Ursula Mancusi Ungaro

Ursula Mancusi Ungaro (born 1951; formerly known as Ursula Ungaro-Benages) is an American lawyer and judge.

Ungaro was born in 1951 in Miami Beach, Florida. She graduated from the University of Miami with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1973 and from the University of Florida College of Law with a Juris Doctorate in 1975.

Ungaro was in private practice in Miami from 1976 to 1987. Ungaro practiced at Frates Floyd Pearson Stewart Richman & Greer from 1976 to 1978, Blackwell Walker Gray Powers Flick & Hoelhl from 1978 to 1980, Finley Kumble Heine Underberg Manley & Casey from 1980 to 1985, and was a shareholder at Sparber Shap & Heilbronner, P.A. from 1985 to 1987.^[1] Ungaro was a judge of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit of Florida from 1987 to 1992.

President George H.W. Bush nominated Ungaro-Benages to the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida on November 26, 1991, to the new seat created by 104 Stat. 5089. Confirmed by the Senate on October 8, 1992, she received commission on October 9, 1992.

On April 26, 2012, Judge Ungaro ruled that an order issued by Florida Governor Rick Scott to randomly drug test 80,000 Florida state workers was unconstitutional. Ungaro found that Scott had not demonstrated that there was a compelling reason for the tests and that, as a result, they were an unreasonable search in violation of the Constitution.^[2]

Sources

• Ursula Mancusi Ungaro at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a public domain publication of the Federal Judicial Center.