Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Attorney general on wrong side in voter fraud appeals
Florida prosecutors and state attorneys general are typically on the same side of criminal cases on appeal.
But they are on opposite sides over Gov. Ron DeSantis’ desire to have Tallahassee monopolize the prosecution of low-level election fraud cases.
That’s the issue in four pending cases in district courts of appeals, where Attorney General Ashley Moody is contesting trial court rulings that the statewide prosecutor, whom she appoints, does not have the constitutional authority to charge ex-felons who are accused of registering or voting illegally.
The public interest in these cases weighs heavily against Moody’s arguments.
Usurping local power, again
It’s never good, regardless of why, when Tallahassee tries to seize power from local officials such as Florida’s 20 elected state attorneys. The overriding issue is whether the Florida Constitution means what it says when it was amended to create a statewide prosecution office limited to organized crime, narcotics and other activities that transcend the borders of the 20 judicial circuits.
None of the defendants in these election cases did anything other than vote where they lived. Moody’s Office of Statewide Prosecution (OSP) makes the fatuous claim that the actions took on statewide consequences because the applications were mailed to the Division of Elections in Tallahassee, which approved them. Please. The defendants had nothing to do with that.
No state attorney opted to offend DeSantis and Moody by intervening in the four appeals. But their interests are represented in briefs filed by the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys (APA).
Other briefs were filed by two people who were instrumental in the 1986 constitutional amendment that created the statewide prosecutor’s office: Former Hialeah Mayor Raul Martinez and Robert Josefsberg, a legal advisor to then-Gov. Bob Graham.
“At no point was the OSP intended or designed to replace state attorneys and usurp their role in prosecuting single circuit crimes,” their briefs say.
‘Two or more’ a key factor
The amendment limits the OSP’s reach to crimes “occurring or having occurred in two or more judicial circuits, as part of a related transaction, or when any such offense is affecting or has affected two or more circuits as provided by general law.”
That limitation is still in the Constitution, which only voters can amend. Once judges began tossing out the election fraud cases,
DeSantis got the Legislature to change the implementing law to include election crimes that “affect” more than one circuit.
But trial judges have been mostly unimpressed by that.
It’s distressing that Moody and DeSantis won’t simply let the state attorneys do what they were elected to do, which reasonably includes declining to prosecute minor crimes in which defendants did not knowingly break the law or were confused about their eligibility to vote.
State-approved paperwork
For most, if not all, of the people hunted down by DeSantis’ election police, the Division of Elections had approved their registrations. The state has no database to advise applicants whether they are disqualified from voting.
That’s by intent, meant to trap people who mistakenly think they’re qualified under the voting rights restoration initiative known as Amendment 4, in which voters restored the voting rights of most convicted felons in 2018. But DeSantis and the Legislature have worked to sabotage it.
The cases have drawn unusual national interest, all on the side of the defendants whom Moody wants the OSP to prosecute. Friend of court briefs were filed by the Brennan Center for Justice, ACLU and NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund. Former Republican state Sen. Jeff Brandes of St. Petersburg is also represented in briefs opposing Moody.
Moody’s argument, in essence, is simply that the registrations were statewide crimes because the paperwork was processed in more than one circuit.
That’s absurd, as the opposition briefs make clear. The judges of the Third, Fourth and Sixth District Courts of Appeals should say so, too.
For Moody to win would set a precedent for her office, rather than local prosecutors, to prosecute virtually any local crime, such as those involving checking accounts, car registrations or false insurance claims, that might involve routine paperwork crossing circuit boundaries.
Eyes on Palm Beach County
The appeal most likely to be decided first is at the Fourth DCA in West Palm Beach, which has scheduled arguments for March 19 in the case of Terry Hubbard, 64, of Pompano Beach, whose attorney is state Rep. Mike Gottlieb, D-Davie. Broward Circuit Judge George Odom
Jr. dismissed the case against Hubbard on jurisdictional grounds and the state appealed.
Hubbard “never in any way, shape, form or fashion entered Leon County,” Odom wrote, dismissing the case in December 2022.
In defending Hubbard, Gottlieb said all the defendants are “pawns in a political game.”
He got that right. So should the courts.
The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writer Martin Dyckman and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson. Editorials are the opinion of the Board and written by one of its members or a designee. To contact us, email at letters@sunsentinel.com.