Board decides to go slow on first appearance amendment.

Confronted with a new rule amendment on first appearance bonds and a new procedure for getting some amendments quickly to the Supreme Court, the Bar Board of Governors wasn't sure it liked either.

The board at its October 21 meeting in Palm Coast voted to delay its consideration of the amendments to Criminal Procedural Rules 3.131, 3.132, and 3.790 until December. In the meantime, it will inform the Fast Track Subcommittee of the Criminal Procedure Rules Committee of the delay, and invite the subcommittee to make any further changes or recommendations it feels are needed.

The Bar will also inform the Supreme Court of the delay by letter. If the court indicates it wants the rules before December, then the Bar Executive Committee will prepare a response, Bar President Alan Bookman said, consulting with board members who practice criminal law.

After an extensive debate, board members said they didn't know enough to offer comments on the rule--which had been" submitted to the board only four days before the meeting--and had concerns about a procedure that left them in that position.

"Not doing criminal work, I don't think we've heard enough [to act]," board member Carl Schwait.

Board member Tim Sullivan agreed: "What we are going to share with the [fast track] subcommittee is there were concerns by some members of the board. We want to hear the other side."

"It's a very far-reaching change," said board member David Rothman, who introduced Ann Finnell of the Fast Track Subcommittee, who presented the rule amendment. "I have not seen rules that do this before."

Finnell said the subcommittee took up the first appearance rule as a result of the Supreme Court's June 30 rulings in State v. Raymond, SC03-1263, and in In Re: Florida Rules Of Criminal Procedure 3.131 and 3.132, case no. OR-SC05-739. The court declared unconstitutional a statute on first appearance bonds. In that invalidated law, legislators mandated that nonmonetary bonds be denied at first appearances for defendants accused of violent crimes that resulted in a third degree felony or greater charges.

The court said the law unconstitutionally infringed on the court's rule-making authority, and sent the matter to the Fast Track Subcommittee to recommend how the law could be implemented.

Finnell said the subcommittee, faced with an August 29 deadline, merely took the stricken statutory provisions and grafted them into the rules.

"We are trying to respond and be responsive to the Supreme...