “has been the busiest judge in Broward…securing verdicts from over 100 juries, more than any other judge in the same time period.”
Even with the courthouse closed because of the pandemic, Bailey said in a Sept. 10 follow-up email to the Editorial Board that he is resolving an average of five cases a day by conducting court online “all day, every day.”
Bailey has his critics who say he is brusque on the bench. The judge says the people who complain are usually attorneys and litigants who are unhappy with his rulings, not his demeanor. He said attorneys who appear before him unprepared may find him disagreeable.
Bailey attributes his hard-working habits to the one stain on his judicial record. In 2018, he admonished an attorney while the jurors were still in the courtroom. The attorney demanded that Bailey immediately recuse himself from the trial. He refused. Soon thereafter, he recused himself and apologized to the attorney in writing. In 2019 the Florida Supreme Court reprimanded him for the incident.
Bailey said he was working very hard at the time “and I did not effectively manage my work stress.” During the endorsement interview, he said the reprimand was a “humbling experience” and that he’s more relaxed and subdued in the courtroom because of it.
It’s difficult for the Editorial Board to assess Odom because he declined to participate in our candidate interview. In an email before the primary, he said that he felt that his responses to our candidate questionnaire were sufficient to assess his qualifications. He also said he was concerned that providing verbal answers to questions might be unethical.
To be clear, it is not unethical for judicial candidates to answer questions from the electorate, provided they abide by the parameters of the judicial canons. And while written answers provide some measure of a candidate, it’s quite another to see how a person responds on his or her feet, as they would have to, in this case, in running a courtroom.
In a Sept. 1 follow-up email to the Editorial Board, Odom said, “Our campaign was humbled to receive a majority of the votes, 40.2%, cast in the August primary. We will continue to work hard to secure the votes of the voters of Broward County emphasizing law and order as a staple of the justice system.”
In his questionnaire, Odom, 38, said he was a partner in the law firm of Dixon and Odom in Fort Lauderdale, and served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 2000 to 2004. “My service in the military taught me hard work, dedication, and to treat everyone fair.”
He also said his life experience has prepared him to be a good judge. “I understand that despite ‘humble beginnings’, growing up without my biological father, and being raised in a disenfranchised community we all must be responsible for our actions,” he wrote.
From 2013 to 2016, Odom worked in the Broward Public Defender’s Office, where he had a good reputation. He is well connected in Broward’s Black community. He’s a member of more than 10 Black legal and civic groups.
Odom has a business degree from the University of North Florida and a law degree from Florida Coastal School of Law.
Bailey has a bachelor’s degree from Florida Atlantic University and a law degree from Nova Southeastern University School of Law.
Circuit judges are paid $162,000 a year and serve a six-year term.
Editorials are the opinion of the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board and written by one of its members or a designee. The Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Rosemary O’Hara, Dan Sweeney, Steve Bousquet and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson.
