None — JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- An investigator with the public defender's office whose already worked on some high-profile death penalty cases in Jacksonville is getting the boot.
The public defender's office says it can't risk having her on board. Rosalie Bolin's side claims she's not being treated fairly. She'd only worked in the office here for about a month doing investigative work for the high profile case of the Dubose brothers who were convicted of killing a young Jacksonville girl. Even after keeping two of the brothers off death row Bolin's close colleagues claim her contract with the office was cancelled because of her controversial personal life.
The headlines are sure to grab your attention. All you have to do is google Rosalie Bolin and thousands of articles come up. Bolin is married to Oscar Ray Bolin. He's not usually in a business suit. He's in an orange jump suit on death row in Florida. Bolin's been convicted of raping & torturing three women to death. Rosalie met him working as an investigator on his case more than a decade ago. Terry Lenamon runs a non profit organization that helps capital defense lawyers and has worked closely with Bolin. "Her personal life is her personal life."
There are allegations that Bolin quit the Hillsborough County's public defender's office under pressure, after jail officials suggested she'd had sex with bolin in his cell. There are even reports that she was fired from the public defender's office in Tampa for misusing their funds to finance her own campaign to win her husband's freedom. "That is ridiculous. There's nothing true about that," said friend and colleague Terry Lenamon.
But a spokesman for Matt Shirk, the Duval County public defender, says Shirk didn't know what he was getting into when he contracted Bolin to work for him. In a statement from Shirk's office he said "She has a well-publicized and colorful personal life that has grabbed the attention of many in the fourth judicial circuit, including the news media."
"It's outrageous what's going on over there. I think Mr. Shirk needs to re-evaluate his constitutional duty and stop worrying about what other people think," said Lenamon.
Shirk says he won't allow Bolin's personal life and all the attention she's getting to compromise cases in Northeast Florida. A spokesman for the public defender's office says they contract about 500 vendors to work in the office. He says Shirk now wants to be more personally involved in the background check and hiring of these vendors.
Rosalie Bolin was married to another man before she started working on Oscar's case. She ended up divorcing the father of her four children to marry Bolin. He's currently on death row at the Florida state prison in Starke.