Judge Ayers offered the courtroom camera footage as proof she had not rolled her eyes at Husband, then refused to get it. When Husband requested that video as a public record, the circuit withheld it under a security-camera exemption it has never supported with a single fact, and still held it 403 days later, when a judge from outside the circuit found good cause to release it.
Art. I, s. 24(a) makes the recording of a court hearing a public record, presumed open. Asked for it by formal records request on July 24-25, 2025, the court produces it, or names a specific exemption and proves with facts that the exemption covers this recording. Separately, a judge who offers footage as proof of her own conduct has made it evidence: she gets it, preserves it, and produces it, because that conduct became a sworn ground for her disqualification.
- Apr. 4, 2025: Judge Ayers, disputing Husband's account that she rolled her eyes at him: "I will go get the camera footage and do it because I have not rolled my eyes at you." At the close of the hearing Husband asked, "Your Honor, I would ask that you request the video you referenced." The answer: "No, sir." Then: "Sir, you're crossing the line. This hearing is ended." N-042Read them: Hearing transcript, Apr. 4, 2025, pp. 75 and 193 (link pending redacted copy)
- July 24 to Aug. 21, 2025: Husband requested the video by formal public records request. Court Administrator Gina Justice, in a letter copied to Judge Ayers, confirmed "A video record does exist" for that hearing and withheld it as courthouse surveillance video. N-053Read them: Justice letter, Aug. 21, 2025 (link pending redacted copy)
- Apr. 17, 2026: her successor, Judge Felix, asked whether he had reviewed the video: "I have not." May 15, 2026: the circuit, defending Husband's records suit, admitted no court order determines it confidential and wrote beside the exemption: "No analysis was needed." Sept. 2, 2026, its counsel called the recording "the April 4, 2025 hearing-room video recording" and attached no affidavit. N-076, N-053, N-157
- Sept. 28, 2026: a judge from outside the circuit found that "good cause exists under section 119.071(3)(a)3.d., Florida Statutes, for disclosure of the video to Plaintiff," 403 days after the withholding letter, and ordered the exchange within ten days. N-156, N-157Who at the Thirteenth Circuit watched the April 4, 2025 video before withholding it?
Judge Kelly A. Ayers (offered the footage; "No, sir"; ended the hearing; copied on the withholding letter). Court Administrator Gina Justice (confirmed the video exists; withheld it). Judge Matthew Felix, her successor ("I have not."). One hearing, one offer, one refusal, one records request for the same recording. Every duty here arises from what Judge Ayers said in her own courtroom and from one written denial; no other card is needed to establish it.
Art. I, s. 24(a), Fla. Const. presumes every judicial-branch record open and puts the burden of any exemption on the custodian. Rule 2.420(m)(2) requires a denial to state its basis in writing. Evidence a judge volunteers about her own conduct is evidence she has put in issue, and the party in the room can reach it.
The details are where it lives: full record, receipts, related cards
The judge offered "the camera footage" as proof about her own conduct, then answered "No, sir" when asked to get it.
On April 4, 2025 Judge Ayers volunteered courthouse-camera footage to disprove an alleged eye-roll: "I will go get the camera footage and do it because I have not rolled my eyes at you." Husband asked her to pursue that footage. At the close of the hearing he asked again; she answered, "No, sir," and when he pressed, said he was "crossing the line" and ended the hearing. The footage has never been produced to Husband, and no court or party has ever examined it on the record (N-103 records the defendants' statement that someone viewed it, without saying who). This is the April 4, 2025 courthouse video, called the video in later cards: courthouse demeanor footage, not a recording of the proceedings. [DENIED]
Evidence a judge volunteers about her own conduct is evidence she has put in issue; once she points to a record as her own proof, it has to be reachable by the other person in the room, and the Florida Constitution presumes a judicial-branch record open with the burden of any exemption on the custodian. The same footage is the object of the records litigation that follows, later confirmed to exist and withheld (N-053). The alleged eye-roll rests on Husband's sworn firsthand account in a verified motion later granted as legally sufficient.
the judge offered the courthouse camera footage as proof about her own conduct, and when Husband asked her to go get it she said "No, sir" and ended the hearing, and it has never been produced.
- Doc 198 Tr. 75:12-16 and 75:15-17 (the volunteered footage and Husband's request that she get it), and Tr. 193:9-14 (the refusal, "No, sir," then "you're crossing the line. This hearing is ended.").
- Doc 183 p. 10, the verified second disqualification motion carrying the sworn eye-roll account under its own heading, filed 4/24/25 and granted as legally sufficient 4/28/25 (N-047).