Michael Satz
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Michael J Satz, a native of Pennsylvania, is an alumnus of the University of Miami’s School of Law. Following graduation, Mr. Satz became an assistant prosecutor in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and quickly developed a reputation as a tough courtroom litigator.
In 1976, he was elected State Attorney for Florida’s Seventeenth Judicial Circuit in Broward County and he has been re-elected every four years since.
As State Attorney, Mr. Satz has responded to Broward County’s diverse crime problems by instituting and expanding specialized prosecution units that focus on cases such as sexual battery and child abuse, domestic violence, public corruption and organized crime.
Mr. Satz, who early in his career recognized the needs of victims of crime, instituted a Victim Advocate Unit to provide counseling and assistance to victims. For his efforts, he received the 2004 President’s Award by the Broward Victim’s Rights Coalition.
Concerned about issues and institutions that affect the people of Broward, Mr. Satz has regularly initiated grand jury investigations into a myriad of social and community issues. In 2016, the Broward Grand Jury issued its report into the use of illegal synthetic drugs in the community, a report that was cited by the state legislature as it changed state laws regulating such illicit drugs. During Mr. Satz’s tenure, grand juries have also addressed the proliferation of pain clinic “pill mills,” problems with Broward County school construction, youth gang organizations, the county’s foster care system, organized crime activity, the Broward Regional Juvenile Detention Center, mental health services and child abuse protections. In 1995, Mr. Satz sponsored the Broward County Elder Abuse and Exploitation Seminar and in 1999, he organized Broward’s first Foster Care Summit.
In 2015, Mr. Satz received Lifetime Achievement Awards from both the B’nai B’rith Justice Unit #5207 and the Broward County Crime Commission. The organization Leadership Broward presented Mr. Satz its annual “Profiles in Leadership” award in 2006. And in 2005, the National Association of Social Workers, Florida Chapter honored him with the local Elected Official of the Year award.
Mr. Satz was honored with the “Community Safety Award” by Legal Aid of Broward County in 2003 and, the same year, the Broward County Bar Association’s Board of Directors presented him with the Government Lawyer Award.
In 2001, the Broward County Bar Association gave Mr. Satz its Lynn Futch Professionalism in Practice award. He also received the “Heart Award” by the Broward County Children’s Consortium in 2000. And he proudly accepted the 1998 Sharon Solomon Advocate Award in commemoration of Broward’s late child advocate, Sharon Solomon.
Mr. Satz also has been recognized by the Broward County Hispanic Bar Association, the Anti-Defamation League and the Sexual Assault Treatment Center of Broward County, a facility he helped create. The University of Miami’s School of Law Alumni Association presented him with its annual ‘Alumni Achievement Award’ and in 2015, he was presented the “Humanitarian of the Year” award by The Florida Initiative for Suicide Prevention organization.
Mike is an avid snow skier who stays in shape with a regular fitness regimen. He is founder and co-chair of the American Cancer Society’s “Up the River” cruise, part of the cancer society’s annual “Jail and Bail” fundraising event in Broward.
In a recent radio interview, Sonia "Sunny" Jacobs who claims she was wrongly convicted of taking part in the 1976 killings of two police officers has accused Michael Satz, who was the prosecutor at her trial as deliberately covering up evidence which would have exonerated her. Jacobs stated that though it was clear she and her partner Jesse Tafero were innocent of the charges, in order to facilitate his career advancement Satz bullied and threatened a female prisoner into falsifying evidence against Sunny as well as deliberately suppressing other evidence that would have showed that Tafero and Jacobs were innocent.
Although “Sunny” Jacobs claims that she was wrongly convicted, the facts establish otherwise. Michael Satz prosecuted Sonia Jacobs Linder (Jacobs) and Jesse Tafero (Tafero) for the killings of two law enforcement officers, as well as the crime of kidnapping, in Broward County, Florida. Sonia Jacobs Linder was sentenced to death for the homicides and life for the kidnapping of Leonard Levinson.
In the litigation that followed Jacobs’ 1976 convictions, the Supreme Court of Florida affirmed Jacobs’ convictions, but commuted her sentences of death to life in prison. Jacobs v. State, 396 So. 2d 713 (Fla. 1981). Fourteen (14) judges, both State and Federal denied Jacobs relief. However, in 1992 the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Jacobs’ convictions for first degree murder and kidnapping. In reversing Jacobs’ conviction, the Eleventh Circuit ruled that many of Jacobs’ incriminating statements should have been suppressed and would not be admissible against her at a retrial. The Eleventh Circuit’s decision was not based upon the sufficiency of the evidence against Jacobs. Rather, the Eleventh Circuit found that, 1) a discovery violation had occurred when the State failed to disclose a witness’s polygraph summary, even though the witness passed the polygraph and 2) the trial court improperly admitted Jacobs’ statements in violation of the Fifth Amendment. Jacobs v. Singletary, 952 F. 2d 1282 (11th Cir. 1992). The ruling by the Eleventh Circuit which suppressed many of Jacobs’ incriminating statements, along with the fact that it was extremely difficult to put a case back together for a retrial after sixteen (16) years had passed, were the reasons that Jacobs was not retried. In October 1992 Sonia Jacobs pleaded guilty to two (2) counts of second degree murder and one count of kidnapping, and waived her rights to appeal in exchange for a sentence of time served, which at that point amounted to sixteen (16) years and two hundred, thirty-three (233) days incarceration.
As part of her plea agreement, Sonia Jacobs agreed, in court, that certain facts could be proved by the State if she were to be tried again by the State. The facts to which Jacobs agreed as a factual basis for her plea make clear her level of participation in the crimes. Those facts are detailed in the transcript of her change of plea dated October 9, 1992 at pages seventeen (17) to thirty-three (33). No court ever exonerated Sonia Jacobs.