Judge N. Sanders Sauls, 59, is a county circuit court judge in
Florida. He heard
Al Gore’s legal challenge to the election results in
Palm Beach,
Miami-Dade, and
Nassau County, FL. He ruled against the challenge, but his ruling was overturned by the
Florida Supreme Court, which was overruled in turn by the US
Supreme Court.
Sauls grew up in the
Florida Panhandle and was the son of a
court clerk and a
tax collector. He graduated from
Florida State University and got his law degree from
University of Florida. After working as a prosecutor and
barnkruptcy judge, he was appointed a circuit court judge by
Republican Governor
Bob Martinez in
1989.
Though Sauls is a
Democrat, he is a very
conservative Democrat, and this was not his first run in with the Florida Supreme Court, a group he considers too "
liberal". Formerly the chief judge of the circuit, he was removed from that post in
1998 by the Supreme Court for "continuing disruption in the administration of justice" because of accusations of bias and for firing court administrator
Tom Long, whom Sauls considered insubordinate.
Democratic supporters found fault with his ruling against Gore chiefly because Sauls refused to examine any of the evidence, i.e. the ballots that were trucked up to
Tallahassee in that yellow
Ryder truck.