The Palm Beach County candidates in election for prosecutor
Palm Beach County voters will select a new State Attorney on November 5.
To give folks an opportunity to hear from the candidates in that race, on Arc Florida, the lawyers running for the job have appeared live for "Justice on the Ballot."
To help with that decision, CBS12 News' I-Team Chief Investigators sat down with each candidate on ARC Florida to discuss their perspective on the job and what they hope to achieve.
We have compiled their interviews below. In addition to watching the interviews, you can find more information about them by clicking on their names:
State Attorney
Alexcia Cox, a Democrat, talked with us about her qualifications and ideas.
Cox is Deputy Chief Assistant State Attorney in Palm Beach County and she is a member of the Executive Leadership team in the office.
Cox has prosecuted hundreds of cases, including first-degree murders, domestic violence felonies, elder abuse, child abuse, and other violent crimes. She supervises the domestic violence unit, the north and south county satellite offices, and the county court misdemeanor division.
Adam Farkas is the only candidate who is unaffiliated.
Since he's not running with a declared party, he will not be on the ballots on August 20, Primary Day.
Farkas will be on the ballot come the general election in November.
Farkas began his legal career in 2009 as a prosecutor in the Palm Beach State Attorney's Office, then he became a defense attorney.
Stern is a Republican. He is licensed to practice law in Florida, New Jersey, New York, and DC. He comes from a family of prosecutors, his dad and grandfather were well known in the Northeast.
Stern was an Assistant US Attorney for two years. Then a prosecutor in the Palm Beach County State Attorney's Office for two years. He's now in private practice and he teaches trial advocacy at the University of Miami's Law School and the University of Virginia School of Law. One of his ideas is to create a Task Force in the State Attorney's Office to deal with felons caught committing gun crimes.
On the lighter side, Stern is a published author. In parts of his book, "The Absolute Beginners Guide to Cross Examination," Stern takes two Hollywood movies "My Cousin Vinny" and "A Few Good Men" about fictional court cases where key moments happen on the witness stand and he dissects them, exploring what could really happen and what couldn't, what was effective, and what wasn't.
Public Defender
The race for public defender effectively ended after the Primary Election votes were counted. In that showdown, Daniel Eisinger defeated Adam Frankel by more than ten points.
Dan Eisinger already works in the public defender's office. He currently serves as Chief Assistant to Haughwout and now wants to fill her shoes.
Eisinger launched a misdemeanor mental health court to connect low-level offenders suffering from mental illness with mental health professionals. He is passionate about the issue, saying some defendants need treatment, not jail time.
An odd case where Eisinger defended a client and made headlines. In 2019, a judge in the county held a 21-year-old man in contempt of court for not reporting to jury duty, He was sent to jail for 10 days.
Eisinger believed that punishment was heavy-handed and worked to have the man's record expunged.
Eisinger also defended Paul Michael Merhige, who was charged with killing four members of his family on Thanksgiving Day 2009 in Jupiter. The death penalty was on the table in that case. Eisinger was building a not guilty by reason of insanity defense that would have leaned on experts in schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Not long before the trial, though, a deal was struck. Merhige pleaded guilty to all charges and was sentenced to seven life sentences without parole.
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