On Monday, Public Defender Bruce Miller sent out a letter objecting to claims that Scott Ritchie, candidate for Escambia County Judge, had been making regarding his work at his agency. Miller objected to Ritchie’s statements about the number of cases he has handled, the number of attorneys that Ritchie supervised, and whether he was involved in the budget.
This morning on WCOA, Ritchie responded to the letter and called out his opponent Paul Hamlin.
Calling his boss’s complaints “just a disagreement between a boss and employee about what the job scope is,” Ritchie said, “The reality is that Bruce’s letter seems to have totally forgotten that he hasn’t been the public defender the entire time that I’ve been working at the office. In fact, I’ve worked at the office longer than he had. But under the previous public defender, I was, the title was called felony chief, but the reality is that what I did is supervise everybody under the public defender and the chief assistant. So I was essentially third in charge of the office, and that was before him. Why he doesn’t know that or remember it, I can’t speak to.”
Ritchie stated in the Public Defender’s Office under Jack Behr and work under James Owens from 2009-2012. Bruce Miller has held the post since then.
Ritchie responded to each of the complaints:
Case Load: “I’m not going to quibble over a few number of cases, over how many I’ve handled my career. I frankly don’t know, 2000, 3,000, 4,000, it’s in the thousands, really couldn’t tell you.”
Attorneys supervised: “During the same period of time, I certainly, like I said, supervised the 60 attorneys and the 60 support staff. Now was that 58? I don’t know, but it was relatively close to that. Certainly not a misrepresentation.”
Budget: “I just really cannot wrap my brain around how he can claim that I don’t do budget work. I mean, our most significant expense in the office is by far salary. And I’m involved in salary negotiations–not claim that I was the decision maker, but I am involved in the salary negotiations. And if that’s not budget, I don’t know what is. I also approve and deny expenses for things like our expert witnesses. If that’s not budget, I don’t know what is. I mean, my background’s in finance and I don’t know any way to call those things other than budget items.”
Then Ritchie took a swipe at Hamlin.
“I kind of do appreciate that Mr. Miller has somehow drummed up a little bit of information in the case,” he said. “I mean, I find it really suspect that he issues this letter under the guise that he wants to inform the voters about the facts, but doesn’t mention the fact that my opponent’s been arrested for sexual assault.”
He continued, “When that when he moved to Florida, the FDLE and Attorney General Ashley Moody thought he should register as a sex offender. And then he moved to have the case sealed so the public can’t see it. I mean, if that’s not something the voters ought to know, I don’t know what is. And somehow he managed to leave that out of his non-endorsement letter.”
After Ritchie’s interview, Paul Hamlin called into the show.
“Quickly, but just quickly, I wanted to say that Mr. Ritchie forgets about his criminal record of a case in Gainesville, where he was required to deposit a donation to the rape crisis center,” he said. “So there’s a lot of moving parts here. My case was three decades old. The case was dismissed. That’s all there is to it.”
He continued, “They’re trying to smear me with a nothing that’s sealed and over with. And when you can’t win on the merits and your own qualifications, you throw mud at somebody else.”
I’ve invited Hamlin to be my guest tomorrow on the radio WCOA 1370AM at 7 a.m. Stay tuned.
