Panel urges high court to remove county judge
Palm Beach County Judge Dana Santino should be removed from the bench for attacking her opponent’s work as a criminal defense attorney during last fall’s election campaign, a judicial advisory committee agreed on Thursday.
In a sharply worded 33-page recommendation to the Florida Supreme Court, a committee of the Judicial Qualifications Commission said “removal is the only discipline appropriate under the circumstances.”
“Her conduct was not simply the product of an isolated instance of indiscretion, a momentary lapse of judgment; or the exposure of human frailty from which we all suffer from time to time,” Sumter County Circuit Judge Michelle Morley wrote on behalf of the six-member panel. “The conduct here was repeated, intentional, direct action with a designed purpose which cast aspersions and doubt onto the
heart of the judicial system.”
Neither Santino nor her attorney, Jeremy Kroll, responded to phone calls for comment. Santino, a former guardianship and probate attorney, can contest the recommendation. If she is unsuccessful, she would be the first Palm Beach County judge removed from the bench by the state’s high court.
During the campaign, Santino repeatedly blasted her opponent, defense attorney Gregg Lerman, for representing “murderers, rapists, child molesters and other criminals.” A Facebook page created by her campaign consultant, Richard Giorgio, listed some of the men accused of vicious crimes whom Lerman has represented in his decadeslong career. “Now, he’s running for judge!” the Facebook page crowed.
During a hearing in August, Santino tearfully apologized to the panel for the inflammatory words that were also featured in a letter to supporters. Being a judge, she said, was her lifelong dream.
Committee members questioned her assertion that she never looked at the Facebook page. They also voiced little sympathy for her claims that she wasn’t thinking straight because of the rigors of the campaign
In the recommendation to the high court, Morley went even further. The panel, she said, didn’t believe Santino.
“It strains credulity to believe that Judge Santino never looked at the Facebook webpage she knew was going to be created,” Morley wrote. “Nor does this panel accept Judge Santino’s explanation that she was too busy or sleep-deprived to manage, let alone pay attention to her campaign.”
Santino had multiple chances to correct her mistakes, Morley wrote. Instead, Santino ignored concerns voiced by lawyers. She spurned warnings from a Palm Beach County Bar Association committee that her comments violated judicial canons. “(Santino) chose to take no curative action for fear it would cost her the election,” Morely wrote, summing up Santino’s winat-all-costs attitude.
“Her entire campaign was inflammatory and rife with innuendo,” Morley said. “She repeatedly implied that representing persons charged with crimes was, by its very nature, dishonorable and antithetical to the public good.”
While some attorneys wrote letters of support for Santino and two judges testified about the good work she has done since assuming office in January, few condoned her conduct. A letter from West Palm Beach criminal defense attorney Steven Cohen was typical.
“This is a fundamentally good judge and person who was inexperienced in the election process and had made a bad judgment,” he wrote.
However, other defense attorneys were disturbed by Santino’s campaign tactics. Before the election, attorney Tama Kudman wrote a letter to The Palm Beach Post, signed by a dozen other lawyers, saying Santino’s attacks on Lerman showed she didn’t understand or respect basic constitutional principles, including the right to an attorney and the presumption of innocence.
On Thursday, she said Santino should pre-empt the Supreme Court and simply resign. “If anything, a judge’s role is to promote respect for the judicial system and this was such a slap in the face of the judicial system,” Kudman said.
Santino has until Oct. 18 to address the panel’s recommendation. It has until Nov. 7 to respond. Then, it will be up to the Supreme Court.
Lerman agreed Santino should resign. Like Kudman, he said it is doubtful Santino will persuade the Supreme Court to let her remain in the seat where she decides civil suits where less than $15,000 is at stake. “They want to crack down on ugly judicial campaigns,” he said, citing other recent decisions by the high court.
For Lerman, Santino’s removal or resignation would be bitterly ironic. Lerman successfully sued Gov. Rick Scott to make sure voters — not Scott — would pick a successor for Judge Laura Johnson, who resigned to seek a seat on the circuit bench. If Santino leaves, Scott will fill the seat after all.
‘A judge’s role is to promote respect for the judicial system.’ Tama Kudman Attorney