Compromise on procedural rules bill in the works.

A bill proposing a constitutional amendment to give the Florida Legislature the authority to write all court procedural rules may be dead following a meeting of the bill's sponsor with Florida Bar President Miles McGrane.

McGrane, Tallahassee attorney Barry Richard, who represented the Bar on the issue, and Rep. Gus Barreiro, R-Miami, met last month after the House Public Safety and Crime Prevention Committee, which Barreiro chairs, passed the proposed amendment on a party-line vote.

"We're looking at a compromise," Barreiro said on March 17.

"It was a very friendly conversation and I understood what caused [Rep. Barreiro] to be concerned about court rulemaking authority," McGrane said. "I explained to him how it was done and we left with a mutual understanding. We are going to work together and get beyond this."

The preliminary agreement calls for the Senate President and House Speaker to be able to appoint a legislator or two to the Bar's procedural rules committees, Barreiro said, and for lawmakers to get copies of proposed rule changes when they are submitted to the Supreme Court. That would give them an opportunity to comment before the court acts.

Both of those actions were suggested by Richard in his presentations at two committee meetings as ways to assuage legislators' concerns about the rule-making process and whether the Supreme Court was infringing on substantive matters with procedural rules.

"The legislature will feel they are a part of the process" with those changes, Barreiro said. "If we can get to that point, the amendment will go away and we'll have a compromise."

In a March 18 letter to Barreiro, McGrane wrote, "In addition to my February 19, 2004, letter to you wherein I proposed the Bar would give specific notice to appropriate legislative chairs and staff of court rule amendments, I will seek further changes in our processes so that the Bar can specifically include members of the legislature to each of our court rules committee.

"You and I should further discuss the details of this concept--e.g., how many lawmakers, how they should be selected, etc.--but I wanted this letter to reflect my understanding and approval of these concepts. Once we agree on the specifics, I will take this matter to the Bar's governing board for immediate approval."

There is also another sign that the court system has taken notice of legislators' concerns about both procedural rules and jury instructions. In a March 18 opinion on criminal jury instructions, the Supreme Court rejected two proposed instructions and returned them to the Supreme Court Committee on Standard Jury Instructions in Criminal Cases.

In the first instruction, the court asked the committee to revise the rule to reflect concerns of the House Judiciary Committee that the rule did not reflect state law and the second to update it with changes made by the legislature last year. Standard Jury Instructions in Criminal Cases (2003-1), case no. SC03-629.