1) The author is a circuit judge in Miami-Dade County who makes difficult decisions everyday that affect defendants, victims, and their families. 2) Each decision weighs whether to release a defendant pre-trial and risk harm, or keep them in custody and risk harm to their family; whether to remove or keep stay away orders that could tear families apart or prevent tragedy. 3) The judge strives to sentence fairly based on the information presented, but with imperfect knowledge of how each decision might turn out.

1. I am a Circuit Judge in Miami-Dade County serving in the criminal division. Every day, I make
decisions about whether to release defendants who are awaiting trial and whose families rely on
them for basic needs; whether to grant requests by victims of domestic violence to remove stay
away orders which keep their families apart; and whether to sentence convicted defendants to
prison, house arrest or probation.
Each decision is consequential, affecting an incalculable number of people, from the defendant
and the victim to their families and the community. Do I release a defendant and gamble he will
not hurt someone while on pretrial release? Or do I, mindful she is innocent until proven guilty,
leave her in custody and risk that a family goes hungry or loses its home or the children become
wards of the state? Do I remove a stay away order and later read about a tragedy in the paper
perhaps caused by my removing the order? Or do I refuse to remove the stay away order and
contribute to the family’s further disintegration?
Is the thief I sentence to probation just beginning a life of crime which will culminate in violence
which a prison sentence might have averted? Or will incarceration, rather than deter him from a
life of crime, serve as a criminal finishing school for a young man who made an isolated
mistake? Is the young mother charged with possession of narcotics an occasional drug user who
only needed a wakeup call? Or is she an addict who needs to be separated from her children for
for their safety and so she can get clean?
My job is to judge based on the information presented by both sides, abiding by the laws the
Florida Legislature has passed and the Constitution, with imperfect knowledge and an inability to
predict the precise effect of each decision.
There are more than 200 judges in South Florida. Each one of us, regardless of the nature of the
cases we hear, makes decisions that affect countless lives every single day. We rarely learn
which decisions proved more beneficial than harmful. When tragedy is averted, no one knows
what did not come to pass. Defendants who reform and never commit another crime do not enter
our courtrooms again. Families exist that were not ripped apart because we correctly surmised
that the defendant’s actions were an aberration and he was deemed worthy of a second chance.
There are innocent people who are free, and guilty ones rightfully incarcerated, because of our
decisions.
There are potential victims who never became actual victims because a judge imposed a lengthy
term of imprisonment. This does not make news, though it should.
However, when one of our thousands of decisions turns out badly, it makes headlines. The day a
defendant leaves my courtroom and kills an innocent victim, I will feel the weight of the
consequences of my decision, and will endlessly question and dissect it to determine if, and how,
I could have done better. With perfect hindsight, the media and the public will rightly demand to
know why the defendant was free on the streets – because when something goes wrong, someone
must be held accountable.

2. In the face of these expectations, knowing I will be judged by my failures rather than my
unknown successes, I find myself increasingly relying on faith – faith that the other personnel in
the justice system are performing competently and that I can rely on their recommendations;
faith in my judgment and ability to evaluate situations without preconceived biases, judging each
defendant and situation on their individual merits; faith in our ability as human beings to learn
and grow from mistakes; faith in my ability to discern which defendants are capable of such
growth and which are not worthy of my faith; and faith that more often than not my decisions
turn out for the best.
Faith, without intermittent proof of success, is difficult to sustain. My faith is nourished when I
learn of success stories, even if they did not arise from my courtroom. I recently met one such
faith story – Angel Sanchez. I could recount his tale, but could not do it justice. See it for
yourself at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUODg4QXBcA. His is one of many.
Judge our courts, as you should, but know that despite the occasional horror story, there are
many more successes that should sustain your faith in the human potential . . . even as you only
learn about the failures.