Kramer: Low pay for prosecutors and public defenders leads to lack of applicants for these positions
Letter to the editor
In 1993, after graduating 4 years of college and 3 years of law school, the starting salary of an assistant state attorney (ASA) was $26,000.00 per year. Today, the minimum salary for an assistant state attorney is $50,000.00 per year. The same is true for an assistant public defender (APD). ASAs and APDs make the lowest starting salary of any lawyer. As State Attorney of the 8th Judicial Circuit and an adjunct professor at the University of Florida’s Levin College of Law, I have the opportunity to meet many talented students about to start their legal careers. There are very few seeking employment in the public sector. Most who are starting in civil law have jobs starting at not less than $150,000. As one might reasonably expect, both the State Attorney and the Public Defender can’t compete, and it shows in our ability to hire and retain new lawyers. In my office, 5 years ago we employed 52 ASAs, today 42. We are hiring and currently have no barred lawyers as applicants.
While the situation is difficult, we must give credit where credit is due. Over the last two legislative cycles, the Florida Legislature has been more generous towards ASAs and APDs than ever. Salary has increased for ASAs and APDs. Both the Florida Prosecuting Attorney’s Association and the Florida Public Defender’s Association are thankful for the legislature’s financial help, and it has helped. Our attrition rates have decreased; however, they have decreased from about 30% per year to 25% per year. To fully train an ASA or APD takes 3-5 years. On average, every position in the office is turning over every 4 years. We still need help.
That is why this year in the legislature, the FPAA and the FPDA are asking the Florida Legislature to set the minimum salary for ASAs and APDs at $75,000.00 annually. Will this solve the problem? No. But it will help. In fact, I have no expectation that this problem will ever be solved. While pay for ASAs and APDs could and should be more competitive, it will never compete with the private sector. Some would argue it shouldn’t. Public service is a calling, and it is a calling that has a price. That price is a lower salary than our private lawyer counterparts. What we have, that they will never know, is the satisfaction of knowing that we spend our careers ensuring the safety and welfare of our community. I have served this community for over 25 years in public service as a prosecutor, and I would not trade a day of it. No matter the cost.
Brian Kramer, State Attorney, 8th Judicial Circuit
The opinions expressed by letter or opinion writers are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AlachuaChronicle.com. Letters may be submitted to info@alachuachronicle.com and are published at the discretion of the editor.
Thank you for your service. I hope we get more GPD officers, too. One way to reduce the workload of the attorneys and cops alike, is to sentence the convicts longer, especially for repeat offenders. Why are Judges being so light, to look busy? What is the county jail’s capacity vs. headcount? Do we need more prisons as Florida keeps growing, or should we export convicts to Puerto Rico?
All options should be on the table. One good thing about being a civil servant is the low cost insurance premiums, and decent other benefits, don’t forget.
Jeff. They are not “convicts” they are humans. And we already incarcerate over 85000 men and women in florida at the budget of almost $3.4 BILLION last year. We have 25% of the entire nations life without parole population and over 30% of our current incarcerated population are over the age of 50 so until you truly understand the facts of the mass incarceration issues in this state AND country you just sound ignorant. Every one of us is one mistake away from being one of those “convicts” and tens of thousands being the walls today did not have ANY mens rea. In fact, we are making society LESS safe by over incarcerating those we are not afraid of and turning them INTO criminals. All at a staggering cost to Florida taxpayers.
Prosecute and lock dangerous people up THE FIRST TIME when you get the chance – instead of dropping the charges – and then you won’t need to keep re-charging them when they get arrested a month later, re-drop the charges, do it all over again, etc. Obviously, that would reduce your office’s workload by a lot and help allay your need for more staff. Your current methods place not only extra work on your own office but more importantly on the police, and they are bad for public safety in general. You are supposed to be a Prosecuting Attorney and not a woke social justice warrior. If you aren’t careful, you might even deter people from committing crimes if they see others being punished.
By the way — Failing to follow through with prosecutions could be one reason why your employees throw their hands up in the air and say, “Why bother?”
👆 that’s exactly what many of the veteran cops, especially detectives (the ones that are left) are doing. After seeing so many of their solid cases just getting tossed or pled down to some sweetheart deal.
Mr Kramer, hopefully you’re noticing that…
So low pay is the excuse for prosecution failures? I would feel more inclined to support better pay if the State Attorney’s Office would stop dropping charges against the violent criminals walking within the 8th Judicial Circuit who month after month keep posting bond or have charges dropped only to commit increasingly more violent crimes. What a joke
Kramer: the public defenders’ office & SA office is where those who graduate from law school get some experience and then move on…its like a McDonald’s job for someone entering the workforce.
