Daily Record Financial News &
Monday, December 7, 2015
Vol. 103, No. 016 • Two Sections
35¢ www.jaxdailyrecord.com
Judicial discretion cut from bill
Defense attorneys want judges involved in direct-file cases By David Chapman Staff Writer Teenagers and their parents in a juvenile courtroom. A prosecutor announces the teenager will be prosecuted as an adult, which leads to an arrest on the spot. Both the judge and the defense attorney are powerless at that point. It’s a scenario that often makes Rob Mason’s phone ring with the loudest complaints.
Mason, the 4th Judicial Circuit’s Juvenile Division director for the Office of Public Defender, calls it an “awful” scene. The process is called discretionary direct file, which gives prosecutors the power to decide whether teenagers should be tried as juveniles or adults for crimes they have committed, including non-violent offenses. Critics call the system broken and say judges should have a say in the decision. In the past five
years, 12,000 juveniles in Florida were transferred to adult court, with more than 60 percent being non-violent felonies, according to a 2014 Human Rights Watch report. Direct-file cases account for 98 percent of those transfers and “gives prosecutors unfettered discretion” on the move, the report said. However, changes could be on the way in Tallahassee. A bill proposed originally sought to make
wholesale changes to the directfile process. The changes included judicial involvement in discretionary direct-file cases; created a two-tier system of direct-file offenses for teenagers ages 14-15 and 16-17; eliminated mandatory direct file, used for teenagers 16 and older on certain offenses; and considered a teenager’s competency. Mason is the chair of the Florida Public Defender Juvenile Justice Committee and was in Tal-
Analyst: FIS back to what it ‘does best’
Investment paying off
Fidelity National Information Systems Inc., or FIS, completed its acquisition of SunGard Data Systems Inc. last week and while it’s not known what FIS will do with SunGard’s offices, one analyst expressed optimism about the merged company. J.P. Morgan analyst Tien-tsin Huang upgraded his rating on Jacksonville-based FIS from “neutral” to “overweight” after the merger was completed. “We view FIS’s acquisition of SunGard as a return to what FIS management does best, which is execute deal synergies,” Huang said in a research report. “In 2012, FIS shifted its strategy from doing deals to driving organic revenue growth, which has waned recently due to various macro and execution issues. Buying SunGard is somewhat of an admission of this, in our view,” he said. While revenue growth may slow, Huang sees an opportunity for FIS to improve its financial performance by reducing expenses and increasing profit margins of the merged company. FIS and SunGard are both companies that provide financial technology. The merged company has more than 55,000 employees and about $9.3 billion in annual revenue. The merger came as Pennsylvania-based SunGard was independently working on an expansion of its Jacksonville offices in the Prudential Building on the Downtown Southbank. SunGard two years ago was approved for city and state incentives to move from the Southside to the Prudential Building, promising to add 170 jobs to the 80 employees it had at the time.
DIA program bringing jobs, investment to Downtown By Max Marbut, Staff Writer
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Photo by Max Marbut
Capital investment of $3 million, 110 new jobs and 30,000 square feet of previously empty Downtown retail space to be occupied by employees and patrons. Numbers like those could be called a good yield for a $544,185 investment of public funds from the first year of the Downtown Investment Authority’s Retail Enhancement Grant program. “We’ve helped small-business owners and improved the experience for people who work, live and visit Downtown,” said Jim Bailey, chair of the authority’s board and publisher of the Daily Record. Downtown
Jimmy John’s Gourmet Sandwiches received $28,000 from the Downtown Investment Authority’s Retail Enhancement Program.
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lahassee on Tuesday to support the reform bill (HB 129) before a judicial subcommittee. The group passed a substitute that added a number of offenses to still be allowed for direct file and nixed the part about judicial involvement, though, which Mason said is the crux of the issue. “The whole thing should be about getting in front of a judge,” he said. Juvenile continued on Page A-7
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