Case Name: In Re CERTIFICATION OF CONFLICT IN MOTIONS TO WITHDRAW FILED BY PUBLIC DEFENDER OF THE TENTH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT
Court: Florida Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1994-04-21
Citations: 636 So. 2d 18
Docket Number: No. 82782
Parties: In Re CERTIFICATION OF CONFLICT IN MOTIONS TO WITHDRAW FILED BY PUBLIC DEFENDER OF THE TENTH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT.
Judges: BARKETT, C.J., and OVERTON, MCDONALD, GRIMES and KOGAN, JJ., concur.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 636
Pages: 18–29

Head Matter:
In Re CERTIFICATION OF CONFLICT IN MOTIONS TO WITHDRAW FILED BY PUBLIC DEFENDER OF THE TENTH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT.
No. 82782.
Supreme Court of Florida.
April 21, 1994.
J. Marion Moorman, Public Defender, Tenth Judicial Circuit, Bartow, and John Beranek, Aurell, Radey, Hinkle, Thomas & Beranek, Tallahassee, for petitioner.
Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen. and Richard E. Doran, Asst. Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, for respondent.
Bennett H. Brummer, Public Defender, and Louis Campbell, Asst. Public Defender, Eleventh Judicial Circuit, Miami, amicus curiae, for FL Public Defender Ass’n, Inc.
Suzanne T. Smith, Sr., Asst. County Atty., Pinellas County Attorney’s Office, and Susan H. Churuti, Pinellas County Atty., President, FL Ass’n of County Attys., Inc., Clearwater, amicus curiae, for Pinellas County and FL Ass’n of County Attys., Inc.
Robert A. Ginsburg, Dade County Atty., and Michael S. Davis, Asst. County Atty., Miami, amicus curiae, for Metropolitan Dade County.
William J. Robert and William Paul Huey, Roberts & Egan, P.A., Tallahassee, amicus curiae, for FL Ass’n of Counties, Inc.
Cory J. Ciklin, Asst. County Atty., Palm Beach County Attorney’s Office, West Palm Beach, amicus curiae, for Palm Beach County-

Opinion:
SHAW, Justice.
We have for review Order on Motions to Withdraw, 622 So.2d 2 (Fla. 2d DCA 1993), which affects a class of constitutional officers. We have jurisdiction. Art. V, § 3(b)(3), Fla. Const. We approve the district court's decision.
This is another in the line of eases involving the workload of the Public Defender of the Tenth Judicial Circuit (Public Defender), who serves indigent clients seeking appellate review in the Second District Court of Appeal. See Skitka v. State, 579 So.2d 102 (Fla.1991); In re Order on Prosecution of Criminal Appeals, 561 So.2d 1130- (Fla.1990). In March 1993, the Public Defender filed a motion in the Second District Court to withdraw from 249 overdue appeals because of conflict caused by an excessive caseload. In April, he moved to withdraw from an additional 133 cases. The court met en banc and entered a decision in April expressing its concerns and noting that fact-finding was necessary:
We have concluded that we can no longer resolve these motions without an adequate factual record. The issues raised by these motions are too complex to be resolved summarily. The result we will ultimately reach will affect too many people and the fiscal affairs of too many governments. The appellants in these cases are constitutionally entitled to timely appeals. An untimely appeal may be little better than no appeal at all when, for example, a sentence expires before the appeal is complete. Moreover, an inundated attorney may be only a little better than no attorney at all. The counties on the other hand want this problem solved without additional demand on already overburdened budgets.
Order on Motions to Withdraw, 622 So.2d at 3.
The district court called for appointment of a retired judge to sit as commissioner at an evidentiary hearing and submit a report containing findings of fact and conclusions. The commissioner was directed to use criteria set forth in In re: Order on Prosecution of Criminal Appeals, and address the following concerns:
1. Whether the productivity of the appellate division of the Public Defender's office is within an acceptable range.
2. Whether all of the attorneys assigned to that division are working exclusively on appellate matters.
3. Whether the Public Defender has taken adequate steps to assure that repetitive issues are handled efficiently.
4. Whether the Public Defender uses a team approach to maximize the efficiency of the briefing process.
6. Whether there are steps that the Public Defender, the Attorney General, and this court could collectively take to assure timely appellate review of indigent appeals.
6. Whether there are other steps which could be taken to allow for the timely prosecution of indigent appeals without transferring the cost for such appeals to the counties.