Will paying assistant SA’s more $ keep violent repeat convicted felons with guns off the street? No,
It will be a waste of money. You can’t even get panhandlers out of street medians. I have no confidence in anything you say. I want to see conviction rates go up and our community safe. You’re full of BS. Those who convict and send felons to jail and not drop charges should get raises based on PERFORMANCE.
Thanks, Mr. Kramer, for information. Strange how society wants the government to solve social problems. The criminals we see nowadays are a product of their culture. Whether it’s the music, video games or children having children. It would take the federal government to cut social funding. It is too easy to get paid to do nothing. SSI, when you haven’t even worked but spent your young adult life doing drugs and in prison. EBT qualified as soon as you get out of jail or prison. Gated communities at housing projects. Why to control the criminal element out. I also believe if citizens start shaming and police ticket people who park in fire lanes, handicap parking and littering. Maybe people would realize we live in a civilized society not a third world country. Society works better when rules are followed. Finally, it is not the school’s faults or law enforcement it’s the family or as some like to say, “It takes a Village”. The Village is at fault.
Mr Kramer, you are whining about a 50% pay raise for entry level law school graduates. Why don’t you explain your failure to vastly reduce the number of dropped charges, failure to prosecute in a timely manner and the ridiculously low plea bargains. Then we might consider pay raises. Oh, if you want to see what your citizens see, just follow the Alachua Chronicle. Unlike the Sun and others, it prints the crime happening all around us.
They are not worth their CURRENT pay!
Perhaps some of the criticisms here also contribute to the lack of applicants. We do need to prosecute criminals, but it takes lawyers employed as prosecutors to do that. Demanding that they get sterling results while being woefully underpaid is counterproductive.
I’m all for accountability when government fails, but getting through law school is very expensive and difficult, and such low starting pay (comparatively speaking) when carrying debt to become qualified for the job seems to be a deterrent. If you want competent prosecutors, you have to pay salaries at a level that will attract and retain competent prosecutors.
Many of these law school grads probably already worked low pay entry-level jobs to get through school. They don’t have post high school entry-level debt – they have lawyer-level debt, and have to be able to pay their bills.
When you allow your attorney’s to plea very serious charges with significant evidence, you are killing the morale of your police officers. Without them you wouldn’t have a career as a prosecutor.
Thank you for bringing to the Publics attention some of the pay issues with the Public Defenders Office and the State Attorney’s Office. In my review of many State positions, I find that a Bachelors degree or additional education as need by a Lawyer or CPA is not fairly compensated.
Public Safety is the goal of our Justice system. Less Victims, Less Crime.
How are we doing? Currently recruiting Police Officers from other States, shortages of State Attorneys, Public Defenders and Correctional Officers.
We have a Correctional (DOC) system that is the largest State Agency with a Budget of $3.2 Billion (asking for $3.4 this year) that is the 6th largest line item on the Florida Budget. We have a current Governor and Cabinet members who in the last 6 years have never visited the inside of a Correctional Facility where all that money goes. Not that many Florida Legislators have either. Locally Senators Keith Perry and Jennifer Bradley have. Please ask your State Legislators to visit.
We commonly hear tough on crime, less plea deals, Judges need to give longer sentences. Seems simple but it’s not.
We need to spend more money on diversion programs, treatment of the mentally ill and drug treatment programs.
We need to spend more money on education, especially on identifying and educating those with Learning Disabilities. That includes in our Jails (County) and Correctional Institutions & Facilities (State).
We need to pay people what they are worth. An 18 year old working for the Florida Department of Corrections should not make almost as much as someone with a Bachelor’s degree or more education. Lawyers, CPAs, Teachers and other Professionals should be paid a fair salary.
We need to let Judges be Judges. Currently they don’t get to determine sentences. They have to go by the Sentencing Guidelines for the Crime that the “State Attorney” decided to charge a Criminal with and the Enhancements that were added. The State Attorney also determines if a plea deal is offered and the length of time.
Our State Attorneys are the most powerful people in the entire Justice System, not the Judge.
The Criminals entering the DOC have an average 3.9 grade level and 85% have a comprehension of less than 6th grade. The DOC last year was educating approximately 12% of them even though 90% will eventually be going home. How does one come home and earn an “Honest” living with that kind of education and training?
No one should be sentenced to 30 years in prison because a State Attorney thought they should be “Warehoused” when they stole 6 DVDs. That costs Taxpayers over $750k.
I encourage all of you to watch the Florida Senate & House Civil & Criminal Justice Appropriations meetings,
Let’s lock up those we are scared of, while trying to lift up and help the ones we are mad at.
Please, everyone–don’t be manipulated by Karen Stuckey. She is a radical pro-criminal activist, motivated by the experience of her own low-life criminal husband being justifiably locked away from decent humans.
