2020 Votes – Hillsborough State Attorney

Incumbent Andrew Warren (D) is being challenged by Attorney and Former Sheriff’s Officer Mike Perotti. I talked to Warren when he last ran, and again this time along with Mike Perotti.

Warren beat out a long-serving incumbent, Mark Ober. Under Ober, Hillsborough had the highest rate in the nation of charging juveniles as adults. Warren pledged to me to take a different stance the first time we talked, and he’s lived up to that. He also talked, in both conversations about not using the criminal justice system to criminalize poverty. The explanation is complex, but it makes sense, and that’s he’s done. He’s worked more towards diversion and treatment programs and set up a Conviction Review Unit. I’d like to see more cases coming out of that unit, but it has worked for people. The crime rate in Hillsborough County has gone down.

Perotti has a strange career path that concerns me. He was an Assistant State Attorney, then went to work as an attorney for the Sheriff’s department, then went to the police academy and became a sworn officer after being promised, by the then Sheriff, he could take over the Orient Road Jail which was plagued with problems. He was later promoted to Colonel and put in charge of all detention operations but was later demoted in 2018 after a Tampa Bay Times report showed the jail had been underreporting the number of deaths of inmates. Most of his other ideas were to keep doing all the things Warren has implemented but do them better…whatever that means.

So based solely on that I’d stick with Mr. Warren. He did all the things he promised me he would do. Takes a very different approach to his job seeing cases as problems to solve rather than just people to convict, and it has paid off with a lower crime rate in Tampa. Perotti claims the relationship between Warren and law enforcement has soured. Maybe that’s because Warren is holding them to a higher standard. In addition, I don’t think there should be some kind of marriage between law enforcement and the judical system. That doesn’t mean I don’t think they have to work together, but one shouldn’t be seen as “serving” the other. I think Perotti’s career is one of law enforcement, not Justice.

In the past few months, during COVID, I’ve seen Warren take a brave stand and bring charges against a local large church pastor who refused to comply with the safety mandates. I asked Perotti if he would have done the same thing. His response was “No,” and he went to claim that there are still questions about the effectiveness with masks…so this guy is apparently your typical Republican moron…so that was enough for me to wrap up my discussions with him, and he won’t be getting a vote from me.

Andrew Warren gets my vote again.