DeSantis appoints Casselberry attorney Bryanna Bynum to Seminole County Court
Casselberry attorney Bryanna Bynum was named to Seminole County Court, filling the seat left by Judge John Woodard and keeping Division U at Sanford’s criminal courthouse.
Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed Casselberry attorney Bryanna Bynum to the Seminole County Court on June 26, filling the vacancy left by Judge John Woodard and putting a new judge on a bench that touches daily criminal and civil life in Sanford and across Seminole County. The assignment will also keep Division U tied to the Seminole County criminal courthouse at 101 Bush Blvd., where local lawyers, defendants and business owners have long tracked the courtroom’s pace and tone.
Bynum has served as managing partner at Smith & Eulo Law Firm since 2023, after earlier work as an assistant state attorney in the 18th Judicial Circuit. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Boston College and her juris doctor from Florida Coastal School of Law. That mix of prosecution experience and private-practice leadership gives Seminole County a judge with firsthand experience on both sides of the local courtroom, from charging decisions to defense strategy and the pressure of moving cases through a busy county docket.
The vacancy she will fill was created by the retirement of John Woodard, who stepped down in 2025 and died on April 21, 2026. Woodard was widely associated with specialty justice work in Seminole County, including helping establish one of the first veterans courts in Central Florida and handling mental health court here. His former division had remained part of the county’s criminal-court operations, and court materials now identify Bynum as the judge who will take over that work.
The appointment also fits Florida’s merit-selection system for county judges, under which a nonpartisan Judicial Nominating Commission recruits and evaluates candidates before the governor makes the final choice. Bynum was one of five judicial appointees DeSantis announced and one of three county-court picks recognized at the same time by the Conference of County Court Judges of Florida, alongside George Young in Putnam County and Hunter Morrill in Volusia County. For Seminole County, the change matters because it places Bynum over a seat shaped by Woodard’s specialty-court legacy and by the ordinary flow of cases that move through Sanford every day.
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