{"id":60793,"date":"2025-06-11T02:10:44","date_gmt":"2025-06-11T06:10:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=60793"},"modified":"2025-06-11T02:11:28","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T06:11:28","slug":"conservative-florida-attorney-appeals-license-suspension-denounces-political-censorship-over-calling-his-opponent-corrupt-and-swampy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2025\/06\/conservative-florida-attorney-appeals-license-suspension-denounces-political-censorship-over-calling-his-opponent-corrupt-and-swampy\/","title":{"rendered":"Conservative Florida Attorney Appeals License Suspension, Denounces Political Censorship over Calling His Opponent \u2018Corrupt\u2019 and \u2018Swampy\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Conservative attorney Chris Crowley, a decorated Gulf War veteran who ran for a state attorney position in Florida, is appealing a recommendation to suspend his law license for 60 days over speech he made during the campaign. His attorney, Scott Tozian, argued<\/a> the appeal before the Florida Supreme Court last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A referee for the The Florida Bar recommended the suspension due to Crowley referring<\/a> to his opponent Amira D. Fox, who eventually won the race for state attorney\u2019s office in Florida\u2019s 20th Judicial Circuit, as \u201ccorrupt\u201d and \u201cswampy\u201d and for observing that she had \u201cclose family ties to the [Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)] terrorist organization.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The referee said he violated R. Regul. Fl. Bar 4-8.2(a)<\/a> of the Rules of Professional Conduct. That rule states, \u201cA lawyer shall not make a statement that the lawyer knows to be false or with reckless disregard as to its truth or falsity concerning the qualifications or integrity of a judge, mediator, arbitrator, adjudicatory officer, public legal officer, juror or member of the venire, or candidate for election or appointment to judicial or legal office.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tozian said the rule was \u201cfacially unconstitutional\u201d because it infringes on the First Amendment right to free speech. He stated that the Supreme Court established the standard for free speech in New York Times v. Sullivan<\/a>. \u201cThey said that the public issues should be uninhibited, robust and wide open, and they may include vehement, caustic, sometimes unpleasant attacks on government and public officials,\u201d Tozian said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He contrasted it with a judicial race, since judges are held to much stricter rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said Crowley (pictured above) called Fox corrupt because she \u201cadmitted she had to return $1,500 to the state for taking excessive leave time.\u201d He said Crowley did not attack her religion because he never mentioned her religion or that she was Palestinian, only that she had ties to the PLO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He noted that this was a new type of case that the courts had never addressed. Addressing the recommended 60-day suspension, Tozian said it wasn\u2019t appropriate considering Crowley had an unblemished 20-year career as a prosecutor, so any discipline should merely be an admonishment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next, bar counsel Mark Mason provided his oral argument. He said Crowley made \u201cseveral false statements accusing his opponent of corruption.\u201d He said the discipline doesn\u2019t violate the First Amendment since there is a \u201ccompelling interest in instilling public confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Justice John D. Couriel asked him whether it would be different if Crowley were running for governor, and whether it was \u201cidentical to a judicial election.\u201d Mason responded yes to the latter, \u201cany candidate for legal office.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Justice Charles T. Canady expressed his disagreement. \u201cPart of this reality here is that judges are in a different category. \u2026 But then you\u2019ve got these partisan elections for state attorney, for attorney general, and it just seems like having the same kind of rules in both is a little odd,\u201d the judge said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He elaborated, \u201cSo everybody running for attorney general in Florida, has got to be worried about. They make some little misstatement, or some exaggeration, that is going to result in them being in trouble.\u201d Canady expressed concern that candidates could be held liable for campaign materials coming from others, such as political parties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chief Justice Carlos G. Muniz also pushed back on Mason. He said he didn\u2019t think he agreed that saying \u201cAmira D. Fox is corrupt\u201d is a factual statement, rather than an opinion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mason next claimed that Crowley also violated R. Regul. Fl. Bar 4-8.4(d)<\/a> by engaging in \u201cconduct in connection with practice of law that\u2019s prejudicial to the administration of justice. So in terms of narrowly tailored, that rule is narrowly tailored. There\u2019s no argument to the contrary. The narrowly tailored argument is strictly related to 4-8.2(a) [which] is [also] narrowly tailored.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rule 4-8(d) has been under attack in recent years as a broad and vague rule often used to target conservative attorneys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Justice Meredith Sasso pushed back, \u201cWhy is it narrowly tailored if it applies to both legal offices and others?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For his 2-minute rebuttal, Crowley testified, \u201cThe Florida Bar says the Constitution doesn\u2019t apply to attorneys.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He asked the justices to stand up for free speech, use a \u201cstrict scrutiny\u201d standard, and \u201csupport the Constitution.\u201d He stated that the referee had a conflict of interest, which she had admitted to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He reviewed one of the accusations against him, that he was not telling the truth when he said Fox had a 39 percent conviction rate. He explained how he came to that percentage, by talking to the data expert in her office and analyzing data from the counties in the district. He said there is a \u201cdebate\u201d conducted in \u201cgood faith\u201d about how that number is determined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crowley said Fox held herself out on her website as running the office when she worked there, so the office\u2019s conviction rate is representative of her record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During Mason\u2019s rebuttal, Justice Carlos G. Mu\u00f1iz objected to his broad standard for integrity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt seems like, if you read integrity the way you do that would sort of just swallow up, it\u2019s really not a limiting word,\u201d the judge explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said the rule was meant to apply to court proceedings, not political campaigns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI mean, you don\u2019t think that the main point of this rule is to address things that are going on in the context of the litigation? You know, the judge is this, or that the jurors are this, or that \u2026 my opposing counsel is whatever?\u201d the judge added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mason said the 39 percent claim was false since Fox didn\u2019t handle all of those cases for the office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Canady retorted, \u201cYou\u2019re ignoring what he said about her position in the office. And it is not an unreasonable thing to say if you\u2019re, if you claim responsibility for running an office, that you get blamed for things that aren\u2019t going well in the office. I\u2019m mystified by the blindness to that quite candidly, the blindness to it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He added, \u201cI have real trouble understanding that in the context of a political campaign, where that just flies in the face of a lot of a tradition of the \u2026 campaigns and [how] the First Amendment works in this country.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Couriel asked Mason how the success rate for prosecutions should be calculated, since Mason asserted that it was falsely calculated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mason responded, \u201cNumber of cases indicted, number of informations filed. It\u2019s hard for me to really just establish how we would calculate that figure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mu\u00f1iz answered, \u201c\u2026You\u2019re kind of making a technical point about how we\u2019re supposed to, like, what is, what would the listener understand conviction rate to mean? And I would think that if you\u2019re going to prosecute someone for making a false factual statement, there would have to be some sort of understanding as to what is the quote unquote fact that we\u2019re talking \u2014 what is the factual sort of measure of this, and is this false in relation to that standard, right?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mu\u00f1iz also expressed doubt about whether labeling someone as \u201ccorrupt\u201d compromises the integrity of the profession. \u201cWhat does that even mean?\u201d the judge asked,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He concluded, \u201cIt seems like you should have to establish that something\u2019s false first, before someone then has to defend themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Conservative attorney Chris Crowley, a decorated Gulf War veteran who ran for a state attorney position in Florida, is appealing a recommendation to suspend his law license for 60 days over speech… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":60794,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[3078,3079],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60793"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60793"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60795,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60793\/revisions\/60795"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}