CCRC North bill now in conference.

The Senate has approved a plan to reestablish the Northern Capital Collateral Regional Counsel office and use registry attorneys to handle conflict and overflow cases.

The upper chamber voted 39-1 April 12 to move SB 1086--sponsored by Sen. Victor Crist, R-Tampa. The bill reverses an experiment begun four years ago that saw the CCRC North office closed and all of its cases transferred to private attorneys who are maintained on a registry by the legislature's Commission on Capital Cases. The commission oversees collateral appeals for death row inmates. The privatization experiment did not extend to the Middle and Southern CCRC offices, although registry attorneys continue to handle conflict and overflow cases for those offices.

The House took up a conforming bill the same day and sent the measure to the Joint Conference Committee on Appropriations, where it was being considered as this News went to press.

Sen. Dave Aronberg, D- Greenacres, said on the Senate floor that the move is long overdue.

"It was a mistake, I think, to privatize this region and the fact is we are going to bring it back to competence so that cases are not going to be overturned, as Justice [Raoul] Cantero warned," Aronberg said. "That is, if we continue to have ineffective assistance of counsel, we are going to jeopardize our death...