State Attorney Dennis Ward has known for years that one of his assistants- Colleen Dunne- who also worked as an ASA in Miami,- HID evidence in an attempted murder prosecution of a former City of Miami Beach Police Captain Bill Skinner.
Skinner is serving life for a conviction that stinks to high hell, and Ward has kept his mouth shut although the Judge in the case found that Dunne hid evidence from the defense during the trial.
Miami Defense Attorney Seth Lavey has made the exoneration of Bill Skinner a personal project for several years now. His work has gotten Dunne suspended by the Florida Bar for a year for her actions. See the Miami Herald article this week here.
Meanwhile State Attorney Ward did nothing although he had credible evidence (a finding by the trial judge, if that means anything ) that one of his prosecutors hid evidence in a serious trial.
Dunne recently settled the Bar complaint with an agreement to a one year suspension, although the Florida Supreme Court has to approve the agreement, and that's not a sure thing. Things could get worse. Prosecutors are held to a higher standard.
Meanwhile, Ward was sitting on a time bomb. Once Dunne admitted her guilt, Ward fired Dunne, giving her to the end of the month to pack her things and get out. Merry Christmas. You're fired.
Where was State Attorney Ward lo these many years when he had a prosecutor working for him who had already been reported to the Bar based on a judge's findings?
Where was the committment to truth and legal ethics?
Where was the avoidance of the appearance of impropriety?
This being the Florida Keys, somewhere at the bottom of French Reef we imagine.
What Dunne did was wrong. There is a decorated cop serving life in prison because, in part, of her dishonesty.
What Ward did was just as bad. He should hold his assistants and his office to higher standard. But he doesn't see things that way.
Tell it to Bill Skinner, a cop serving life in a case where a prosecutor hid evidence.
When you see something that is not right, not fair, find a way to get in the way and cause trouble. Congressman John Lewis
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16 comments:
Rump your posts always border somewhere between super-hyperbole and absolute fantasy. I can only guess you spent 3 seconds reading the Herald article, ignored basically all the facts of the article, and then added a bunch of totally inaccurate commentary. Sadly this is now your M.O.
Skinner attempted to strangle his wife and got in an altercation with her new BF, firing 6 shots at the guy, hitting him with 1, and oh yea Skinner's 4 yr old child was home when this happened.
Now im not a big fan of ethical violations. Here the prosecutor did not turn over recordings of 3 phone call of Skinner, which were clearly important because having been caught trying to strangle his wife, and with no way to explain the physical evidence (6 shots by him and the BF shot once), he of course claimed he was insane at the time! The failure to disclose was suspected by the defense in a pretrial depo, the defense confronted the prosecutor, and eventually the prosecutor disclosed the recording, but importantly, ***made the disclosure PRETRIAL.***
Despite all this, you say:
"There is a decorated cop serving life in prison because, in part, of her dishonesty."
Completely and totally false! The ethical violation is absolutely a big deal. But the prosecutors dishonesty had NO PART in Skinner's conviction or prison sentence. His attys had the recordings pretrial, and he was still convicted. The ***only*** reason the "decorated cop" is in prison is because he is a psychopath who belongs there.
Once again Mr Rump, you are way off in your total exaggeration and zeal to make a point. If you are worried about prosecutorial misconduct, why dont you weigh in on the juicy case of Mr. Mike Flynn?
Rump: Out of curiosity, what years did the Skinner case span? I seem to recall that a former Miami-Dade ASA was SA of Monroe County from 2012-16. Of course, DW was SA of Monroe County before that. Just wondering if the Skinner case reached that far back to 2012-16.
9:04- I do believe the Skinner case occurred during the prior administration, But Ward knew about it when he took over.
7:22- Three seconds is being generous. It's the Herald after all.
Your complaints are somewhat valid. I get your point.
Lets think about a few things.
First- should anyone with no priors serve life in prison? Maybe. But not this case.
Assuming the worst- It was a bad day brewing for a while. If he was sent to prison in 1999 would we be happy now if he got out? If he had a good record in prison, probably that would be enough.
Second- No one- NO ONE should serve life in prison when the prosecutor hid evidence. I hate- HATE this harmless error bullshit when it involves prosecutorial misconduct. Hiding evidence is as serious as it gets. When it occurs it should be an almost automatic reversal. Why? Because nobody knows what any particular juror finds as the one piece of evidence that moves them from nG to G. If you've ever done a focus group you would know jurors hang their decision on facts that rarely are the facts the lawyers consider important. Why is that? BECAUSE JURORS AREN'T LAWYERS and they don't key in on the issues we find significant.
