Probation reform is off for now

It's not his job to advise defendants, but State Attorney Willie Meggs has some advice for probationers.

"I like to tell them to put their probation papers up on their mirror," Meggs said. "They need to look at themselves every morning and say, 'I'm on probation,' to know they can't afford to mess up again."

That's about the best police and prosecutors can hope for, because the Legislature adjourned without cracking down on people who violate the terms of their probation. Get-tough bills in the House and Senate were among the casualties of a late-session stalemate among top legislative leaders.

On the eve of the session, a probationer with a history of violence was charged with abducting, raping and killing 11-year-old Carlie Brucia in Sarasota. He had broken the rules of his probation a few months before when he fell behind paying his court costs, but a judge didn't hold a hearing on the matter and declined to jail him.

In the Big Bend, Chief Circuit Judge Charles Francis said upward of 97 percent of probation violations are worked out by plea agreements without a formal hearing. But since the Brucia case, all offenders are first taken into custody and a thorough background check is done.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jeff Kottkamp, R-Cape Coral, said there should be more formal hearings.

"I hope that in the next session we can work out something that looks at the totality of a person's record, to see if they are a danger to the community, when they're accused of a probation violation," he said. "If we can't mandate a 'danger to the community' hearing and look at the whole person, cases like Carlie Brucia's could happen again."

Reaction to backlash

It was the tape of Carlie's abduction that captured national attention.

A security camera at a car wash caught images of a man grabbing the sixth-grader's arm and leading her away as she walked home from a sleepover last February. The tape was broadcast nationwide as authorities hunted for the missing girl.

When Joseph P. Smith was arrested, there was public backlash against the judge who had considered his probation violation. Gov. Jeb Bush, Attorney General Charlie Crist and legislative leaders reacted swiftly, urging reform.

Kottkamp proposed a bill that would have required probation violators to be hauled before a judge for a hearing to gauge their potential danger. Judges would have to give written reasons for letting high-risk offenders stay on probation.

Sen. Alex Villalobos, R-Miami, proposed a bill giving the Department of Corrections more responsibility for dealing with violent and repeat criminals like Smith. It would've required the probation system to identify high-risk offenders, and probation officers would have to recommend to judges whether someone should be sent to jail or prison.

"It's like throwing darts when you're trying to predict who's going to be the next monster out there," Corrections Secretary James Crosby told members of the Senate Judiciary and Criminal Justice committees. "We could take in all 150,000 offenders under supervision" and not prevent the next killing, he said.

After Carlie's death, the department did a study to find out how many probationers had records similar to Smith's; there were 7,000. The department estimates it would cost nearly $1 billion to lock them all up.

Francis is one judge who doesn't want probation officers recommending sentences.

"I don't want my probation officers telling me whether it should be two years or seven years," he said. "I want them to tell me if this is someone they've been working with for a number of years, if they've been in violation before or if they just missed a report or something, if they're still a good candidate for probation."

A high-stakes guessing game

Meggs and Leon County Sheriff Larry Campbell said agencies try to give judges thorough background information so they can tell a drunk or bad-check writer from a potential rapist or murderer, but the system remains a high-stakes guessing game.

A judge will take into account factors such as the probationer's record, seriousness of the offense, whether the violation was intentional and whether it might benefit the probationer to be locked up, perhaps to get treatment.

In the Big Bend, if the probationer has broken a law, they'll be held without bond and an adjudication of guilt will be imposed, Francis said. But if the violation is a technical one, such as missing an appointment with a probation officer, he said judges and prosecutors try to work out agreements.

"I don't think we're sending people to prison for little technical violations like not paying their court costs and costs of supervision," Meggs said. "Even though the probation people, with their zero tolerance, are 'violating' those people, we're not sending them to prison like that."

Some offenders, Meggs and Campbell said, just take trouble for granted. They look at getting busted for smoking pot the same way somebody else might look at a parking ticket.

"If somebody just keeps messing up, that's what my work crew is for," said Campbell, who has minor offenders picking up litter and doing odd jobs around the county.

"There are people who get tangled up in the system. They're not real bright, but they're not evil, bad people," Meggs said.

Buddy Jacobs, who lobbies for the Florida Prosecuting Attorneys Association, said cops and courts will "keep doing what we've been doing" with probation violations.

"Whatever bills you pass, there's no absolute system," Jacobs said. "We're all just human."