Miami-Dade County Court Judge Kristy Nunez

Miami-Dade County Court Judge Kristy Nunez was elected to an open seat last November and joined the bench this year in the criminal division. She was a state prosecutor with the Miami-Dade state attorney's office for 13 years after starting there as an intern. As a prosecutor, she handled 50 jury trials and led the human trafficking unit. Nunez is a former chief of the felony division and worked in the career criminal and robbery unit and the sexual battery and child abuse unit. She also helped train newer prosecutors and law enforcement officers and served on the board of the Miami-Dade League of Prosecutors. In 2010, she co-founded Urban Promise Miami, a nonprofit serving at-risk youth and their families that has helped drive up high school graduation rates. While in law school, she clerked for U.S. Magistrate Judge Ted E. Bandstra in Miami. She is a Miami native and the daughter of Cuban immigrants.