Rodriguez v. State, 4D00-1799.
| Decision Date | 20 September 2000 |
| Docket Number | No. 4D00-1799.,4D00-1799. |
| Parties | Juan RODRIGUEZ, Petitioner, v. STATE of Florida, Respondent. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Richard L. Jorandby Public Defender, and Philadelphia Beard, Assistant Public Defender, West Palm Beach, for petitioner.
Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Melanie A. Dale, Assistant Attorney General, West Palm Beach, for respondent.
Juan Rodriguez (Petitioner) seeks a writ of certiorari quashing the trial court's order denying his assistant public defender's motion to withdraw. Based on the decisions cited herein, we have jurisdiction, grant the petition and quash the order below.
Petitioner is charged with aggravated battery and battery on a law enforcement officer in two separate cases. In the first case, Petitioner is accused of assaulting Pedro Vargas in the head with a stick. In the second case, Petitioner, after being apprehended by police in a Publix grocery store, allegedly broke free of the officer, pushed him and attempted to flee. Vargas observed the incident. As such, Vargas is both a victim and a State witness in these separate cases.
The assistant public defender sought to withdraw as counsel for Petitioner because her office's prior representation of Vargas in 1995 and 1997 on separate drug possession felony charges presented a conflict of interest. Because the assistant public defender herself did not represent Vargas and had not gained any confidential information about him in the prior representation, the trial court found no actual conflict existed and denied counsel's motion to withdraw.
Our previous decisions require reversal of the trial court's order where the former client is a victim. In Valle v. State, 763 So.2d 1175 (Fla. 4th DCA 2000), the public defender represented a petitioner charged with vehicular manslaughter. The two injured passengers, having been previously represented by the public defender's office in another matter, were both witnesses for the State, as well as victims. The public defender's office had substantially represented one of the witness/victims as a defendant through the conclusion of felony charges and on a violation of community control charge. When the public defender alleged conflict and moved to withdraw, the court denied the motion and ordered her not to look at the files. We concluded the trial court should have granted the public defender's motion to withdraw. See also Douglas v. State, 758 So.2d 1285 (Fla. 4th DCA 2000)
(quashing the order of the trial court denying the public defender's motion to withdraw when the public defender's office represented the victim in a 1998 prosecution for public assistance fraud) and Bedford v. State, 765 So.2d 846 (Fla. 4th DCA 2000)(permitting the public defender to withdraw where the State's witness/victim had been represented by the public defender.)
We have not...
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