A Northwest Florida judge is weighing how to handle an appellate court-fueled case against a lawyer who drew national headlines by donning a Grim Reaper costume to criticize Gov. Ron DeSantis’ handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
Prosecutors in March filed a motion to pursue sanctions against Santa Rosa Beach lawyer Daniel Uhlfelder at the behest of a three-judge panel of the 1st District Court of Appeal. The panel made the rare move of ordering State Attorney Ginger Bowden Madden to ask a judge to consider penalties for “putatively unprofessional conduct” after Uhlfelder made comments to a newspaper following a court decision.
In the previous months, Uhlfelder appeared throughout Florida in the macabre Grim Reaper outfit to call attention to issues such as DeSantis’ refusal to close beaches amid the pandemic.
During a hearing Monday, Uhlfelder’s lawyer, Richard Greenberg, urged Santa Rosa County Circuit Judge Scott Duncan to dismiss the case, arguing that the appeals court’s order for the possible sanctions fails to comply with a disciplinary rule cited by the three-judge panel.
The seldom-used rule allows judges to direct state attorneys to file a motion seeking discipline if a lawyer “has been guilty of any unprofessional act” laid out in Florida Bar regulations.
Greenberg told Duncan that the appeals court’s order does not comply with the rule because Uhlfelder has not been found guilty of any wrongdoing.
Greenberg…