Is my post more NY POST/ National Enquirer than Le Monde (which I read every day) ? Sure it is. That's why you read my blog and not Le Monde.
QED
The fact that she turned it over before trial doesn't mean it didn't affect the verdict. The reason she didn't turn it over when she was required to, and is now suspended for not doing so, is because she wanted to use it to blindside and weaken the defense expert at depo. And that is precisely what she did. Perhaps if this had been turned over when it should have the defense expert would have accordingly modified their opinion based on the new evidence that conflicted with it, and, by not having had their prior opinion formed when this evidence was unknown to the defense weakened improperly at depo, that opinion would have made the difference for the jury. We can't know that, but we can certainly know that there is no way to say definitively that the discovery violation had no impact on the trial.
Get Me JACK DENARO.....
The Prosecutor was wrong. But lets not pretend that three phone calls exonerate the guy that killed a man and strangled his wife in front of their child. Did you read the article? He is far from a victim or a "decorated Police officer" he is a socio path that doesn't belong in society, much less wearing a badge. Seriously dude, you are so wrong on this.
3:31 PM 'killed a man' ----- That is what you wish as Herald article says
'shot and wounded.' What Rump is saying is Life is unwarranted present day for
shot and wounded.....and the whole case 'now' smells with a retrial justified.....
Anon
1257
Didnt think of it that way. But you are stretching big time.
853
Why would a retrial be justified?
Because a prosecutor HID EVIDENCE which destroys confidence in the verdict. How would you feel if he was your father or brother serving life on a case a judge found the prosecutor hid evidence?
OMG rump you still dont get it. What ***exactly*** wounld be different between the first trial and the second trial?
LOL
Well for a lawyer like you, probably nothing. For a trial lawyer like me, potentially the difference between an acquittal and a conviction. You clearly do not realize this, but after being lead counsel in over 150 jury trials, I can tell you jurors base their decisions on small factors and we know from scientific evidence that you do not read that when people lose confidence in something- in this case a prosecution's case- they will shut down and not listen to anything else. So while you- in your naiveté will follow the jury instruction that a juror may believe in whole or in part the testimony of any witness- an experienced lawyer will tell you sometimes all you need to do is knock one block out of the wall and in the mind of the juror you have crumbled it all. But that's why people like you hire people like me for your clients.
Double OMG you are super dense. The evidence available is exactly the same, so no retrial justified. Again, defense had the 3 phone calls *before* the trial! What are you even talking about? I think you are drunk right now! As for knocking one block out of the wall, surely you're not suggesting the fact that the prosecutor committed an ethical violation in pretrial discovery would somehow itself be admissible at a retrial? Rump you are going senile like your boy joey Biden...
I wrote about a Miami ASA who did even worse and cited the 3rd DCA opinion and you did not publish it. Why?
@5:37 - OK Boomer.
Dennis Ward is as much a scumbag as the Sheriff in that backward county, but those morons who live down there are too inbred to give a crap. It's a good ole boy system through and through. There are so many skeletons in the closet in the keys it makes Miami look like the land of truth and justice. Dennis has exactly no ethics and neither does the sheriff. Remember - Dennis Ward summarily fired Manny Madruga, a 27 year veteran prosecutor, for no reason other than spite and because he could, and Madruga literally killed himself over it. Ward didn't give a shit that the man died, so it's no surprise he hung Dunne out to dry once the cat was out of the bag. Ward and Dunne had worked together since 2002. They were both ASAs together under Mark Kohl, they were each PDs after that, then when Ward was fired from the PD (after being fired from the State) he was the manager of a fish market (yep) and then he ran for State Attorney and WON (yep), hired Dunne and they worked together again. After Vogel defeated Ward, Dunne stayed on at the SAO and when Ward unseated Vogel, he took Dunne back. Colleen Dunne was almost like Ward's office wife, but he didn't think twice about hanging her out to dry. No scruples. He absolutely knew about the hidden evidence, and he absolutely hid it, so he should be called to the mat about it. He is a dangerous man because he is not only unethical, he is a moron - a former beach cop, a drunk who couldn't make a living as a lawyer (even Eddie O'Donnell couldn't carry him) who couldn't hold down a job as an ASA or a APD, but has the power to change someone's life with the filing of an information or the failure to do so. But you watch - nothing will happen.
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