Green fired after losing primary

It didn’t take long for the knives to come out for Ruby Green, the assistant public defender who lost to Howard Finkelstein’s chosen successor Tuesday night.

Finkelstein fired Green on Wednesday morning in a terse email.

“Thank you for your service,” the e-mail began. “Your services are no longer required. Your termination is immediate.”

Green, 33, began working for the Public Defender’s Office eight years ago and was one of three candidates seeking to replace Finkelstein, who is retiring after 16 years in the job. Chief Assistant Public Defender Gordon Weekes won handily, with Green finishing second and former Broward Circuit Judge Tom Lynch coming in third.

Green, president of the Broward Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, responded by posting the e-mail to her Facebook page.

“I was told not to run, I was told I couldn’t do it and I was told I was going to get fired,” she wrote. “Nevertheless, I persisted because I know I am the change we seek. I know that there are so many things that happen in this office that are just down right WRONG, and I refused to sit back and let it happen … This is not going to stop me.”

Finkelstein said Wednesday that he did not fire Green because she campaigned, but because of how she campaigned. “It was because of inappropriate, unprofessional and dishonest comments that she made about this office and its commitment to the underserved and people of color,” he said.

Finkelstein said he didn’t fire Green earlier because he did not want it to affect the election.

Finkelstein specifically cited an Aug. 8 interview Green granted to the Adams Brothers podcast, in which she said, “We need change at the Broward County Public Defender’s Office because a Black face in a high place doesn’t always want to advance the race.”

She said she was told, as the youngest supervisor in the office, not to train attorneys under her watch and that Finkelstein opposed attorneys marching with demonstrators against police brutality. “Why would you, as an administration, when George Floyd happened, why would you tell the office not to march in solidarity with Black Lives Matter?”

Finkelstein said lawyers were never discouraged from marching, but the protests were taking place at the height of COVID restrictions and he could not justify uniting as an office to join a protest.

“Many of my people were in the march,” he said. “As an office, we were closed to the public. I couldn’t tell the public we can’t get together in the office due to coronavirus, but it’s OK for all of us to get together on the street.”

The office supported the message of Black Lives Matter decades before the ideals became a movement, Finkelstein said.

Green’s conflict with Finkelstein and Weekes simmered over the last few years as she took on leadership roles with the defense lawyer’s association, which includes private lawyers and sometimes advocates for positions that run counter to those held by the Public Defender’s Office.

On the podcast and on the campaign trail, Green criticized the office for lack of experience in leadership positions and lack of training to take on tough cases.

In an interview Wednesday, she said the podcast appearance was not much different than others she has made since announcing her decision to run for Public Defender last year. She could not campaign to improve office morale and preparedness without letting the public know those qualities were lacking, she said.

“They were mad because the cat’s out of the bag,” she said Wednesday. “They are threatened and angry that the truth came out.”

Weekes declined to comment on Green’s firing. In interviews long before the podcast was recorded, Weekes said Green’s criticisms were incompatible with someone who wanted to continue working for the office.

Finkelstein said he consulted Weekes before firing Green, but that it was Finkelstein’s decision.