William Knight, 36, son of an old Tampa family, campaigns on a simple promise to keep the talent in the public defender's office.
By CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD
Published October 3, 2004
TAMPA - The Tampa defense attorney who speaks of his eagerness to champion Hillsborough's poorest criminal defendants possesses a plummy accent and fine manners, a prep-school education and an Ivy League degree.
William Knight is also part owner of a thoroughbred and a member of the Gasparilla Krewe. He is the son of a cardiologist and the great-grandson of the Tampa Electric founder, Peter O. Knight, whose name adorns the Davis Islands airport.
"There's always been this misconception that we're this fabulously wealthy family, and we laugh at it, because it's not true," said Knight, 36. "Nobody's destitute, but it isn't like people think."
In fact, Knight lists his net worth as a relatively modest $153,473, and notes that he shares a race horse - named Voodoomon - with nine other people, to cut costs.
What Knight wants more than anything, now, is to beat Hillsborough's longtime public defender Julianne Holt. His pitch to voters is simple: Too many good people are quitting, and he can do a better job of keeping the talent.
"The turnover rate at that office is unacceptable, and it slows the whole system down," Knight said, arguing that time and money are wasted on training a constant stream of new employees.
Knight points to statistics from the state's Justice Administrative Commission showing a turnover rate of 21.7 percent at Holt's office for the 2003-2004 period. During the same period, the Duval office had a 6.7 percent turnover, Pasco-Pinellas 19.1 percent, Miami-Dade 14.5 percent, and Broward 8.5 percent.
"It's a telling statistic," Knight said. "People do not want to work there and won't stay there."
Holt says she has no control over turnover rates, which are high at public defender offices across the state because of salaries lower than those in the private sector.
"It seems to me it's a great office, when the only issue that someone can talk about is something you don't have any control over," Holt said.
Knight was about 13 when he saw actor Al Pacino play a hard-charging, principled lawyer fighting a corrupt system in the film ...And Justice For All.
Championing underdogs seemed to him a noble calling, he said, if his dreams of playing pro ball should wash out.
A fast, wiry, wide receiver at 5 foot 11, Knight played football for Berkeley Prep and later for Columbia University, where in his sophomore year he dislocated his shoulder in a collision with a defensive back from Yale.
To his regret, he bowed out of football during his last two years in college. When he talks about football, his eyes light up. "There were always guys who were dying to get in a good shot at me," he said. "It was probably because I was too mouthy."
A year after graduating from Stetson law school in 1993, he started work as an attorney at the Hillsborough Public Defender's Office and remained until 1998.
During his time there, Knight's supervisors consistently praised his courtroom skills, organizational ability and his way with clients. One evaluation noted he needed to be "more diplomatic" when he disagreed with people, and another cautioned him to be "less volatile" in the courtroom.
His last year at the public defender's office, he won acquittals for defendants on charges of vehicular homicide and murder. He said he thrives on trial work.
"If you like this, you know what you like," he said. "You're not going to get any sleep. But if (the case) is tried fairly on both sides, it's as enjoyable as the job gets. That moment you're standing at the table when the jury comes back and they hand the verdict form to the clerk, there's no feeling like that in the world. I don't care which side you're on. You're not fighting over money. You're fighting over people's lives."
When he left the office in 1998, he wrote Holt a goodbye note saying: "There are not sufficient words that can convey my positive feelings about my experiences here."
While Knight said he was treated fairly, he said he saw attorneys inundated with paperwork that diverted their attention from lawyering. If elected, he said, he will put a support staffer in each division to free up lawyers' time.
Today, Knight works out of a small, spartan office on Franklin Street in downtown Tampa, where he has run a solo practice with an assistant since July 2000.
His law practice made just $14,000 last year. He said earnings were so low because he had to pay back a loan and make sure his assistant got paid, plus: "I end up taking cases for whatever people can afford." This year has been more lucrative, he said.
Knight was a longtime Democrat until he decided to run against Holt, who is also a Democrat. He switched parties and became a Republican.
"I'm not being opportunistic, in my opinion," Knight said of his party shift. He said the presence of candidates from two parties gives more people a chance to vote for the office. "We're going to apply the Republican tenets of sound fiscal stewardship and less government to running that office."
What chance does Knight have against the well-entrenched, well-financed Holt? Knight said he has raised more than $40,000 for his campaign chest, considerably more than candidates who have tried to unseat Holt in the past two elections. "We're going against an 11-year incumbent who had a $55,000 head start on us," Knight said.
Ironically, Knight's wife Kathleen, a lawyer with the firm of James, Hoyer, Newcomer & Smiljanich, represented Julianne Holt in her battle with the Florida Commission on Ethics on charges of misconduct. The last charges against Holt were thrown out in January.
Knight said he and his wife didn't talk about the ethics case.
"We're not the first husband-wife team that's had to build a Chinese wall about a subject," Knight said.
Defense attorney Amy Settlemire, who left the public defender's office in 2002, said she thoughtKnight's relative youth would energize an office where the work is arduous and sometimes demoralizing.
"After you've been doing that for six or eight or 10 years, it can really get to you," Settlemire said. "He's young enough that he can help energize some of the lawyers, but he's not so young that he's not in touch with what's going on."
