We need a new state attorney

Even the cops know that Michael McAuliffe is having problems internally with his staff.  See the post here.

Mike is scrambling right now.  You don’t know it, but he is.  He’s scared.  His number one threat?

Former senator Dave Aronberg.  Dave has name recognition and can get the votes.  McAuliffe has already starting fundraising.  In fact, Dave and Mike both approached the same guy to head up their fundraising within days of each other.

Also, I heard that former ASA Todd Weicholz is going to run for state attorney.  Todd is a republican.  I went to school with Todd.  He is smart.  You can trust what he says.  He will make a great State Attorney.  My friends know that I am a Democrat.  Doesn’t matter.  Todd would be awesome.  He was a line prosecutor in misdemeanor and felonies.  He is with the attorney general’s office now.  The problem with Todd is he doesn’t have the name recognition that the other two have.

Here’s a couple of problems that McAullife has:

1.  He micromanages people and he doesn’t know how to do their job as well as they do.  That’s enough to piss anybody off.

2.  He scares off and bullies out people who do not bow to him or *gasp* – ask him for a raise.  Look at Adam McMichael.  Experienced prosecutor.  DUI manslaughter cases.  Adam just had a kid and asked for a reasonable raise.  Mike yelled at him, berated him in front of people at the office and told him something to the effect that – how dare you ask me for a raise?  it’s an honor to work here.  Leave!

3.  He overuses the press to fool people who aren’t smart enough to see through him.  He was on channel 5 (what are the odds?  he’s on there every other day) touting how he is tackling pain clinics and doctor shopping.  Hello?  Maybe you didn’t hear, but former Sen. Dave Aronberg was appointed by Attorney General Pam Bondi to head that issue up for the ENTIRE state?  Mike is just trying to take that issue away from Dave.  The average person who isn’t in the courthouse and doesn’t know what’s going on probably thinks he’s doing a good job.

4. The prosecutors that remain are scared shitless and the deals are unreasonable.  Full of fear.  Don’t ask for a raise, you’ll be flipping burgers tomorrow.  Don’t give a first time offender a break – nope – gotta give guidelines or higher.  I have a case now of a kid with no priors on a drug charge who scores non-state where the asa wants jail time.  Are you friggin’ kidding me?  First time offender of a kid who steals his friend’s playstation in his house and they charge burglary of a dwelling and want 2 1/2 years prison.

Barry Krischer is saying to himself “What did I do?”  Barry is a class act.  He’s not going to say that publicly.  But I’ll bet dollars to doughnuts that he thinks it.  Mike even fired longtime spokesperson Mike Edmondsond.  Big mistake.  Maybe it was because Mike’s face was on the news too much and that took away from #1 Mike’s face being on the news.

I’m sad to say that I supported Mike in his election and gave him $500.  We all make mistakes.

Mike recently said on channel 5:

You can’t do crime fighting on the cheap…Funding is down 15% over the last three years. The gang unit, the predator unit, the public integrity unit…all those specialty units require experienced prosecutors and retaining those prosecutors is my number one priority as a state attorney.

That’s because so many of them are leaving.  And the smart ones that are still there are planning their exit strategy.  Filing to be judges and looking in the private sector.  Then criminal defense lawyers have do deal with a 26 year old snot-faced kid right out of law school with no real life experience who just got promoted to felony handling capital/life cases.