The Florida Bar issued the following announcement on Dec. 30.
A Central Florida lawmaker is renewing an effort to create a statewide council on prosecutorial misconduct.
Sen. Randolph Bracy, D-Orlando, filed SB 1174 on December 7. The measure has yet to receive committee references ahead of the 60-day legislative session that convenes January 11. There is no House sponsor.
The measure would create a “Statewide Council on Prosecutorial Misconduct” consisting of four state attorneys, four public defenders or their assistants, a district court of appeal judge, and two circuit or county court judges.
Council members would be appointed by either the governor, Senate president, or House speaker.
Under the bill, the council would review complaints and provide “recommendations and findings relating to prosecutorial misconduct to the Department of Lawyer Regulation within The Florida Bar and to the Chief Justice of the Florida Supreme Court.”
The proposal would allow any member of the public to submit a complaint on a form that would be created by the Attorney General’s Office.
Bracy filed a similar measure, SB 262, in 2020, but withdrew it before an initial hearing in the Criminal Justice Committee.
When he filed it in 2020, Bracy said he believed most prosecutors perform their duties ethically and stressed that the bill was not related to a particular case or incident.
“I just wanted to hold state attorneys accountable,” he said. “It’s just to make sure, if there are legitimate claims of misconduct, that they are handled appropriately.”
Eighteenth Circuit State Attorney Phil Archer, then president of the Florida Prosecuting Attorneys Association, called the proposal unfair.
“I find it personally offensive to create a separate council targeted solely at prosecutors,” he said. “Why not create a separate council targeted solely at public defenders? Why not a council on regional conflict counsel?”
In 2018, New York lawmakers created what was billed as the nation’s first prosecutorial misconduct commission, but it did not survive a court challenge filed by that state’s prosecuting attorneys association.
New York lawmakers passed an alternate version earlier this year, but the commission, which has little disciplinary authority, has yet to be formed.
Original source can be found here.