ORLANDO, Fla. – Orange-Osceola State Attorney Monique Worrell hopes to implement a new plan to deal with the high case load in her office.
At a Thursday morning news conference, Worrell said she wants to start a five-year plan to push things in the right direction.
According to Worrell, her office currently has 5,797 open cases but only 12 felony-C attorneys.
She said only 28% of last year’s hires are still with her office, in large part because of low salaries.
Parts of her plan include legislative meetings to get more funding and employing a career development program to retain and further train lawyers.
“My concerns are that our expectations for lawyers six months to a year out of law school are unrealistic,” Worrell said. “It’s unrealistic to expect that someone graduates from law school in May, takes the bar in July, starts working in the office in August and they’re trying felony cases flawlessly within one year, especially with the fact that we have only 29% of the attorneys in our office (who) have more than five years (of) experience. There are not even enough people to mentor and guide the young attorneys.”
[WATCH: Florida offers to help State Attorney Monique Worrell prosecute cases]
At the news conference, Worrell did cite progress with non-arrest cases, saying they have decreased from 13,670 in April to 10,687 currently.
Two years ago, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended Worrell from office, accusing her of “refusing to faithfully enforce the laws of Florida.“ DeSantis appointed Andrew Bain to replace Worrell, who then defeated Bain in the November election.
Earlier this month, during a news conference where she spoke out on the “politicization” of criminal investigations against her, Worrell said one such investigation targeting her was initiated just two days after her reelection and reflected a misuse of the prior executive team’s authority via the execution of a criminal investigation disguised as an administrative one.
“Since returning to office, we’ve worked diligently to restore trust, transparency and efficiency,” Worrell said at the time.
Previous significant office-wide updates came in April. Worrell and Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier held dueling news conferences — Uthmeier accusing Worrell of unacceptably turning down cases while she said law enforcement agencies were to blame for sending cases to her office that lacked probable cause — ultimately concluding in the assignment of six new statewide prosecutors to Worrell’s office to help clear the non-arrest case backlog.