Dismissal of voter fraud charges against one man could lay path for others
MIAMI - A judge has dismissed a case against 1 of the 20 convicted felons charged with election fraud, and it could potentially lay out the path for the other cases to get dropped.
Judge Milton Hirsch dropped Robert Wood's case Friday morning. "He was very pleased by the outcome," Larry Davis, Robert Wood's attorney said.
Davis told CBS4, Wood had finished his sentence for second-degree murder, and he had been trying to re-integrate into society when he was arrested for illegally voting.
"My client served his time and once he got out, he started working, he's a manager of a fast-food restaurant in Miami that supports his family."
This all began when Wood was asked to register to vote at a store, Davis explained, "He said he can't register he's a convicted felon, they said no Amendment 4 had passed, you can register your vote, he signed the registration form."
Then Davis said, Wood got his voter card, and went to vote believing he had done nothing wrong. What Davis said Wood didn't know was that people convicted of murder or sexual offenses cannot vote again unless they appeal to the state clemency board.
The judge agreed with Davis that Wood should never have been charged in the first place.
"The statewide office, to have jurisdiction there has to be a crime committed in two separate jurisdictions and in my client's case the allegations are that he voted and registered in Dade, and the judge found that there wasn't any nexus to Leon County," Davis explained.
Tallahassee is in Leon County, that's where applications go to get certified, thus the state argued, that was two separate jurisdictions and thus under the purview of the state prosecutor.
Shortly after the case got thrown out, the attorney for Ronald Miller another convicted felon brought up the dismissal.
"What we're suggesting is that we handle it in the same fashion, the facts are basically the same, the legal issues are identical and it's just a way to streamline the process, to alleviate the concerns, Mr. Miller has because we believe this has been an unfair prosecution from day one," Robert Barrar, Miller's attorney said.
Now, the state could still appeal, it has until November 2 to do so.
CBS4 also reached out to Governor Ron DeSantis' office about how this could impact the other cases, but as of the publication of this story, has yet to issue a response.