Death-penalty lawyer’s bills to taxpayers are being examined
For Florida taxpayers, footing the legal bills for accused murderers facing the death penalty is costly — especially in MiamiDade County, where a small group of court-appointed lawyers and experts handle many of the cases before trial.
One of those lawyers is now under scrutiny after a Miami-Dade judge and a state commission found discrepancies in his billing for defending Jorge Barahona, the man accused of the notorious torture murder of his 10-year-old adopted daughter. The attorney is David Peckins, who has earned at least $1.3 million in fees for defending Barahona — and more than $3 million since 2010 on court-appointed cases, according to state records.
In the Barahona case, a Miami-Dade judge recently found that over the years, he billed 77 hours — to review the same 222 pages of medical examiner documents. In another murder case, Peckins over the years billed 172 hours to “review” 25 hours of jail calls, the same judge found.
Florida’s Justice Administrative Commission (JAC), the state agency that handles billing for court-appointed lawyers, then suspended its contract with Peckins, saying
he kept inadequate records while routinely billing between 50 and 70 hours a week. The commission is also raising questions about his other job as a contracted Miami-Dade traffic court judge — he billed for work on murder cases on days he was on the bench ruling on traffic tickets.
“You also billed JAC for 18.5 hours on August 28, 2019, and had seven one hour hearing sessions scheduled as a hearing officer on the same date,” an agency lawyer, Christian Lake, wrote in a letter late last month. “JAC requests an explanation.”
The Miami-Dade Police Department has taken notice, the Herald has learned, filing a publicrecords request with the court system for documents related to his work as a traffic magistrate. The court system declined to release the request, saying it was “active criminal investigative information.”
Peckins, a longtime defense attorney in Miami, declined to comment. But in a letter to the JAC, he defended his work, saying death-penalty cases require “considerable work and time.”
“My daily schedule, which begins at 3:30 or 4:00 a.m. and lasts until 10:00 - 10:30 p.m. permits me to dedicate the time necessary to keep abreast of each case and prepare for trial,” Peckins wrote.
Exactly how the probes may affect Peckins’ representation of Barahona and other court-appointed clients remains unclear. A brief court hearing via Zoom was held for Barahona on Tuesday but was rescheduled for December after Peckins met in a private sidebar with the prosecutor and a judge.
EXTRA SCRUTINY
The case again highlights the high cost of death-penalty litigation in Miami-Dade County, where most people charged with first-degree murder rarely end up on Death Row. Four years ago, a Miami Herald investigation found that Miami-Dade capital cases — most of which result in the death penalty being waived — accounted for 38 percent of the state’s billings, while accounting for just 18 percent of the total number of cases.
At the time, taxpayers had been billed $50 million for court-appointed defense lawyers, investigators, experts and others in Miami-Dade in 352 firstdegree murder cases stretching back to the late 1990s. That was more than triple the cost spent in the next highest county, Broward, where $13.8 million was spent, albeit on 131 fewer cases.
The JAC isn’t only scrutinizing Peckins — it recently sent out letters to a group of Miami-Dade defense lawyers requesting backup documentation for bills.
Commissioners for the agency stress that judges overseeing death-penalty cases have the best handle on whether fee amounts are appropriate. Still, JAC Chairperson Diamond
Litty said in an interview that the agency always pores over bills — but acknowledged staff members during the pandemic are doing extra work.
“The courts have slowed down and there has been more time to do that, more time to scrutinize,” said Litty, the public defender in a region that includes St. Lucie County.
A spokeswoman for the Miami-Dade courts system declined to comment.
“We are aware of this matter; however, we cannot comment further at this time,” said spokeswoman Eunice Sigler.
Peckins represents Barahona, who faces possible execution in the February 2011 killing of Nubia, a case that roiled Florida’s child welfare agency. Carmen Barahona, his former wife, pleaded guilty in February and accepted a life-prison term.
Jorge Barahona’s trial had been scheduled to finally start in April, but was postponed when the COVID-19 crisis shuttered Miami-Dade’s criminal courthouse.
LEGAL BILLS QUESTIONED
Each defendant facing the death penalty in Florida is afforded two attorneys, one to handle the so-called “guilty” phase of a trial, and the second to handle a possible sentencing portion of a trial. Public Defenders also handle death-penalty cases, but do not have to bill the state like private lawyers.
As the pandemic was underway during the summer, Peckins submitted a bill seeking $65,600 in fees, for a period that stretched between February and May. Judges hold hearings on whether bills are reasonable.
But in September, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Dava Tunis issued a scathing order, denying Peckins a good chunk of the request. According to the order, the judge did an extensive investigation into his bills over the years, finding that the JAC never objected to any of the requests.
Tunis found that Peckins’ request, including his billing for reviewing the medical examiner documents, was “unnecessary and unreasonable.” She also found that the lawyer unnecessarily billed for yet again reviewing crimescene photos, witness statements and even Miami Herald articles.
The JAC followed up suspending his contract, citing a rule that requires a lawyer submit “contemporaneous records” if billing for more than 10 hours each day. The JAC found he billed in excess of 10 hours on a single day 1,208 times, many of the times since July 2018.
Peckins also represents Anthawn Ragan, who is accused of first-degree murder in the 2013 murder of a 10-year-old boy during the robbery of a Northwest Miami-Dade nail salon.
His other major case is representing Julio Morris, the man accused of a
North Miami-Dade murder, and engineering the murder of a witness in that case.