Lawyers who represent death row inmates on appeal could have had their workload chopped in half had a bill in the Florida Legislature gone to the governor this week.
The bill, which passed in the Florida House on Friday night but which died in the Senate, would have stopped Capital Collateral Regional Counsel lawyers from representing their death row clients on appeal in federal court. Currently, CCRC lawyers represent them in their state and federal rounds of appeals.
According to House analysts' assessment, the change could have saved $1.7 million.
"The state of Florida should not be paying for death row inmates to sue the state in federal court," said Rep. Joe Negron, R-Stuart, who sponsored the bill along with the House Appropriations Committee. "The federal government has a program through the federal public defender's office to represent death row inmates in court."
Negron said lawyers file federal appeals when their state court appeals are rejected, meaning they lost those cases. A new lawyer with a fresh look at these cases might be more effective, he said.
"Frankly, I don't think it would make a difference," Negron said.
House staffers thought CCRC lawyers spend 40 percent of their time working on federal appeals, said Roger Moss, with the Commission on Capital Cases.
"They couldn't spend that amount of time in federal court," Moss said. "Almost all federal cases are dismissed within a couple of months, so there's not much activity there."
Moss said CCRC lawyers spend about half of 1 percent of their time working on federal appeals. That means discontinuing CCRC lawyers work on federal appeals would not equate to a $1.7 million savings, he said.
CCRC lawyer Robert Strain, attorney for Bonita Springs resident Harold Gene Lucas, said deadlines for filing federal court appeals are strict.
A 1996 federal law states that lawyers have one year from the time their state court appeals are exhausted to file federal appeals. CCRC lawyers, as they work on state appeals, learn which federal appeals issues they may raise in future federal appeals, Moss said.
Throwing a fresh lawyer onto the case with little knowledge of it and little prep time could be catastrophic. Inmates' rights could be violated, Strain said.
"Could they go through all the records in a month? I doubt it," Strain said.
Lucas, 52, is on death row for the 1976 killing of his girlfriend, Bonita Springs resident Jill Piper, and the wounding of two of her friends.
Negron said he does not plan to reintroduce the bill next year. However, inmates are better off represented by federal public defenders who specialize in federal appeals and know how federal courts work, he added.
"That is insulting," Strain said.
There are 365 inmates on Florida's death row, according to Department of Corrections records. Fifty-eight inmates have been executed since 1979. Since 1973, 25 inmates have been exonerated, according to Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.
Legislators have tried to cut CCRC's funding in the past and also have tried to limit these lawyers' work for death row inmates.
"It's not a bill that got a lot of attention," Rep. Carole Green, R-Fort Myers, said. "I believe that we need to have changes with the Capital Collateral Regional Counsel that we have."
Green, who voted for the bill, said she supports limiting the number of appeals for inmates already sentenced to death.
"Appeal after appeal after appeal goes on and victims never get to see justice carried out," she said. "I don't know that it will have the positive effect I'm hoping for."
But she said she hopes the bill sends a message to the judicial system.
"We're not going to keep funding this," said Green, whose grandfather once worked as sheriff of Fayette County, Ill. "I certainly do support defendants' rights, but they have been adjudicated guilty by the court system. Our pendulum has swung too far."
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