A summary of her worldview can be obtained from her social media:
https://twitter.com/ucf87cpa
As any regular reader of the Alachua Chronicle can easily observe, prison diversion programs, drug-treatment programs, and all the other liberal “throw other people’s money at the problem” program don’t work, and they never will. Criminals need to be locked up whether that is a prison or a mental institution. The only thing that works is deterrence.
You will note in Karen’s endless whining about the quality of prison food and the cost of prison phone calls, that she never once advocates for or even pretends to give a shred of compassion for the victims of murder, rape, and theft–you know, the reasons these monsters are in prison in the first place. The soft-on-crime Karens of the world are a greater evil than even these animals.
See San Francisco, Baltimore, Chicago–anywhere where the pro-crime Karens establish a foothold. They are all unlivable hellholes, and now she wants to do the same to us.
Feel free to read my Twitter and I rarely speak about crime. I speak about educating those incarcerated, treating them humanly, providing medical care and decent food.
I met my husband doing volunteer work. I was appalled that anyone could serve 30 years for stealing 6 DVDs, that sentence cost taxpayers a fortune.
If you looked a little further on my Twitter you would have seen that I support our Sheriff’s and some follow me, along with Legislators on both sides of the aisles. I also work with the Department of Corrections.
I advocate for Public Safety which means Less Victims, Less Crimes.
My husband risked his life five years ago to save the life of Officer Haisch of the Pinellas Park Police Department while he was incarcerated.
Educating those incarcerated and treating them humanely reduces recidivism, victims and crime.
Isn’t reducing crime the objective?
https://famm.org/stories/seriously-ill-and-locked-up-for-stealing-6-dvds/
I have nothing to hide hence I used my name. My comments are based on statistics and data much of it from the Department of Corrections.
Thank you for the opportunity to clarify my facts further and I do encourage all of you to read my Twitter account. You will find it very educational and eye opening.
Karen L Stuckey
@ucf87cpa
Actually, you have everything to hide and that is why you are commenting so dishonestly. Your husband was not given 30 years for “stealing 6 DVDs”. He was classified as a lifelong repeat offender and that was just the last of his many crimes.
Your fake concern for the cost to taxpayers is contradicted by the constant whining for better food for prisoners, free phone calls, more tax dollars for ineffective diversion programs, etc. How much taxpayer money was wasted by your husband filing frivolous appeals against the state, until the court finally put the smack down on him in Stuckey v. State 306 So.3d 405?
The court ruled that “Due to [Stephan A. Stuckey’s] apparent abuse of the legal process by his abusive, repetitive, malicious, or frivolous pro se filings attacking his judgment and sentence in Seminole County…we conclude that [Stephan A. Stuckey] is abusing the judicial process and should be barred from further pro se filings.”
Your motivations are purely selfish in nature, so quit trying to pretend otherwise. You just seek to undermine and erode society for the benefit of your prison hook-up, not any different from the groupies that send letters to serial killers.
The original post was about salaries. I support those increases.
I see that you are familiar with legal research.and must be from the State Attorney’s office . I’m friends with several current and past State Attorneys. They are Tough on Crime but we all agree the goal is Less Victims, Less Crime..
A Spenser Sanction is for frivolous lawsuits. Stephan’s first two appeals were overturned and he did get two additional trials. His medical was limine even though he had a seizure at the scene, left with fire and rescue having several more seizures on the way to the hospital, he had been hospitalized 4 or 5 times the prior year. His accomplice served less than 60 days and had an extensive history.
The appeal where he received the Spenser was for a plea deal that was never presented to him in 2004 and it was discovered in 2019. If he could have done anything after the Spenser he received, he would be home today, because the judge’s criteria for release was there. On the Spenser sanction one of the three Judges did not agree and wrote an Opinion. The 5th DCA writes more Spensers than all other the DCAs combined. I’m not a Lawyer, but I have read all of his cases and learned his history. I know who the man he is since 2007. My legal terminology may be wrong but the facts are correct.
If you feel the need to put my husband & I down, have at it. Everyone is entitled to an opinion.
My opinion on raises has been expressed to those that matter. By email, text, DM and Twitter long before this article came out.
You need to get with Senator Bradley or Senator Perry and tour a prison. You are not fixing the problem by locking everyone up with long sentences.
Take a look at the bigger picture. The long sentences should be for murders, rapists and child molesters. In my opinion, sentencing someone to 30 years for multiple smaller crimes compared to 25 years for a murder makes no sense to me. Judges need to be able to evaluate the cases.
Smart Justice!
Karen
Mr Kramer,
You put a lot of thought into writing this letter to the editor. No doubt you’re reading the comments as a result. Your thoughts?
Now like lack of “nads”
Great article Brian Kramer and I did text the link to Senator Bradley. Very well written..