A state oversight panel found probable cause to bring formal disciplinary charges against a Miami-Dade judge in an investigation that began after the Miami Herald published her text messages denigrating a fellow judge and pressuring Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle about one of Miami’s biggest criminal cases.
The 22-page document outlining the allegations and charges against Judge Bronwyn Miller, a former prosecutor and current judge on Miami’s 3rd District Court of Appeal, was filed Thursday evening with the Florida Supreme Court.
“Your communications cast reasonable doubt on your capacity to act impartially as a judge, undermine your appearance of integrity and impartiality, demean the judicial office, interfere with your proper performance of judicial duties, may lead to your frequent disqualification, and appear to be coercive,” the Florida Judicial Qualifications Commission said.
The commission investigates allegations of judicial misconduct in Florida, and the state Supreme Court will ultimately decide whether Miller will be sanctioned. She could face penalties ranging from a reprimand to being removed from the bench.
Miller’s attorney Warren Lindsey said Saturday in a statement to the Herald: “Judge Bronwyn Miller has served this community in an exemplary, respected, and ethical manner for more than twenty-eight years, including over twenty years as a judge. …. A public servant does not surrender her First Amendment right to speak with an official on an issue of grave importance both to her safety and the safety of her community. We are hopeful that Judge Miller will be vindicated when given her day in court.”
Hundreds of text messages to state attorney
The investigation focused on Miller’s hundreds of text messages to Fernandez Rundle while Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Andrea Ricker Wolfson was presiding over hearings last year for the death penalty resentencing of Corey Smith. Smith, the reputed leader of Miami’s John Doe gang, had been sentenced to death after being convicted of murdering four people in Liberty City in the 1990s.
Corey Smith
The Miami Herald obtained Miller’s text messages with Fernandez Rundle in public records requests and published them in an online article on Nov. 10, 2024. Three days later, on Nov. 13, Miller reported herself to the commission through her attorney, the filing says.
READ MORE: Miami judge’s venomous texts come back to bite her in crumbling death penalty case
Prosecutors ultimately dropped the death penalty, and Smith was resentenced to 30 years in a plea deal in February after Wolfson removed two prosecutors from the case, citing misconduct. Smith’s defense attorneys accused prosecutors of coaching witnesses’ testimonies and speaking to a convicted murdered in a recorded jail call about a difficult witness.
READ MORE: Prosecutors drop death sentence of gang leader in bungled case. Pleads to lesser charge
Miller, who years earlier had been the prosecutor in Fernandez Rundle’s office that secured Smith’s convictions and death sentence, indicated in the text messages to Fernandez Rundle she was trying to protect her reputation, which she felt was tarnished during the proceedings.
Miller’s participation in the resentencing phase of the Smith case, the filing says, should have ended once she testified in a hearing about a memo she wrote during Smith’s murder trial. Defense attorneys uncovered the document, which said during briefings at Miami Police headquarters, witnesses were given “favors” like food, beverages and Black & Mild cigars.
“At that point, unless further fact issues pertaining to you arose, your participation should have ended, leaving the handling of the post-conviction litigation to the State Attorney’s Office,” the judicial commission’s filing said.
However, Miller continued to text Fernandez Rundle about the prosecution and criticized Wolfson, who was assigned to the case, according to the document.
“I think you should disqualify her,” Miller wrote to Fernandez Rundle on April 6, 2024. “Then all rulings can be reconsidered.”
Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Andrea Wolfson
When reached Friday, a Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office spokesperson said Fernandez Rundle will not comment, saying the judicial commission’s probe was “an ongoing legal matter.”
Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle
Miller again texted Fernandez Rundle later that April, when the 3rd District Court of Appeal was reviewing the case. Miller recused herself but read a filing and asked that Fernandez Rundle “call [her] immediately,” according to text messages obtained by the Herald.
Miller criticized the state attorney’s filing, which referred to “potential favors provided to witnesses” back when Miller was the prosecutor on the case, and told Fernandez Rundle, “there is a huge factual error in it,” according to the texts.
Miller told the judicial commission those texts to Fernandez Rundle were “necessary to correct erroneous factual representations about [her] witness testimony,” the filing says.
In another text that July, Miller took aim at Michael Von Zamft — one of the prosecutors Wolfson ousted from the Smith case. Miller pointed out that Von Zamft is a former defense attorney.
READ MORE: Miami prosecutors ousted from case of gang boss on death row over misconduct allegations
“They play by different rules,” Miller wrote. “No defense attorney should be training [assistant state attorneys]. It should be someone who knows that prosecutors are held to higher ethics.”
As an appellate court judge, Miller reviews appeals filed by criminal defense attorneys.
In a statement to the commission, Miller said the message about the defense Bar “merely highlighted well-established differences between the ethical obligations of prosecutors and defense attorneys, expressed concern about Mr. Von Zamft’s inability to divine that difference, and was not intended to denigrate criminal defense lawyers generally.”
When prosecutors decided to waive the death penalty against Smith, Miller again texted Fernandez Rundle: “More tanking of a case where nobody did anything wrong. Unbelievable Hope you have a great weekend.”
Miller, according to the filing, stopped messaging Fernandez Rundle after the Herald published the texts.
In the judicial commission’s filing, Special Counsel Henry M. Coxe III wrote that Miller’s communications with Fernandez Rundle could be interpreted to be “coercive towards her official acts and substantially interfered with a fair trial or hearing.”
Miller can file a written answer to the commission’s charges within 20 days.
After Miller successfully prosecuted Smith, then-Gov. Rick Scott appointed her to the 3rd District Court of Appeal in 2018.
The University of Miami law school graduate was a relatively young prosecutor in 2004 when she was chosen to lead a team to prosecute Smith — who was ultimately convicted of the murders of six people, mostly associated with gang activity and drug trade.
Miami Herald staff writer Brittany Wallman contributed to this report