Daily Record FINANCIAL NEWS &
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2017
VOL. 104, NO. 258 • ONE SECTION
www.jaxdailyrecord.com
PUBLIC DEFENDERS FIGHT PAY DISPARITY
Coach takes hit from storms
Pay comparison Here’s how the pay of assistant state attorneys and public defenders compare in the 4th Judicial Circuit. Both groups are doing better than the state average: Assistant state attorneys
Public defenders
Florida average salaries
Experience $60,183
0-3 years
$50, 284 $63,906 4-5 years
$55,179 $73,634
6-10 years
Ast. State Public Attorney Defender
Experience 0-3 years
$49,597
$49,734
4-5 years
$59,536
$58,337
6-10 years
$69,244
$66,118
11-15 years
$82,447
$69,660
16-20 years $85,110
$78,932
21-up
$85,202
$106,814
Sales at handbag maker, which has a distribution center in Jacksonville, fall 3 percent. Coach is an international brand of handbags and other accessories that is highly dependent on its Jacksonville distribution center. So when Hurricane Irma hit the area in September, Coach felt it. Coach’s parent company, Tapestry Inc., last week reported Coach’s sales fell 3 percent in the first quarter ended Sept. 30 to $924 million and comparable-store sales (sales at stores open for more than one year) fell 2 percent. The company said the Schulman sales drop was due in part to certain “anticipated” issues, including the shift in timing of a Chinese festival into October. “However, what we did not anticipate were the additional impacts of the hurricanes in North America and the typhoons in Asia,” Coach brand CEO Joshua Schulman said during Tapestry’s conference call with analysts. “In addition to the direct impact to sales at stores in the hurricane’s path, we also experienced disruption to our Jacksonville, Florida, distribution center, which services all of our North America business,” he said. “That distribution center had trouble both receiving merchandise from the port and then getting it out to the network of Coach stores across the country.” Schulman said sales are
$68,750
$115,696
11-15 years $70,000
$108,833 16-20 years
$77,369 $147,500
21-up
$83,920 $0
$60,000
$30,000
$90,000
$120,000
$150,000
Source: Justice Administrative Commission
Public defenders are planning a new strategy to convince lawmakers to boost spending and wages. By Max Marbut Associate Editor In 1963, the U.S. Supreme Court in Gideon v. Wainwright held that the Constitution’s Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of counsel is a fundamental right essential to a fair trial and, as such, applies to the states through the due process clause of the 14th Amendment.
In the opinion, Justice Hugo Black stated that “reason and reflection require us to recognize that in our adversary system of criminal justice, any person hauled Cofer into court, who is too poor to hire a lawyer, cannot be assured a fair trial unless counsel is provided for him.” He further wrote that the “noble ideal” of “fair trials before impartial tribunals in which every defendant stands equal before the law . . . cannot be realized if the poor man charged with crime has to face his accusers without a lawyer to assist him.” The ruling changed the law of the land and created a new career: public defender.
But since the office was created, states, including Florida, have not funded public defenders at the same level as prosecutors. According to the state Justice Administration Commission, attorneys in the Office of Public Defender for the 4th Judicial Circuit are paid, on average, about 80 percent of what attorneys in the State Attorney’s Office are paid. That’s an annual salary of $58,138 for the defense, compared to $72,738 for the prosecution. “It makes it difficult for us to compete in hiring new lawyers coming out of law school,” said 4th Circuit Public Defender Charlie Cofer. And it makes it difficult to keep attorneys. “We train them to be litiPAY
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The Marbut Report: Florida Coastal responds School facing ABA allegations that it isn’t in compliance with standards. PUBLIC
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