A Broward circuit judge has been moved off the criminal court bench, just as an appellate court is fielding a flurry of requests to disqualify him from handling criminal cases.

Judge Barry E. Goldstein, a former prosecutor who has been on the bench for 10 years, will move to a new assignment where he will handle restraining orders in domestic violence and other cases, juvenile detention hearings, dependency and shelter hearings, Chief Judge Dale Ross confirmed Thursday.

In April, the Broward Public Defender's Office asked Goldstein, who is considered a harsh sentencer, to stop handling some cases because of comments he made to an online legal news service. Goldstein told lexisone.com: "My feeling is, if I'm going to sentence someone to state prison or county jail, it should always be followed by probation."

In court documents filed two months ago, assistant public defenders said Goldstein's comments showed he had formed a set policy on sentencing and was not considering defendants as individuals. Case law says each defendant has the right to expect the judge to weigh that person's particular circumstances at sentencing.

Goldstein's statements created a reasonable fear in defendants that they would not get a fair sentencing hearing, Diane Cuddihy, one of Broward's chief assistant public defenders, wrote in legal briefs.

Goldstein rejected the request. The public defenders then appealed his decision to the Fourth District Court of Appeal in West Palm Beach.

The Broward Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers filed court documents in support of the request, pointing out that Goldstein joked in the article that he was heartless. And in recent weeks, other attorneys said dozens of similar documents were filed in Goldstein's cases. The appellate court has not yet ruled on the matter.

Ross said the decision to move Goldstein to another division of the court system had nothing to do with the pending appeals.

"It was my decision, one of a number of changes I'll be making this summer," Ross said.

He would not discuss how he makes decisions about judges' assignments.

But several local defense attorneys said they felt the timing of the move was no coincidence.

"We had to take a position on this, or I don't think we could really consider ourselves to be defense lawyers. We had to protect our clients' rights to be treated fairly," said Raag Singhal, president of the Broward Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

Goldstein is "an extremely nice man," Singhal said, but his sentencing policies deprived defendants of their right to have their circumstances considered individually.

Goldstein is known as a harsh judge who built up a heavy backlog of cases.

Appellate courts have criticized his actions several times.

"This particular judge apparently does not shrink from announcing fixed ideas on what he will do in a given case before he hears the evidence and argument of both parties in open court," the Fourth District Court of Appeal wrote in one of his cases.

In 1996, an appellate court said Goldstein should have disqualified himself from a case after the judge said he would never consider sentencing a person to time served for a probation violation. That ruling meant other judges had to take over all the alleged probation violations by defendants Goldstein had sentenced.

In 1994, an appellate court ruled Goldstein should have dropped out of another case where he told a defense attorney he intended to resentence the defendant to the maximum, and he would not hear any mitigating evidence.

In another ruling last year, the Fourth District Court of Appeal said Goldstein was wrong to refuse to let attorney Alan S. Levine join two cases pending in his courtroom. Prosecutors said Levine, who had a long-running feud with Goldstein, was asked to join other attorneys' cases because they'd be more likely to be moved to another judge.

Paula McMahon can be reached at pmcmahon@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4533.