 | | Assistant State Attorney David Maer explained some hard truths. |
By Bill Cooke
Special to BT
David Maer, a veteran prosecutor with the State Attorney’s Office, has on countless occasions over the past 18 years spent a lot of time trying to convince twelve complete strangers to see things his way. His task wasn’t all that different when he addressed a December 4 meeting of the MiMo Biscayne Association at the American Legion Post on NE 64th Street. The association is a volunteer group that advocates for preserving the city’s “Miami Modernism” district of historically significant 1950s and 1960s architecture. About two dozen residents and business people showed up to hear Maer, a third-generation Miamian, talk about the long and sometimes tortuous path a criminal case takes through Miami-Dade’s overworked and understaffed court system.
If those attending came looking for sugar-coated answers or quick solutions, the prosecutor wasted no time in disappointing them.
Maer on Miami’s criminal justice system: “Sometimes the results are ugly.” On the relationship between the State Attorney’s Office and the police:
“They hassle us and we hassle them.”
On the proliferation of mentally ill people who commit crimes: “People who used to be held in snake pits [mental institutions] are now walking the streets.”
On the difficulty of locating witnesses: “Time is the worst enemy of a criminal case,” said Maer, pointing out that judges dismiss cases when witnesses can’t be located or fail to show up for trial.
He explained that Florida is only one of three states that require crime victims to give depositions. He also addressed the differences between robberies and burglaries and the difficulties in prosecuting a crime like a simple burglary where there are no fingerprints or DNA. “We need witnesses,” Maer said.
But MiMo vice president Bob Powers, the victim of an armed robbery in November, knows firsthand how hard it is to make a positive ID. “I can identify the gun they used much more easily than their faces because their gun was in my face,” he cracked.
Maer concluded by saying that he supports a “court watch” system in which citizens show up at court to monitor a judge’s handling of a case. “No bad can come from people looking at what goes on in our courts,” he said.
Meanwhile, association president Fran Rollason was still trying to stir up interest among Boulevard business owners in a merchants’ crime-watch program. Boulevard businesses have recently suffered a rash of robberies (see “Boulevard of Broken Glass,” December, 2007). “I know they feel they don’t have time,” she observed, “but I would like to see someone step up to the plate.” | 