ORLANDO, Fla — One of the most hotly contested races in Central Florida is the seat for Orange-Osceola State Attorney between Andrew Bain and Monique Worrell.
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It’s been a little over a year since the political firestorm. Governor Ron DeSantis suspended Worrell, claiming she was incompetent and neglected her duty as State Attorney.
DeSantis claimed in his executive order that Worrell showed a pattern of avoiding minimum mandatory sentences for gun crimes and drug charges and allowed juvenile offenders to avoid serious charges and incarceration.
DeSantis then appointed Andrew Bain as her replacement.
Now, both Worrell and Bain are running for the seat.
Eyewitness News spoke with both candidates.
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Channel 9′s Ashlyn Webb sat down with the sitting state attorney to discuss key issues and why he got into the race.
Andrew Bain spoke about some of his accomplishments in office, launching new programs and recruiting experienced prosecutors back to the circuit. Bain claims 60 percent of the positions were vacant when he took office.
“When you were appointed, was it ever in your mind that you would run? Did you ever have a talk with the Governor that you would run for this position when the time came?,” Webb asked.
“I knew that the task that I had ahead of me in repairing what was going on with the office to rekindle the relationship with law enforcement, to bridge that law enforcement gap between the community and law enforcement. It was going to take me longer than the roughly almost 18 months that I had when I took the job,” Bain said.
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“When I saw our community hurting, I saw the people, our people in our community, being really victimized by some of the same violent people. I’m not just going to sit there,” Bain said.
Bain says that under his administration, violent crime and homicides have dropped in the circuit, particularly in Orlando. Chief Eric Smith spoke to 9 Investigates about the drop in homicides last month.
Bain says the drop is in part because of his office taking action to ensure the most dangerous criminals stay in jail before trial and off the streets. He says prosecutors go through extensive training on how to handle initial appearances, identify potentially dangerous people, and pre-trial detention motions.
He says some of the biggest issue Central Florida’s criminal justice system is facing today includes mental health, substance abuse, and also literacy.
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“Because literacy is not just about reading. A book is about being able to communicate, being about in a way to de-escalate the situations that you find yourself in with somebody who’s like gives you a gun and tells you to go rob somebody or do some other crazy thing. You have to articulate to that person that you’re not going to do it. And the reasons why you feel comfortable and confident in doing that,” Bain said.
Bain pointed to data from the Literacy Project Foundation showing 3 out of 5 people in U.S. Prisons cannot read. 85% of juveniles in the justice system are functionally illiterate. He says that’s reflected in our local system.
He says this year, his office launched the Turning Pages Literacy Program, but he says there’s more that needs to be done for juveniles at-risk and those who are already in the system.
If he’s elected, he wants to begin what he called a Juvenile Stepdown Program.
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“The recidivism rates are somewhere almost in the 80% range. So that means that we were they were fine when we they were in program and program, but we didn’t solve their problems when they got back to the community. And so we had to have a community based solution for them to enter into that, provide them what they need, whether it’s mental health, what is mentoring, is getting it back to their education with literacy and different tools. We provide it to them as well,” Bain said.
Another focus of Bain’s administration has been reorganizing the office, including with the diversion programs.
His campaign called them “wholly inadequate” when Bain took office.
“As Judge Bain, he watched these so-called diversion programs not work, as he would see the same defendants for the same offense getting diversion again. One diversion from the prior administration included only watching a video before the case was dropped,” his campaign said.
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Bain told Channel 9 there was an over 400 case backlog that spanned nearly two years when he took office.
Bain started a new, shorter 90-day program for those charged with misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies. But for those charged with felonies, they now have to admit guilt to go through the new program.
It’s something Worrell has spoken against.
“We want to make sure that, one, you think that you’re taking a serious two, that you admit that this crime that you did, you’re guilty of the crime because. But the diversion program, if you’re not guilty, I don’t want you to mount a version program. I want to go to trial, or the case get dismissed. Why would you waste your diversion opportunity on a case that you’re not guilty of?,” Bain said.
There’s a lot more that we asked the State Attorney about including why and how he restructured the diversion programs. He also spoke about his thoughts on capital punishment, mandatory minimum sentences, and marijuana legalization.
You can watch the rest of our 40-minute conversation here.
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