IN THE SUPREME COURT OF FLORIDA
CHARLES FINNEY, CASE NO.
APPELLANT, SC00-1351
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA
APPELLEE
MOTION TO DISMISS POST CONVICTION COUNSEL OF CCRC-MIDDLE REGION DUE TO CONFLICT OF INTEREST, AND TO APPOINT CCRC-NORTH
OR CCRC-SOUTH AS REPLACEMENT COUNSEL
Comes now the Appellant, Charles W. Finney, Pro Se, respectfully requesting that this Honorable Court enter an order to have CCRC-Middle District withdraw from the Appellant’s case. The Appellant instead requests that the Court appoint either CCRC-North or CCRC-South to represent Mr. Finney, where continuity can be achieved due to there being no conflict of interest with that office.
The Appellant, Charles W. Finney, now respectfully begs this Most Honored Court to review these issues of conflict of interest. Appellant requests that his further appeals be transferred to CCRC-North or CCRC-South, and to remand this case for a hearing on the issues that Mr. Hobson started to prepare, but was unable to complete due to being fired on such short notice.
As the State’s motion to prohibit assertion of new issues at oral argument acknowledges, Mr. Joseph Hobson, while acting as assigned counsel for Appellant, discovered that there were issues to present which prior counsel had failed to investigate and plead. Within days of the filing of this motion by the State, Governor Bush appointed Bill Jennings to be the head of CCRC-Middle. Mr. Jennings was previously a prosecutor with the Hillsborough County State Attorney’s Office, and worked with Karen Cox. Mr. Jennings was also a former colleague of Karen Cox’s husband, Nick, who was the prosecutor in Appellant’s initial trial. He was also previously an Assistant Public Defender in Hillsborough County working the office that Appellant has alleged was ineffective at trial.
After his appointment, Mr. Jennings fired Joe Hobson, the attorney who had talked with Appellant and discovered that there were additional issues to raise. Mr. Hobson prepared the Appellant’s Initial Brief, and had further requested that the Court allow him the opportunity to amend his Brief with the addition of further, pertinent information. Before Mr. Hobson had the opportunity to respond to the Court’s Reply Brief, he was fired, and Mr. Jennings then replaced Mr. Hobson with Richard Kiley, another attorney who previously worked for the same Hillsborough Public Defender’s Office at issue in Appellant’s case. Now, Mr. Kiley has filed a court document specifically renouncing the claims that Mr. Hobson stated had needed to be pled. Mr. Kiley filed his Response to the Court, stating that he was unaware of "other possible issues" without informing Appellant beforehand, which is in direct conflict with Rule 4-1.4. Mr. Kiley has been unwilling to speak with Mr. Hobson concerning these issues, and despite information the Appellant has tried to provide Mr. Kiley, he has chosen not to research and inquire further as to the validity of said issues. Mr. Kiley’s disloyalty to the Appellant and his refusal to investigate Appellant’s claims violate the obligations imposed upon him by the Code of Professional Conduct and has prejudiced the Appellant from receiving the consideration of the court in allowing for a favorable reply. These issues cannot be represented today due to the gross mishandling of this case to date by Mr. Kiley and other representatives of the CCRC-Middle District.
The task of preparing the Appellant’s Reply Brief was given to another CCRC-Middle lawyer, who has no knowledge of the appeals in progress. Appellant was neither contacted nor informed that a CCRC-Middle representative outside of his case would be filing on his behalf. Again, Appellant respectfully refers again to 4-1.4 (b), which states that explanations are expected in order to allow the Appellant to make informed decisions concerning his representation. The Appellant was not given the opportunity to give any input into this filing, which further demonstrates the total lack of regard for their client’s wishes and further demonstrates the level of conflict with this office.
These instances demonstrate that Mr. Kiley clearly does not know the law, he does not know the facts, and he feels no obligation to protect the interests of Appellant versus the interests of the Hillsborough Public Defender’s Office and the Hillsborough State Attorney’s Office. A clearer conflict of interest is harder to imagine.
However, the conflict will not be asserted because Mr. Jennings, in tandem with his lobbyist, John Moser, is endeavoring to get the CCRC-Middle Region’s statistics up. The reason for this is that they each are trying to protect the source of their income against a recent plan concocted by Brad Thomas with the Governor’s Office. Mr. Thomas wants to replace CCRC with a voucher program. This program would provide a fixed amount of money to be available to each death row inmate to spend on obtaining collateral counsel for five years. Mr. Moser, the Middle office’s former head, has been hired to be the Office’s lobbyist. He is being paid in excess of $100,000.00. The controller rejected paying Mr. Moser as a lobbyist, because such an arrangement violated state law. So, Mr. Jennings and Mr. Moser conspired to re-categorize Mr. Moser's services as that of a consultant.
In his capacity as consultant to Mr. Jennings, Mr. Moser has learned of Mr. Thomas’ voucher plan. He has advised Mr. Jennings that in order to defeat such a plan, and retain his $120,000.00 per year position as head of CCRC-Middle, Mr. Jennings needs to move cases through the system as fast as possible. The plan is that in order to defeat Mr. Thomas’ proposal, the agency must show that it can move their clients to their execution sooner and faster than with Mr. Thomas’ proposal.
In order to protect their jobs within the agency, the decision has been made by Mr. Jennings and Mr. Moser to sacrifice full investigations and zealous advocacy. As a result, Mr. Jennings has decided that he will not declare any conflicts, no matter how obvious. The more cases he keeps, and the faster he moves them towards execution, the greater his chances are to defeat Brad Thomas’ proposal, allowing himself and John Moser to keep their well paid jobs.
Obviously, Mr. Moser’s employment arrangement with Mr. Jennings can be verified through public records. Similarly, the voucher program proposal can be verified. And, Mr. Moser’s correspondences with Mr. Jennings, including his emails, are public record and can verify the conflict of interest that requires the removal of the CCRC-Middle as counsel for the Appellant.
The Governor’s Office (by appointing Mr. Jennings), Mr. Moser, and Mr. Jennings are working through their various machinations for the speedy execution of those individuals represented by the CCRC-Middle office. The Appellant beseeches this Court for the appointment of counsel free from such conflict. It is clear that the most experienced capital collateral attorneys work for either the CCRC-North or CCRC-South offices. Those attorneys seem impervious to the machinations of the Governor, Mr. Jennings, and Mr. Moser.
Wherefore the Appellant prays that this Honorable Court, in view of the aforementioned statement of conflict of interest, will grant relief from CCRC-Middle District, and begs for the appointment of one of the other CCRC offices to represent him, preferably CCCR-North.
I hereby certify that a true and correct copy of this motion has been furnished by United States Mail to all counsel of record on August 14th, 2001.
Copies furnished to:
The Honorable Chet A. Tharpe Sharon Vollrath
Circuit Court Judge Assistant State Attorney
Hillsborough County Courthouse Office of the State Attorney
317 Tower Hillsborough County Courthouse
801 East Kennedy Blvd. Annex
Tampa, Florida 33602 800 East Kennedy Boulevard
Tampa, Florida 33602
Carol M. Dittmar
Assistant Attorney General Capital Collateral Regional Counsel
Office of the Attorney General Middle Region
Westwood Building, Seventh Floor 3801 Corporex Park Drive
2002 North Lois Avenue Suite 210f
Tampa, Florida 33607 Tampa, Florida 33619
Respectfully Submitted,