Recent editorials from Florida newspapers:
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March 21
Tampa Bay Times on a Florida prosecutor’s anti-death penalty stand:
The controversy surrounding Orlando State Attorney Aramis Ayala and her decision not to seek the death penalty in the case of a man accused of killing a police officer - or any case in her jurisdiction - is escalating by the day. But cool heads are needed, not blanket statements or reactionary calls for removing an elected prosecutor. Superseding any single case and even the larger debate about the death penalty is the imperative to preserve the independence and discretion of Florida’s constitutionally elected officials.
Ayala, a Democrat who took office in January, announced last week she would not seek the death penalty for Markeith Loyd, who is charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of his pregnant ex-girlfriend and Orlando police Lt. Debra Clayton. Prosecutors in Florida have broad discretion over when to seek capital punishment, with the law directing that they weigh the facts and circumstances of each case individually. But Ayala, in announcing her decision, didn’t cite any specifics about Loyd’s case. She offered only general criticisms of the death penalty - that it’s not an effective crime deterrent and brings further pain to victims’ families - and made the extraordinary declaration that she wouldn’t seek the death penalty in any case. Florida’s death penalty has outlasted its usefulness and should be repealed, but capital punishment is the law in Florida and prosecutors are obligated to consider it in every first-degree murder case. Ayala, by issuing a sweeping refusal to consider the death penalty in any case, flouts her authority and has let her personal views outweigh her professional obligations.
Gov. Rick Scott removed her from the Loyd case and reassigned it to the state attorney in a neighboring circuit. Scott first asked Ayala to withdraw from the case, and when she refused, he seized on a state law that allows the governor to appoint a new prosecutor to a case if he finds a “good and sufficient reason” to take it away from the original prosecutor. This is a precarious path. Governors should not intercede in charging decisions about individual cases, and it’s a close call whether Scott overstepped his authority.
More than 100 attorneys, law professors and judges, including former state Supreme Court chief justices Harry Lee Anstead and Gerald Kogan and former Florida State University president Sandy D’Alemberte, say he did. In a letter sent to Scott on Monday, the lawyers wrote: “The governor picking and choosing how criminal cases are prosecuted, charged or handled in local matters is troubling as a matter of policy and practice.” With that troubling precedent, there’s all the more reason for caution and measured steps. But Rep. Chris Sprowls, R-Palm Harbor, a former prosecutor who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, is among those calling for Ayala’s removal. Such rhetoric is inflammatory and unjustified.
In a better Florida, there would be no death penalty, which over its history has been unevenly applied, saddled taxpayers with enormous expense and resulted in the death of innocent people. But as long as it is in force, state attorneys are legally bound to consider it in first-degree murder cases and make independent decisions. To do that justly, they must be able to exercise their discretion free from political interference. Ayala should reconsider her position and pledge to consider each death penalty case individually - and the governor and state legislators should not intervene when they disagree.
Online:
https://www.tampabay.com
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March 20
The Daytona Beach News-Journal on Florida spending millions on private attorneys:
State Rep. Carlos Trujillo, R-Miami, chair of the House Appropriations Committee, called it “insane” and “a runaway train.” Dominic Calabro, president of Florida TaxWatch, described the total as “a gosh lot of money.” House Speaker Richard Corcoran said, “We’re getting gouged.”
Is it spending on a taxpayer-subsidized economic or tourism development agency? An expensive and inefficient social welfare program?
No, it’s the more than $250 million Florida has spent on private legal fees since 2011. That includes $16 million the state had to pay for opponents’ attorney fees. It’s a total the state wasn’t even aware of until the Associated Press added up the costs by analyzing budget documents and making public records requests and bringing the data to the attention of key officials.
A chunk of that figure - more than $41 million just in the last 18 months alone - went to a legitimate cause: Florida’s legal fight with Georgia over water rights. That battle, which has been ongoing for nearly three decades, involves a dispute over how much water Georgia siphons from the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin in Florida and Alabama to accommodate growth in the metro Atlanta area. More water for Georgia means less for the Apalachicola Bay in Florida’s Panhandle, which harms marine life and, by extension, that area’s renowned oyster industry.
Florida is justified in seeking to protect its environmental and economic interests. But its decision to spend so much on private attorneys when the attorney general’s office already employs 450 state lawyers - with an annual budget of nearly $309 million - deserves a second look.
