Public defender Melina Buncome will fill the open seat on the Duval County Court bench, winning the appointment Tuesday night to serve as the next judge for the “people’s court.”

Across the state, just two other county court races advanced to runoffs after August’s primary. Both of those races challenged sitting judges in county court, which are limited jurisdiction courts responsible for both criminal and civil matters, including handling citizen disputes, misdemeanor criminal cases, civil contract issues, traffic violations, and landlord-tenant disputes.

In Seminole County, family law attorney Alena Chaban overwhelmingly defeated sitting Judge Wayne Culver with 62.92% of the vote, or 101,751 votes. Culver, who was disciplined for a profanity-ridden speech while on the bench in 2024, earned 59,975 votes, or 37.08%, according to unofficial results.

In Liberty County, sitting Judge Christopher Bufano staved off challenger lawyer Laura Wahlquist Parish with 57.19%, or 1,511 votes, according to unofficial results in the rural county.

County court judges are elected for six-year terms.

Duval Group 13: Public defender pulls ahead of prosecutor

Melina Buncome. Courtesy

Buncome overcame prosecutor Octavius Holliday Jr. in the polls after the pair advanced to a runoff in August’s primary. Buncome, a public defender since 1997, earned 52.37% of the vote, or 161,658 votes, according to Duval’s unofficial results.

Holliday, who ended election night Tuesday with 47.63% of the vote, or 147,051 votes, had initially topped Buncome in the primary vote, coming 4 percentage points ahead of her in August.

Buncome currently works as the director of the Problem Solving Courts in the Fourth Judicial Circuit, overseeing mental health, veterans treatment court, and adult drug cases in Nassau, Clay, and Duval counties.

“I bring all that, so if you wrap that all up and you take that on the bench, you have a better insight on the people that come before you on a daily basis,” Buncome said in an interview with The Florida Trib lats month.

Holliday previously told the Trib about serving as a prosecutor as well as in criminal defense, family law, civil law, and in private practice. At the State Attorney’s Office, his cases mostly involve elder abuse or exploitation, while also serving on both grand jury and officer-involved shooting review panels.

Alena Chaban. Seminole Supervisor of Elections.

Seminole Group 6: Family law attorney unseats sitting judge in rare challenge

Alena Chaban, a family law attorney, defeated Seminole County Court Judge Wayne Culver with an overwhelming majority in a rare challenge to a sitting county court judge.

In 2021, Chaban and her husband founded their own law firm in Apopka, focusing on family law.

She attended University of Central Florida for her undergraduate degree and attended law school at Barry University in Orlando. 

Culver was first elected in 2020, and, in 2024, he was suspended without pay for 60 days after “engaging in abusive and intemperate conduct during two separate court proceedings,” the Florida Supreme Court ruled.

During one of the interactions, Culver noticed a man looking for a seat “and yelled in a loud, aggressive voice, ‘Sir, I’m doing something here. Could you shut up and sit down.’” When the man replied that he was trying to find a seat, Culver said, “that’s not shutting up. You want to be held in contempt and go to jail? I asked you a f—g question, a—e,” according to the Florida Bar.

Liberty 1: Judge Bufano staves off challenger

In rural Liberty County, Judge Christopher Bufano — a former lawyer representing state law enforcement — staved off a challenge from local lawyer Laura Wahlquist Parish with 57.19% of the vote. Bufano is also an acting judge in the 2nd Judicial Circuit.

Wahlquist Parish garnered 1,131 votes, or 42.81%.

Bufano was appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2024 after longtime Judge Kenneth Hosford resigned amid an ethics investigation into his ex parte comments to prosecutors about their decision not to file charges in a theft case. 
Before his appointment, Bufano worked in general counsel roles for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement since 2016, as an assistant state attorney, and in private practice.

Molly Farrar covers accountability and policy in the consolidated city-county government of Jacksonville for The Florida Trib. Before joining us as a Report for America corps member, Farrar worked as a staff writer for Boston.com with the Boston Globe, WHDH Channel 7, and as a freelance reporter in the Greater Boston area covering local politics. Her news and transportation reporting won regional awards, and Farrar was selected as a First Amendment Institute Fellow with the New England First Amendment Coalition. Her investigative work on criminal justice and prisons was published in GBH News and The Intercept. Her stories have also appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and The Boston Globe. Farrar graduated from Boston University with a degree in journalism and cello performance, where she also served as editor-in-chief of the Daily Free Press, the independent student newspaper. You can reach Molly at molly.farrar@floridatrib.org.