- April 25, 2024
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W. Scott Westbrook
Age: 43
Family: married 21 years, 2 children age 7 & 9
Quirky Fact: play violin (classical style), part of a county gospel band, Tampa Bay Bucs fan, FL State Seminoles fan, prosecutor on pig lady case and calzone case
Bio: Grew up in DeLand, has been an attorney since 1997, and lived in Flagler since 2002. Westbrook and his wife, Lisa, got married in 1991, and he graduated from Stetson University with honors in 1994. Despite being diagnosed with muscular dystrophy, Scott graduated from Florida State College of Law in 1997. He spent five years as a judicial staff attorney, including to Judge Kim Hammond, was a civil attorney in state and federal court, and spent the last nine years as a prosecutor in Flagler County. Scott is endorsed by the Coastal Florida Police Benevolent Association representing most of Flagler’s law enforcement officers.
What is one experience that led you to want to become a judge?
In 1997, when I first graduated law school, I did what most people would do is take the first job offered to you, especially if you’re married. Couldn’t exactly sit around and wait for a job. … I was offered was as a law clerk in the 10th Circuit, which is in Polk County. They have a courthouse in Bartow, with about 18 judges that work there.
So anyway when I was offered that position, I took it. Frankly, I came to really love working with judges. … I drafted many orders for judges, got to review briefs that were filed by the parties, go to hearings with them, dealt with a lot of different issues that came in. And I think it’s the two and a half years of doing that that made me think, “Well this is something that I’d really like to do” …
Also, the fact is I’ve been one of these people throughout my life that had a lot of people come to me with their problems, and I grew up in my house where my dad was a preacher. …
I feel like it is important for us to have people who are highly qualified, who have great character and integrity in how they do things, and that treat people with the respect they deserve instead of acting as if we are so above them. And given the fact that this is a county court position that I’m running for I feel like I’m pretty uniquely qualified to do that. I’ve got a lot of life experience that deals with working many different types of jobs. I don’t come from some sort of “higher status,” so to speak in our society. I didn’t come from money; I paid for all of my education myself, am still paying on it almost 15 years later. And so the reality is I know what it’s like to work for a living, I know what it’s like to struggle; I know what it’s like to deal with just about any type of issue imaginable. So if I put all that together, that’s why I’m running.
What qualities are essential in a county judge?
You have to have very high ethics, for one thing. You have to be a person who will make decisions that they believe are right, not just in their best interests or what will make them look better. … Being able to empathize with people, to understand circumstances and know things that are going on in our community.
What makes you the most qualified out of all the candidates in this race?
No one’s been an attorney longer in Florida than I have, and no one’s been an attorney longer in this county and done as many cases in this county as me. I have handled over 25,000 cases in county court since 2003. I don’t think there’s a single candidate that even comes close to saying that. I’ve also worked with all the different components, and agencies, and the people, so I know all the people that deal with all the different issues in this county, whether you’re talking about criminal issues, of course, where you’re talking about probation departments or clerks that work in the court system, various agencies I’ve worked very closely with in the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office, with Flagler Police Department. I’ve dealt with them for years not just in the short basis but overall I think I have a longstanding rapport with the officers.
I think also I’ve handled more cases of significance in our county. I’ve done nearly a thousand DUIs. I’ve done several thousand domestic battery, violation of injunction, stalking, and those kinds of charges in that area. I’ve also done several thousand driving cases. …
I closed the other night one of the forums with a very simple question, which I think is a key question. It was very simple: If you had a question about something that was going to go on in county court, about how something was going to be done in county court, how something had been done in county court, and you could ask any one of the seven candidates that question, who would you ask? And frankly I think if you were to put that to most of the people in this county, the vast majority of them are going to say Scott Westbrook. … And I think most people feel like I’ve been fair, I’ve been respectful, I’ve been tough. …
I think you should be tough on DUI. I think you should be tough when it comes to violations of bond and domestic battery. And at the same time I think you should understand the various components that go into those offenses, the reasons they are priorities, and also some of the problems and pitfalls.
If elected, what changes would you make to the way the county court is run?
There needs to be more communication in our community with the law enforcement agencies … to explain to officers and agencies what we actually need to see in court and why it is important to actually have your witnesses listed or put down any information necessary in your charging affidavit. …
On the other hand I also think that a judge should take violations of bond, even things that occur within the court, seriously, because I think there needs to be a respect for the office. … We can’t let people play with the system …
I also believe that we need to work on being somewhat creative, I mean we work in a county now that, we have a jail that’s rated for 120, 130 something like that, but it is consistently over that as far as the number of people that are in our county jail.
There are some offenses where I think we need to be creative and come up with solutions on how to get them to do something that will have an impact that will deter them from trying to commit new offences but isn’t always jail. On the other hand we do need to put people committing serious offences in our county jail. I think a creative solution could be making people do more in the area of community service hours, cleaning up the roadways, things like that. …
I’ve been in so many different situations in my life that I think I have the ability to understand where somebody’s coming from. That doesn’t mean I’m not going to be tough about it. And I think I have the integrity to make a decision whether it’s popular or not.
