Top prosecutor Fernández Rundle wins again
■ Despite intense criticism over her long record in office, Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernández Rundle on Tuesday night won her seventh elected term as the county’s top law-enforcement officer.
After 27 years in office, Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernández Rundle is getting four more.
Despite withering attacks from opponents over her record on policeshooting cases, voters on Tuesday delivered Fernández Rundle a resounding victory, giving her a seventh elected term as Miami-Dade’s top law-enforcement officer.
By 9 p.m., with early and absentee votes counted and 80 percent of precincts tallied, Fernández Rundle led with 61 percent of the vote.
Fernández Rundle bested Melba Pearson, a former Miami-Dade prosecutor who ran on a campaign of criminal-justice
reform. Both are Democrats. The state attorney won despite bruising criticism, including from leadership within the local Democratic Party, over her record during nearly three decades in office.
“We ran and we won on the strength of our record,” Fernández Rundle told followers at a small watch party held at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers hall near the Miami-Dade criminal courthouse.
Fernández Rundle, 70, has been in office since 1993, when she was named to replace Janet Reno, who left to become the U.S. Attorney General under President Bill Clinton.
Pearson, also the former deputy director of Florida’s American Civil Liberties Union, had hoped to capitalize on national calls for justice reform spurred on by the death of George Floyd. Since Floyd died in May, at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer, unprecedented protests against police brutality took place in cities across the United States — and became a flash point across the political spectrum.
Before 9 p.m., Pearson called Fernández Rundle to concede. In an interview, Pearson said it was “an honor to chat with people all over the county about their concerns and making them feel heard.”
“While the results are not what I wanted, I think we had a valuable discussion around very critical issues like policing, juvenile justice and criminal justice reform,” Pearson said.
In Miami, Black Lives Matter protesters have taken to the streets for weeks, and increasingly called for voters to oust Fernández Rundle because of her record over her many years in office. One group, last week, even showed up outside the gated complex in Coconut Grove where Fernández Rundle lives.
Recent events were not lost on Fernández Rundle, who as she declared victory announced the formation of a task force made up of academics, activists, police officers and others to examine the inequities raised by the Black Lives Matter movement.
“I am completely committed to seeding this movement for meaningful, bold reforms in the social justice and criminal justice arenas,” Fernández Rundle told the Miami Herald on Tuesday night.
As Pearson’s campaign did, protesters had ripped Fernández Rundle for