7. Ignoring earlier motions to withdraw filed with this court, whether the cases selected for the present motions have been chosen for any particular reason that should be made known to the court.
Order on Motions to Withdraw, 622 So.2d at 4.
The Florida Supreme Court appointed a retired judge to sit as Special Commissioner, and a four-day evidentiary hearing was held in August. The Public Defender presented eighteen witnesses; the counties within the Second District presented one; and the Attorney General presented one. The commissioner issued his report on September 7, making numerous findings, including the following:
—Your commissioner finds that the productivity of the Public Defender's office is definitely within an acceptable range. Only one other appellate public defender's office exceeded the productivity of Mr. Moorman's office.
—The cases which are the subject of all pending motions to withdraw were selected solely because the initial briefs are in excess of sixty days overdue.
—The Second District is unique in that it has the largest population, the largest civil and criminal caseloads, the highest jury trial rate . in criminal cases, the highest number of appeals assigned to a Public Defender, and the highest criminal appeal backlog within the office of a Public Defender.
—During calendar year 1992, there were seventeen attorneys assigned exclusively to noncapital appeals. The total number of briefs filed by these attorneys during that period was 1,067. The average per attorney was 62.7 briefs.
—The National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals developed standards in 1973 which remain in effect and are numerical in nature. These standards recommend that an attorney such as a public defender handle no more than twenty-five appeals per year_ These standards were recently endorsed by the American Bar Association Committee studying the criminal justice system with only slight modifications.
—The State of Florida promulgated a workload measurement system called the Florida Funding Formula. This formula was designed to determine staffing needs and budgetary requirements for Public Defenders and, at fifty appeals per year, these were the [most burdensome] standards in the country.
—Mr. Robert Spangenberg, an attorney and expert on the indigent defense crisis and the provision of legal services to indigent defendants, did a survey of other states and testified to a representative sampling of briefs filed per attorney. In the majority of states, attorneys file between twenty and thirty initial briefs per year. None of the surveyed states do more than fifty eases per year. [Ohio, 27; California, 26; North Carolina, 30; Hawaii, 12; Washington, 42; New York, 20 to 22; Illinois, 24; Michigan, 36; Colorado, 24; New Hampshire, 20 to 25; Massachusetts, 20; Arizona, 25.]
—Based on unrefuted evidence from the Honorable Elvin L. Martinez, member of the Florida House of Representatives and past chair of the House Criminal Justice Appropriation Committee, the court finds that the Florida Legislature devised its own approach to the funding of the Public Defender offices. Each year the twenty State Attorneys from each circuit submit their budget request to the office of the Governor and these are eventually placed before the Legislature along with the separate funding requests under the formula by the Public Defenders. The Legislature initially considers the total amount requested by the State Attorneys. After deciding on the amount to be appropriated to the State Attorneys, the Legislature then appropriates approximately fifty percent of that amount' for the operation of the Public Defenders. In retrospect one can compute a percentage of the funding formula but the appropriations process is in fact driven entirely by the budgetary requests and appropriations for State Attorneys. The Florida Funding Formula becomes a purely hypothetical or artificial exercise in terms of generating funding.
The commissioner concluded that "[t]he public defenders of the Tenth Circuit function under excessive caseloads and relief should be granted." He recommended that the Public Defender be allowed to withdraw from "those cases in which the records were transmitted in February, March, April, and May 1993," and from "cases received in September, October, and November 1993." The commissioner also made several long-term suggestions:
A. Increased funding for more [assistant public defenders], support staff, and computerization.
B. Adoption of a prospective withdrawal procedure similar' to that used in the First District Court of Appeal to allow the Public Defender to withdraw early based on a recognition that the cases cannot be timely handled in the future.
C. Adoption of binding caseload/workload standards based upon the Florida Formula approach. These standards should be made a part of the Florida Rules of Judicial Administration or the Florida Criminal and Appellate Rules.
D. Increased pro bono representation by private counsel.
E. Appointment and funding of the study commission recommended by the Florida Supreme Court in In re: Order on Prosecution of Criminal Appeals, 561 So.2d at 1138 n. 7.
F. The Public Defender should constantly review the productivity of his office to ensure that all improvements possible are being implemented to continue to increase the efficiency of his office in handling indigent criminal appeals.
When presented with the commissioner's report, the Second District Court sitting en banc issued an order "receiving" the report and granting the motions to withdraw. Despite the court's ruling in his favor on withdrawal, the Public Defender sought review to resolve several issues that he felt compromised his autonomy as a constitutional officer.