Meanwhile, other legal fees are more questionable or flat-out wasteful. These include Gov. Rick Scott’s losing battle to test welfare recipients for drugs, a policy that, based on precedent, had no shot from the beginning of passing legal muster. The state also has hired outside legal counsel to defend efforts to trim the state’s voter registration lists and ban companies that do business with Cuba from bidding on government contracts.
States commonly use private attorneys to supplement their state employees, but as the AP notes Florida’s practice appears exceptionally lucrative to outside lawyers. For instance, it found that New York state since 2012 has spent more than $86 million on such fees - an average of $17 million a year, or less than half what Florida has spent.
What worse is that nobody in Tallahassee was keeping track of the bills. The AP reports that a spokesman for Attorney General Pam Bondi’s office explained he didn’t have that information and was “unaware of a way to capture expenditures for the purchase of outside legal services that would not entail an exhaustive search of documents.” In addition, the governor, Legislature and other state elected officials do not have to report their spending on legal fees to the AG.
When lawmakers this legislative session seek to identify spending to cut so they can fit more important priorities into the budget, one of the first places they should look is Florida’s reliance on private attorneys. They need to question whether the state needs to hire so many outsiders to do its legal work and whether it is paying exorbitant rates when it perhaps could get better deals elsewhere. Finally, the Legislature needs to create a process that accounts for every cent spent on attorney’s fees so it is transparent and can be regularly monitored.
Online:
https://www.news-journalonline.com
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March 20
Ocala Star Banner on medical marijuana legislation:
In November, 71 percent of Florida voters said “yes” to a sensible, narrowly drawn ballot question allowing the use of medical marijuana. The language of the constitutional amendment set out a class of diseases - including cancer, PTSD, multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease - where marijuana use has been shown to relieve symptoms, and sketched a regulatory framework designed to ensure that Florida didn’t see drive-through pot shops or doctors willing to write prescriptions for everything from general stress to hangnails.
Unfortunately, some lawmakers want to whittle away access even more - and some of their proposals would clearly undermine the compassionate intent of Florida’s new constitutional mandate.
Some concern over marijuana use is certainly legitimate. Florida voters’ first look at medical marijuana, presented on the 2014 ballot, was just too broadly drawn; it would have opened the door to the kind of nudge-nudge-wink-wink atmosphere that surrounded the introduction of medical marijuana elsewhere. It fell short of the votes needed to pass.
But many who opposed the 2014 amendment (including this newspaper) believed those concerns were adequately addressed in the 2016 language - and that it would be cruel to deny relief to people whose genuine suffering could be eased.
Unfortunately, the state Department of Health is recommending regulations that would make it extremely difficult for many of those suffering Floridians to use medical marijuana. And some lawmakers want to make the state’s regulatory framework so strict that they risk thwarting voters’ will. Among some of the provisions gaining traction, particularly in the House bill:
- A ban on marijuana edibles, and a near-ban on the sale of cannabis oil for use in vaporizers - two forms that many sick patients find most manageable. So that basically leaves patients to cook up their own dosing solutions. It would be far safer to allow the dispensing of premeasured, ready-to-use doses in forms that are easy to manage.
- A requirement that doctors can only prescribe to patients they’ve been treating for at least 90 days. On its surface, it’s clearly aimed at opportunistic doctors who will freely authorize anyone to use marijuana. But it ignores the reality in Florida: The patients currently being treated for qualifying ailments have relationships with doctors - sometimes a dozen or more doctors - but most of those doctors won’t seek licenses to authorize pot. Finding yet another physician is an undue burden, particularly for those whose life expectancy is measured in weeks or even days.
- The number of dispensaries will be sharply limited, something that is almost certain to drive up prices.
None of the five Senate versions of the marijuana legislation match up exactly with the over-strict House language. But they still include unreasonable restrictions, and many hand a huge advantage to the seven companies already allowed to dispense under the current, extremely limited state law.
Only one bill really lines up with the intent of the 2016 vote. It’s sponsored by Sen. Jeff Brandes, and balances common-sense restrictions with market-driven regulation that offers the best prescription for compassionate but controlled access. Under most of the other bills, Florida leaders can expect that many patients with legitimate needs will still be forced into the black market to ease their pain, nausea and other symptoms.
Lawmakers have a simple choice. They can write laws that make it as difficult as possible to access medical marijuana - and brace themselves for a flood of litigation and stories about dying patients and war veterans suffering needlessly. Or they can take the better, more compassionate path, which is to honor the will of voters and write a law that allows access to medical marijuana without inviting abuse.
Online:
https://www.ocala.com
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