Veteran Brow Prosecutor Mike Satz’s Nightmare?
BY BUDDY NEVINS
Teresa Williams knows she has a big job ahead of her.
“I have lived in South Florida a long time. I know Mike Satz is an institution…it won’t be easy,” said Williams about running against the durable Broward State Attorney.
Many candidates have tried to topple Satz since his he first won office in 1976.
“1976! I was just six then…it’s time for a new generation,” said Williams, 46.
“That’s ridiculous…There is no substitute for experience,” Satz fired back.
Williams just might be the 72-year-old Satz’s nightmare. She’s an experienced lawyer who worked as both a prosecutor and a defense attorney.
Oh, and she is a woman. Being a female candidate never hurts in down-ballot, low-visibility Broward races.
Teresa Williams
After graduating the University of Miami Law School, Williams worked 10 years in the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s office. She prosecuted murders, sex crimes and ended up a supervisor over the robbery division.
She then went to the Statewide Prosecutor’s Office, specializing in white-collar crimes like Medicaid fraud. A decade ago, she formed her own criminal defense practice with offices in downtown Fort Lauderdale and Miami.
Satz falls down in at least two areas, Williams contended during an interview with Browardbeat.com:
(1) Satz doesn’t use his “prosecutorial discretion,” often pursuing cases that are either too minor or unwinnable. It wastes taxpayer money and diverts resources from more meaningful cases, she said.
“If a police officer makes an arrest and the case can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, we have a duty to prosecute it,” Satz said.
He quickly added that his attorneys examine each case and often don’t agree with the police. Plus, his office often recommends that those accused of minor drug crimes be placed in diversion programs rather than in the criminal justice system.
(2) Satz’s office lacks enough training for younger prosecutors. She said she has handled cases where they were ill prepared and failed to introduce the proper evidence.
Satz countered that his office had a full-time attorney assigned to training prosecutors.
Williams will not make the final decision on running until after the Holidays. It appears she is heavily leaning towards a race.
She has been meeting with potential supporters for months. While she has been gingerly testing the water, Satz has been doing what he does almost every day of the year – meeting with Broward voters.
That’s what Williams must overcome.
Satz has been on the ballot since Jimmy Carter. He’s knows every mover-and-shaker in Broward.
There are few, if any, politicians who does grass roots work like Satz.
He attends churches, synagogues, civic meetings, political party functions, private events, and charity dinners endlessly.
Day-in and day-out. For 40 years. Whether it is an election year or not, he’s there.
That’s not easy to beat without money for name ID and a lot of campaigning.
Presumably she can raise some money, although she wisely has learned this much about politics: “I don’t believe in promises until I see the check.”
Williams can do it.
Years of trial work have taught her to think on her feet. Her resume is salable. Standing next to Satz on the stage, the difference will be stark.
Not only young(ish) versus old(er). Female versus male.
Satz will take nothing for granted and run hard like he has for 40 years. This time he will have to.
Because Teresa Williams will be no pushover.
September 29th, 2015 at 11:50 am
I knew Satz was going to face a female Democratic opponent next year … but it wasn’t this lady. The one most of the Democrats have been quietly meeting with over the past two months is Stefanie Moon (http://www.scmoonlaw.com/). She’s got backing from some major political “establishment” players. She’s also a former Assistant State Attorney, former Assistant Statewide Prosecutor and former Assistant US Attorney, and now works in private practice.
And in a race in which 40% of the primary voters are black, Moon could do very well as a well qualified candidate who also happens to be black.
September 29th, 2015 at 3:57 pm
First 40% of the primary voters are not black, maybe between 20- 23 percent. Even this upcoming cycle with some major races in the black community it probably wont bring out any more black votes than usual. Look at the numbers for Mancini in 2012, it shows almost anyone not named Satz can pull around 40% on Mike. Most or all of that from the black community. If Moon and Williams run it will be a walk in the park for Mike as they divide up the female vote. Moon and Williams resumes sound very similar, the irony being the name of the one you would think is black is white and vice versa.
September 29th, 2015 at 4:38 pm
Look for another indictment of an elected soon in a case that Satz will blow right after the election. We need somebody who can win cases.
September 29th, 2015 at 5:23 pm
Agree with #1, #2 and #3. Moon is the obviously better qualified lawyer, both in general and more specifically for this State Attorney position.
Moon should get IN the race and Williams should stay OUT!
September 29th, 2015 at 9:51 pm
Take a much closer look. These two possible opponents have more collective baggage than the local airport. Just pull a few court transcripts and interview any of their MANY past employers. What a joke.
September 29th, 2015 at 10:23 pm
@Yawn
Do your homework. 40% of the Democrats who voted in the Aug 2012 and Aug 2014 primaries in Broward were black. Don’t make guesses. SOE turnout data shows the number was 40% both times. Satz is in trouble if faces a credible black opponent.
September 30th, 2015 at 5:42 am
When he couldn’t get Gorden Weeks to run, Howard Finkelstein got behind both these candidates. Anybody who works in his office can tell that Finkelstein’s ONE obsession is getting rid of Mike Satz. He blames Satz for prosecuting poor downtrodden black kids and the homeless. He constantly fumes about Satz in his office. I have never heard him mention these kids and bums in relation to the misdemeanors and felonies they are guilty of committing.
