After interviewing 10 applicants for a vacancy on the circuit court in Clay, Duval and Nassau counties Sept. 2, the 4th Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission selected six candidates to be considered for appointment by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
They will be interviewed in Tallahassee by the governor’s staff. DeSantis will appoint one of the candidates or ask the commission to provide alternative nominees.
The six candidates are:
Marquita Green is a general magistrate in the 4th Judicial Circuit.
She graduated from Florida State University College of Law in May 2009 and was admitted to The Florida Bar in September 2009.
After graduation, Green was a supervising attorney with the Florida Department of Children and Families in Tallahassee, then worked for the Office of the State Courts Administrator.
She moved to Jacksonville in 2018 to join Jacksonville Area Legal Aid as its family law low bono director.
Green went into private practice in January 2020 until she was appointed magistrate in August 2021.
Jenny Higginbotham is a Nassau County judge who graduated from Florida State College of Law and was admitted to The Florida Bar in 2001.
She was an assistant public defender in Tallahassee until she moved to Jacksonville in 2004 when she became associate general counsel and later, senior counsel at Fidelity National Title Group.
Higginbotham was elected to the Nassau County bench in 2021.
Matthew Lufrano is owner and shareholder at Lufrano Legal P.A.
After graduating from the University of Florida Levin College of Law, he was admitted to The Florida Bar in 2009 and became an assistant public defender in Jacksonville.
Lufrano went into private practice with a partner in 2014 and became a solo practitioner in 2020. His practice focuses on criminal trial law, representing clients charged with felonies or misdemeanors in the 4th Judicial Circuit. He is board certified by The Florida Bar in criminal trial law.
Kristina Mobley is a Clay County judge.
She graduated from the University of Florida Levin College of Law in 2009 and was the 4th Circuit judicial staff attorney in Clay County until she was appointed to the Clay County bench in 2015 by Gov. Rick Scott.
Before enrolling in law school, Mobley was a teacher at Tynes Elementary School in Middleburg for 11 years.
Joel Powell is an assistant state attorney in the 4th Judicial Circuit.
He graduated from the University of Florida Levin College of Law and was admitted to The Florida Bar in 2005.
Powell joined the 4th Circuit State Attorney’s Office after law school, then became claims counsel and fraud counsel at Fidelity National Title Insurance Co. in 2012.
In 2018, he went into private practice until returning to the SAO in 2022.
Nicole Saunders is an administrative law judge with the state Division of Administrative Hearings in Jacksonville.
A 2016 graduate of the University of Florida Levin College of Law, she began her career as a corporate associate attorney at Fidelity Information Services.
In 2017, Saunders became an assistant state attorney in the 4th Circuit, then joined a Jacksonville law firm as an associate in 2019.
In 2020, she moved to Tallahassee to become senior staff attorney for state Supreme Court Justice Jamie Grosshans, then in 2022, was a deputy general counsel at the Florida Department of Education.
Saunders moved back to Jacksonville in 2023 to be a state administrative law judge.
During a summer break in law school, she was law clerk to U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley.