THE CAPTAIN REPORTS:

.... AND IN THIS CORNER








For the defence: A distinguished member of The Florida Bar for the past 47 years, PARKER THOMSON. (Horace, you may have the "Clarence Clemons" of criminal law, but we've got the Clarence Darrow of the courthouse).

Barrister Thomson is a member of the international law firm of Hogan & Hartson, founded in Washington D.C. over 100 years ago, in 1904. Holland & Knight, his counterpart, has been around a measly 40 years and was founded in Tampa.

Thomson has extensive experience representing clients before the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals (11th Circuit), the Florida Supreme Court, and various state and U.S. federal courts throughout Florida. He has presented oral argument before the U.S. Supreme Court in three cases and before the Florida Supreme Court in dozens of cases. How many cases has Rudy argued before SCOTUS: ZERO!!! (But, fail not State, according to our crack research staff, since leaving the bench, Sorondo has been invited to teach at the Conference of Circuit Court Judges and has even lectured at the Miami Dade State Attorney's Office).

According to our sources, the State already has its work cut out for them trying to get past the issue of Standing. And, if they manage to get past that large hurdle, the Supreme Court of Florida, in 1990, stated, in part: "when excessive caseload forces the public defender to choose between the rights of the various indigent criminal defendants he represents, a conflict of interest is inevitably created." The same Supreme Court also mentioned in a 1980 case involving these same issues, that, "the acceptance of additional cases where an existing caseload precludes adequate representation may subject an attorney to disciplinary action."

We could not have said it better than FACDL Prez Rick Freedman stated today: "The legislature's answer to this problem [the excessive workload] is to create more crimes with new statutes, increase penalties for existing crimes and spend hundreds of millions of dollars to build more prisons. All of this results in more defendants being arrested, more cases being filed and an exponentially higher chance that an innocent man's freedom will be taken from him. In order for every accused American to have competent and effective counsel, the second branch of our government must stop ignoring, at budget time, the third branch."

Horace, pack in it and join the good guys on this fight. Stick a fork in it cause the State Attorney's Office is "done" in this battle.

CAPTAIN OUT .....