September 30th, 2015 at 8:23 am
If that idiot, “Help Me Howard”, is behind these women, I will take Mike Satz any day of the week.
September 30th, 2015 at 9:06 am
Stephanie Moon huh. Heard this name floating around city hall(Ft>lau) all summer(never a good thing)….
September 30th, 2015 at 12:22 pm
As a former NYC Board of Elections executive office staffer and Commissioner of Deeds I can tell you Just Saying couldn’t possibly have RELIABLE statistics ANYMORE THAN ANYONE ELSE as to what percentage a given gender, race, ethnic group, or age group votes. This is very SERIOUS RESEARCH THAT COSTS A BUNDLE and as someone who actually had to do such studies for Barry Feinstein’s Teamsters Council the figures for VERY RESEARCHED AREAs like Manhattan, are usually off by more than 10/15%, but in a place like Broward where the campaigns have NO MONEY to make statements like JUST SAYING is just rubbish from a professional standpoint.
September 30th, 2015 at 5:12 pm
@ Count
You’re a fool. This data is readily available here (especially as Florida is one of the states where voters still register to vote by race). You can walk into the SOE office and for just a few buck order a mailing list of every black (or white, etc) who voted in the August 2014 primary. Deduct that number from the total of Democrats who voted in that primary and you have the 40% number … for a price of under $25.
September 30th, 2015 at 6:15 pm
Truthiness – Care to share the names of any of the “major political “establishment” players” backing Ms. Moon?
I’m curious to see who in the “establishment” is going to support the opponent of a popular Democrat who has held the office for 40 years.
September 30th, 2015 at 10:49 pm
wish jim lewis was running again. as for satz, it’s been almost 9 YEARS since dep. tephford was killed in tamarac during what appeared to be a routine traffic stop. since then, the alleged killer and his accomplices have been housed in jail at the taxpayers expense.9 years. a complete joke.by the time this ever goes to trial, no one will remember the facts of this case.
October 1st, 2015 at 11:05 am
I knew Satz was going to face a female Democratic opponent next year … but it wasn’t this lady. The one most of the Democrats have been quietly meeting with over the past two months is Stefanie Moon (http://www.scmoonlaw.com/). She’s got backing from some major political “establishment” players. She’s also a former Assistant State Attorney, former Assistant Statewide Prosecutor and former Assistant US Attorney, and now works in private practice.
And in a race in which 40% of the primary voters are black, Moon could do very well as a well qualified candidate who also happens to be black.
This what is wrong with Broward politics…quite meetings, taking race into consideration, taking gender into consideration…this is what Democrats would become enraged about if the show was on the other foot.
October 1st, 2015 at 11:22 am
Let me get this right, JUST SAYING who is SUCH A COWARD HE BLOGS UNDER A FAKE NAME – can judge me, a former Elected official, appointed official, published writer, and director of three Jewish Memorial Funds and an expert on Compensation Law in the German Courts! Well, when I’m staying in this or that Castle or Palace over the next two weeks in Europe going to Board meetings about Holocaust Memorial Projects we really will be considering comments from a COWARDLY JERK in Broward County Florida!
October 1st, 2015 at 2:46 pm
Any African American person who votes for Satz might as well slap the handcuffs on their overly prosecuted family of friends.
October 1st, 2015 at 4:28 pm
>> an expert on Compensation Law in the German Courts
That alone must get you a lifetime’s worth of trim.
October 1st, 2015 at 4:46 pm
But who will run against Howard? He’s getting more ineffectual every day. Someone please do a public records request of the office’s budget. They will see a house of horrors.
October 1st, 2015 at 7:38 pm
Don’t vote skin color. Don’t vote gender (unless she is really hot). Vote the person, the issues, the things that really matter.
Voting by race will have us like Ferguson, Detroit and Baltimore in short order.
FROM BUDDY:
Or Alabama, circa 1960s to today’s extremist lily-white Republicans. Or Hialeah.
October 2nd, 2015 at 8:03 pm
“FROM BUDDY:
Or Alabama, circa 1960s to today’s extremist lily-white Republicans. Or Hialeah.”
OK, I will admit that Democrat controlled, circa 1960s Alabama had a discrimination problem. Remember, Jim Crow laws were put in olace to keep Blacks from registering and voting Republican.
It is a cheap shot to say “extremist lily white Republicans”. The GOPe (establishment, ie. Bush, Romney, McCain etc.) are pretty much lily white but they are not extremist. They are Moderate Progressives.
It has been said that some Republicans are extremist, but they are not lily white. Note Cruz, Rubio are both Cuban extraction, Carson is Black, Jindal is Indian, Carly is female.
In reference to extremism, I remind you of Goldwater’s famous quote: “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”
Hialeah, what can I say? I would guess that it is not as homogeneous as it once was, though.
October 4th, 2015 at 11:19 am
Elected officials in South Florida are usually term-limited to get them out not voted out of office bar a major scandal in reality or mis-reported by reputable or disreptable sources. Such changes usually are backed up with significant financing by hidden special interests.
The idea either a State Attorney or County Public Defender will not be re-elected because of vague or ethnic compliants is just fanciful and has no basis in the historic record
October 12th, 2015 at 5:26 pm
Satz better not hope anyone votes based on the record of his “public integrity” section. I know corruption is pretty common in Broward, but at least try!