Former Florida Public Defender Who Dismantled Duval County Capital Defense Capabilities Pleads Guilty to Ethics Violations

Former Florida pub­lic defend­er Matt Shirk (pic­tured), who was defeat­ed for re-elec­tion after scan­dals relat­ed to per­son­al mis­con­duct and under­min­ing crim­i­nal defense ser­vices in one the nation’s most pro­lif­ic death sen­tenc­ing coun­ties, faces sus­pen­sion of his law license after plead­ing guilty to mul­ti­ple ethics vio­la­tions dur­ing his time in office. If the plea is approved by the Florida Supreme Court, Shirk will be sus­pend­ed from prac­tice for six months, and must pay for dis­ci­pli­nary costs and show proof of reha­bil­i­ta­tion before being reinstated.

Shirk was elect­ed pub­lic defend­er in Florida’s 4^th Judicial Circuit in 2008 and served eight scan­dal-plagued years before being unseat­ed in the 2016 Republican pri­ma­ry elec­tion. He served as pub­lic defend­er for the Jacksonville-area coun­ties of Duval, Clay, and Nassau. Twenty-three cap­i­tal defen­dants were sen­tenced to death in those coun­ties dur­ing his tenure as public defender. 

Shirk ini­tial­ly was fined $6,000 after admit­ting to a num­ber of ethics vio­la­tions, includ­ing serv­ing alco­hol in a city build­ing, build­ing a pri­vate show­er in his office with tax­pay­er mon­ey, and hav­ing inap­pro­pri­ate rela­tion­ships with female employ­ees whom he had hired after meet­ing them through social media or in vis­its to a night­club. Shirk sub­se­quent­ly fired the women after being con­front­ed by his wife. The new charges against Shirk assert that ​“Respondent ter­mi­nat­ed them from employ­ment at the Public Defender’s Office for the pri­vate ben­e­fit of him­self, his wife and their marriage.” 

Shirk won the 2008 pub­lic defend­er race run­ning on a plat­form of cut­ting the bud­get to the defender’s office and pledg­ing nev­er to chal­lenge a police offi­cer. Once in office, he slashed the agency’s bud­get and fired ten of the office’s lawyers, includ­ing the most expe­ri­enced cap­i­tal lit­i­ga­tors. He installed as his deputy and chief of homi­cide an attor­ney whose clients in at least 16 cas­es had been sen­tenced to death. Courts found that the lawyer had pro­vid­ed inef­fec­tive assis­tance in at least three of those cases. 

In 2016, Shirk suf­fered a land­slide loss to retired judge Charlie Cofer in the Republican pri­ma­ry elec­tion, receiv­ing 22% per­cent of the vote com­pared to Cofer’s 77%.

The ethics judg­ment also asserts that Shirk vio­lat­ed the attor­ney-client rela­tion­ship by dis­clos­ing con­fi­den­tial infor­ma­tion giv­en to him by a twelve-year-old client who had been charged with mur­der. While the client’s plea deal was pend­ing approval by the court, Shirk dis­closed the boy’s defens­es in an inter­view for a doc­u­men­tary on the high-pro­file case. Before he lost reelec­tion in 2016, a grand jury rec­om­mend­ed that he be removed from office. Governor Rick Scott refused to remove him and Shirk also refused to step down.

Shirk’s case has par­al­lels to the case of dis­graced for­mer Arizona homi­cide pros­e­cu­tor, Juan Martinez. Martinez was dis­ci­plined and dis­barred after being charged with mul­ti­ple instances of sex­u­al mis­con­duct in his office and leak­ing con­fi­den­tial infor­ma­tion to a blog­ger with whom he was hav­ing a rela­tion­ship. Martinez had pre­vi­ous­ly been rep­ri­mand­ed by the Arizona Supreme Court for com­mit­ting pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct in at least five capital cases.