As his first point, the Public Defender claims that the district court should not have utilized a commissioner and held an eviden-tiary hearing on his motions to withdraw. He feels that this sets a dangerous precedent in that it allows the court, counties, and state attorneys to interfere in the operation of his office. He contends that his motions were sufficiently substantiated by supporting documents and should have been summarily granted.
We conclude that the court did not abuse its authority in determining that fact-finding was necessary. This Court said in Skitka v. State, 579 So.2d 102 (Fla.1991), that a district court is not obligated to accept automatically a public defender's request for withdrawal due to overload:
We acknowledge the public defender's argument that the courts should not involve themselves in the management of public defender offices. At the same time, we do not believe that courts are obligated to permit the withdrawal automatically upon the filing of a certificate by the public defender reflecting a backlog in the prosecution of appeals.
Id. at 104. Here, there is sufficient evidence supporting the court's determination that fact-finding was necessary. The Public Defender's history of seeking withdrawal, the sheer number of cases affected by the present motions, and the substantial financial burden that would fall upon the counties for funding conflict counsel all mandated careful scrutiny of the motions to withdraw.
Once the district court determined that fact-finding was necessary, it had several options. It could refer the motions to a single circuit court, refer them to a number of circuit courts throughout the district, or appoint a commissioner. See Rose v. Palm Beach County, 361 So.2d 136, 137 (Fla.1978) ("Every court has inherent power to do all things that are reasonably necessary for the administration of justice within the scope of its jurisdiction, subject to valid existing laws and constitutional provisions."). The district court properly concluded that to refer the motions to the circuit courts was untenable:
One method to resolve these matters would be to refer the motions to the circuit courts in the counties within the jurisdiction of the Second District for fourteen separate hearings. We are persuaded that scheme would likely lead to conflicting results. Neither do we feel we should send the matter to only one circuit court for a resolution that could affect counties outside that circuit.
Order on Motions to Withdraw, 622 So.2d at 3. Accordingly, the court acted properly in seeking appointment of a commissioner to conduct the hearing. Cf. Baggett v. Wainwright, 229 So.2d 239, 244 (Fla.1969) ("If factual determinations are deemed necessary [in habeas proceedings], the appropriate district court needs merely to . appoint a commissioner to make the necessary factual determinations.").
In conducting its inquiry, the district court made no attempt to "micromanage" the affairs of the Public Defender's office. The commissioner administered the presentation of testimony and other evidence concerning the filing of appeals and then evaluated that information solely to determine the factual basis for the Public Defender's claim of conflict. The district court in turn simply acted on the commissioner's report. Cf. Day v. State, 570 So.2d 1003 (Fla. 1st DCA 1990) (First District Court of Appeal assessed similar information in evaluating Public Defender's request for withdrawal from 300 cases due to overload.).
As his second point, the Public Defender claims that the district court, instead of simply "receiving" the commissioner's report and granting the motions to withdraw, should have formally approved the commissioner's findings. We conclude, however, that in receiving the report and granting the motions to withdraw, the district court implicitly approved the findings. Competent substantial evidence supports the findings.
As his final point, the Public Defender contends that this Court should take action on the suggestions contained in the commissioner's report, including the adoption of a prospective withdrawal system that will cut delay in conflict cases, and the adoption of maximum workload standards for public defenders. We decline to take such action, but instead refer the commissioner's suggestions to the appropriate committees of The Florida Bar for study. Cf. In re Order on Prosecution of Criminal Appeals, 561 So.2d at 1138 n. 7 (This Court recommended referral of the funding mechanism for public defenders and state attorneys to an appropriate commission of the legislature.).
In sum, we approve the procedure employed by the district court under the special circumstances of this case. We note that the court did not attempt to interfere in the management of the Public Defender's office, or attempt to instruct the Public Defender on how best to conduct his affairs. The court's inquiry was limited to an objective assessment of the Public Defender's practices in processing appeals in order to confirm that a factual basis existed for the Public Defender's motions.
Accordingly, we approve both Order on Motions to Withdraw and the district court's order receiving the commissioner's report. A full copy of the report is appended to this opinion.
It is so ordered.
BARKETT, C.J., and OVERTON, MCDONALD, GRIMES and KOGAN, JJ., concur.
HARDING, J., concurs with an opinion, in which BARKETT, C.J., and KOGAN, J., concur.