Opinion ID: 1789708
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: reach of standards

Text: As noted above, rule 3.112 currently applies only to conflict counsel who handle capital trials and appeals. When adopting the rule 3.112 standards, the Court announced its intent to extend the standards to attorneys within the offices of the public defenders who handle capital cases and sought input on that decision. 759 So.2d at 614. The majority of those who commented, including The Florida Public Defender Association (Association), supports this extension; and we believe that adopting minimum standards for public defenders who handle capital cases is a logical extension of rule 3.112 which will ensure that all indigent defendants facing a death sentence receive competent representation. Further extending the standards to privately retained counsel is overwhelmingly supported by virtually all who addressed the issue in comments and at oral argument, including the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (FACDL), which represents private lawyers throughout Florida. The sole opponent to this extension is the Criminal Procedure Rules Committee (Rules Committee), which is concerned that requiring private attorneys to comply with rule 3.112 before they can represent a capital defendant could limit the constitutional right of an accused, facing the death penalty, to retain counsel of his or her choice. Those who favor extending the standards to privately retained counsel counter this concern by citing such cases as Wheat v. United States, 486 U.S. 153, 159, 108 S.Ct. 1692, 100 L.Ed.2d 140 (1988) (recognizing that while the right to select and be represented by one's preferred attorney is comprehended by the Sixth Amendment, the essential aim of the amendment is to guarantee an effective advocate for each criminal defendant rather than to ensure that a defendant will inexorably be represented by the lawyer whom he prefers); and Vagner v. Wainwright, 398 So.2d 448, 452 (Fla.1981) (stating that the same standards for evaluating claims of inadequacy and incompetency of appointed counsel apply to such claims involving retained counsel). The proponents of the extension further argue that this Court's inherent authority to set standards for Bar admission and practice and to mandate qualifications for certification in specified practice areas, see art. V, § 15, Fla. Const., would extend to the adoption of minimum standards for private attorneys who wish to handle capital cases. We are sensitive to the Rules Committee's concern; however, we believe that the uniform application of these standards to all attorneys who handle capital trials and direct appeals should have little impact on a nonindigent defendant's right to choose counsel. According to the supplemental comment filed by the FACDL, retaining private counsel in a capital case is relatively rare and most of the private attorneys who handle capital cases already meet the minimum standards. The FACDL further notes that, for those who do not meet the standards, there should be no significant obstacles to their obtaining the necessary training and experience. The required continuing legal education programs are readily available and mentoring programs exist throughout the state which permit private counsel to sit as second chair in capital cases with court-appointed counsel or public defenders. Moreover, one of our goals in adopting these standards is to minimize postconviction problems and delay at the back end of the process by focusing on the quality of the trial and direct appeal proceedings at the front end. If we do not do as other states with similar standards [1] have done and apply the standards to retained counsel, we could leave an unnecessary gap in our quality-control efforts. As noted by Justice Lewis, [t]hese standards are essential prerequisites if we are to ensure a fundamentally fair adversarial process in this most serious class of criminal cases. 759 So.2d at 615 (Lewis, J., specially concurring). We agree that this net of protection must be extended to all attorneys who represent capital defendants at trial or on appeal if our underlying purpose is truly to ensure that competent representation is provided to capital defendants in all cases. Id. There also is general support for the concept of adopting minimum standards for capital postconviction counsel. However, there are several aspects of the Minimum Standards Committee's proposal which raise concerns that lead us to conclude that the standards should not be extended to collateral counsel at this time. For example, the Capital Collateral Regional Counsels (CCRCs) point out that the proposals, as written, do not take into consideration the fact that many attorneys who seek employment with the offices of CCRCs came to those offices from law school and gain expertise in handling these highly specialized postconviction proceedings by working with more experienced attorneys in those offices. [2] Thus, the proposed standards could discourage new graduates from applying for these hard-to-fill positions and could result in qualified collateral counsel being disqualified from lead counsel positions, further burdening these already taxed offices. We also are persuaded by the Minimum Standards Committee's initial determination not to include minimum standards for postconviction counsel in its prior recommendations because the right to capital postconviction counsel is a statutory right, [3] and the Legislature has provided explicit standards for assistant collateral capital counsel and for conflict counsel appointed in capital postconviction proceedings, see section 27.704, Fla. Stat. (2000), [4] as well as providing for judicial oversight and monitoring of assigned counsel's performance in postconviction proceedings. See § 27.711(12), Fla. Stat. (2000). Moreover, while we are concerned with the competency of collateral counsel, our primary concern in adopting rule 3.112 was to ensure that indigent capital defendants receive competent trial and appellate representation. If errors and claims of ineffective assistance at the trial and appellate levels are avoided by ensuring qualified legal representation at those first-tier proceedings, the workload of collateral counsel at the second-tier postconviction proceedings should be reduced.