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Judiciary

Appeals judge told state attorney how to handle resentencing while badmouthing others, texts indicate

By Debra Cassens Weiss

November 12, 2024, 11:34 am CST

A Florida appeals judge who obtained a 2004 murder conviction of an alleged gang leader texted advice to the Miami-Dade, Florida, state attorney handling his resentencing while “denigrating defense attorneys and badmouthing local judges,” according to the Miami Herald.

The judge, Judge Bronwyn Miller of the Third District Court of Appeal in Florida, is a state’s witness in the resentencing of the defendant, Corey Smith, who was convicted in four murders.

Prosecutors announced Sunday they would no longer seek the death penalty in Smith’s resentencing, the Miami Herald reports in a separate story. Prosecutors attributed the decision to the passage of time and the unavailability of witnesses.

Smith was being resentenced because two capital murder convictions were based on less-than-unanimous juror votes, a practice that had been banned in a 2017 Florida law.

“Miller’s text messages show a close relationship with Miami-Dade’s elected state attorney and a low regard for the judge overseeing the case and defense attorneys in general,” the Miami Herald reports. “Though she left the state attorney’s office about 20 years ago, the texting reveals a familiarity allowing Miller to browbeat [Miami-Dade State Attorney] Fernandez Rundle and second-guess how she runs the office.”

In the text messages, sent between January and July, Miller:

  • Told Rundle that “there is a huge factual error” in a document that referred to “potential favors provided to witnesses.” Miller’s requested changes were included in a later court filing. The text was sent in April, while the Smith case was pending before the Third District Court of Appeal. The case was moved to another appeals court in July.

  • Criticized Rundle for allowing a “misogynistic pervert anti-death penalty campaigner” to work on the Smith case. The prosecutor had written a novel called Death Penalty Desired: Passion and Murder that was, in the Herald’s words, “rife with sexual violence and misogyny.” Two weeks after Miller sent her text, the prosecutor was told to leave within two months.

  • Told Rundle that two judges, including the one handling Smith’s resentencing, disliked Rundle because she didn’t back elements of a bail reform plan that they supported. Judge Andrea Wolfson “will destroy you because of the bail bond issue,” Miller wrote. Wolfson kicked two prosecutors off the resentencing case in March.

In February, Miller testified about a memo that she wrote in the murder trial that said witnesses were given favors, such as food, beverages and cigars. Defense lawyers said they were unaware of the memo. Miller testified that she didn’t know about a witness having sexual contact at the police department, as had been alleged.

The state attorney’s office released a statement to the Miami Herald on Sunday that said Miller sent “occasional and brief texts” to Rundle “in pursuit of the truth.” The statement said Rundle is “engaged in the decision-making on all major cases prosecuted by her office and specifically those involving the death penalty.”

Smith’s lawyers, Allison Miller and Craig Whisenhunt, alleged in an email to the Miami Herald that Miller “simultaneously played the parts of judge, prosecutor, witness,” and the texts call into question her ability to serve as a judge.

Miller told the Miami Herald that she can’t comment. She cited the advice of an ethics expert who said she should not make public comments because they could affect the pending proceedings.

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Ethics

Lawyer is accused of charging inmates for resentencing petitions despite little chance of success

By Debra Cassens Weiss

September 5, 2024, 9:17 am CDT

A Los Angeles lawyer is accused in an ethics complaint of charging inmates to submit requests for resentencing to prosecutors who were unlikely to take action.

Lawyer Aaron Spolin charged inmates to submit petitions to prosecutors when they were not accepting outside submissions and when the cases did not fit resentencing criteria, according to an Aug. 26 notice of disciplinary charges.

Defendants who hired Spolin were unlikely to obtain “meaningful relief” despite paying thousands of dollars in legal fees, the notice said.

Law360, CBS News, the Los Angeles Times and the Metropolitan News-Enterprise have coverage.

The impetus for Spolin’s resentencing work was a 2018 law that allowed courts to recall and resentence defendants upon the recommendation of the district attorney.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Spolin marketed his resentencing services in mass mailings to prisons and through purchased online search terms that directed people to his website.

Spolin “eventually accumulated nearly 2,000 incarcerated clients, becoming a virtual celebrity on California prison yards,” the newspaper reported. “Families, many of limited resources, forked over fees starting at $3,000 and ranging upward of $30,000.”

The ethics complaint did not include most of those details. But it did say family members of one inmate paid Spolin as much as $28,500 for a package deal that included a case review, a resentencing request and a commutation application. Others paid less.

Spolin represented inmates despite receiving nine letters from the Los Angeles district attorney’s office informing him that it would not act on resentencing requests under the new law because it was creating a new unit to evaluate cases and because it was prioritizing cases for review.

He also received at least eight letters from the Orange County district attorney’s office disclosing that it would only consider resentencing requests from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

The criteria eventually adopted by the Los Angeles district attorney said cases would be prioritized if the defendant was age 50 or older, had served at least 10 years of a 20-year or longer sentence, and had committed a nonviolent or a nonserious crime.

Among Spolin’s clients were inmates in prison for murder, second-degree murder and kidnapping.

The ethics charges allege that Spolin failed to communicate in a way that allowed clients to make informed decisions, failed to give candid advice, misled clients about his services, charged unconscionable fees, and committed acts of moral turpitude.

Spolin told the Los Angeles Times last year that some clients would eventually have success when the justice system embraced additional reforms.

“All these clients who feel like they’ve been hoodwinked, and then they’re gonna win. And they’re gonna say, ‘Oh, wow. You know, Mr. Spolin was right,’” he said.

Erin Joyce, a lawyer for Spolin, told the Los Angeles Times that Spolin “has been fully cooperative with the state bar and will continue to cooperate. He looks forward to resolving this matter in the near future.”