Newly appointed State attorney Andrew Bain has announced what he wants to tackle in his first 100 days in office after being placed in the Ninth District by Gov. Ron DeSantis this week.

Bain took over the office from Monique Worrell on Wednesday after DeSantis suspended over accusations of “neglect of duty and incompetence.”

One of the key points in Bain’s plan is causing concern for local defense attorneys.

Attorney Jacob Stuart is a seasoned defense attorney who has advocated for hundreds of clients in court.

Now he says he's concerned about changes made by the new state attorney, which includes the elimination of diversion programs put in place to rehabilitate low-level criminals and first-time offenders rather than send them to jail. Stuart says he is worried about what that means for many in Orange and Osceola counties. 

“Unfortunately, it is going to be disproportionately affecting lower-income people and minorities," he said. "So the very people that we are should to be stepping up to protect are going to be undermined again. Thousands of them.'

According to Stuart, those programs allow people with certain criminal offenses to be guaranteed a dismissal if they meet a certain threshold, such as a drug treatment program, letter of apology or payment of restitution.

“A situation would be like possession of drug paraphernalia, or petty theft, or a 19-year-old having a beer and getting charged with that," Stuart said. "Those are the types of cases that we are talking about, in general, that meet the criteria for pretrial diversion."

But for many who were still completing their programs, that option is now gone.

“I’ve had several clients immediately thrown out and now we are having to start back over in the criminal program, even though the prosecutors assigned to the case do not want them to be in there and they agreed to it to begin with,” said Stuart.

He worries that Bain may have created an impossible situation for an already taxed court system.

“We are creating a real judicial economy position, meaning that we have way to many cases already and now we are adding thousands of cases on top of that," he said. "And that is not what we should be doing — we should be focusing on serious cases, meaning serious violent offenses, serious sexual cases, all the things we all agree upon, not on these low-level felonies and misdemeanors."

Bain outlined that he plans to create a “Second Chance” program meant to enhance the previous diversion programs. Until then, Stuart says those in the justice system face a real problem with the number of cases now flooding the courts.

“And it is not like gradually over time," he said of the increase. "It’s like boom, they are all coming in at the same time and I think that is the real problem. Bain just made this executive order — it is here now and all these cases are coming back in and I don’t know how they are going to deal with it."

Spectrum News reached out to Bain’s office about concerns regarding the elimination of diversion programs and what plans he has in place to keep the courts from getting clogged up with additional cases, but he did not immediately respond.