Lakewood Ranch area voters will see a judicial retention question on their Nov. 3 ballot: whether to retain Chief Judge Daniel H. Sleet on Florida's Second District Court of Appeal.

Retention votes are not contested races. Instead, the ballot asks a simple yes-or-no question. A judge who receives a majority of "yes" votes stays on the bench.

Candidate information

  • Name: Daniel H. Sleet
  • Office: Florida Second District Court of Appeal, District 2
  • Current role: Chief judge, as listed on the court's official homepage
  • Party: Nonpartisan
  • Education: Bachelor's degree in history, Furman University (1984); juris doctor, Cumberland School of Law (1987)
  • Florida Bar admission: Oct. 7, 1987; no discipline history in the past 10 years, according to his Florida Bar member profile

Experience and public service

Sleet has spent more than two decades on the bench. Governor Rick Scott appointed him to the Second District Court of Appeal in December 2012, according to the court's biography page. He became chief judge in 2025.

Before joining the appeals court, Governor Jeb Bush appointed Sleet to the 13th Judicial Circuit Court in Hillsborough County in 2005. He was reelected to that seat without opposition in 2008, according to the court's biography.

Sleet began his legal career as a magistrate in Birmingham, Alabama, from 1985 to 1987. He then served as an assistant state attorney in the Hillsborough County State Attorney's Office from 1987 to 1991, where he tried more than 50 jury trials including capital murder, RICO, drug trafficking and violent felony cases, according to the court's biography.

He entered private practice in 1991 at Barr, Murman & Tonelli in Tampa, rising from associate to partner. He left the firm when he joined the circuit bench in 2005.

Sleet has also served as an adjunct professor of trial advocacy at the University of Tampa. He chairs the Legislative Committee of the Second District Court of Appeal and served as president of the Tampa Bay Chapter of the American Board of Trial Advocates in 2017, according to the court's biography.

He received the 2017 Jurist of the Year Award from the Tampa Bay ABOTA Chapter and the 2021 Jurist of the Year Award from the Florida ABOTA Chapter, according to the court's biography. The Florida Supreme Court certified him as a mediator, and he earned an A.V. rating from Martindale-Hubbell.

As a student at Furman University, Sleet earned First Team All-Southern Conference and Associated Press 1-AA All American honors as an offensive lineman, according to the court's biography. At Cumberland School of Law, he was awarded a scholarship in his third year as director of trial advocacy and was a member of the 1987 ATLA national championship mock trial team.

On the issues

No candidate questionnaire response or issue positions were available for this profile.

Voters will find the retention question for Sleet on the Nov. 3 general election ballot, with the option to vote yes or no on whether he remains on the appeals court.