Hillsborough County State Attorney Mark Ober released the first television ad of his campaign. Ober has served as the county’s top cop for 16 years, but he’s facing his first serious challenger since his initial election in 200o in Democrat Andrew Warren, a former federal prosecutor. Watch the ad below:
The real news is out there — you just have to search for it. While the increasingly dysfunctional presidential election grips/horrifies the nation, there are things happening in the world that U.S. citizens should be aware of — such as our involvement in Yemen. On Thursday, the U.S. military launched cruise missile strikes to knock out three coastal radar sites in areas of Yemen controlled by Iran-aligned Houthi forces, retaliating after failed missile attacks this week on a U.S. Navy destroyer. Now some might…
Considering that he’s the underdog running against a four-term incumbent, it would be political malpractice for Andrew Warren NOT to make hay out of a damning national report released Wednesday that calls out Hillsborough County State Attorney Mark Ober’s office as being plagued by “persistent problems of overzealous prosecutors, ineffective defense lawyers, and racial bias.” The Harvard Law School’s Fair Punishment Project’s report lists Hillsborough County as just one of 16 in the nation — or one half of one percent — that imposed five or…
Mark Ober says he’s had enough of having his opponent “lying to voters” about his record. The Hillsborough County State Attorney responded Thursday to two specific cases his Democratic opponent, Andrew Warren, has criticized him for during this campaign season. Warren is the 39-year-old former federal prosecutor who decided to challenge Ober this fall, the first time he’s seriously been opposed by a Democrat since he was first elected in 2000. He’s been relentless in criticizing Ober for a variety…
(UPDATE) There are just 16 counties in the U.S. — or one half of one percent — that imposed five or more death sentences between 2010 and 2015, and, according to a new report, four of them are in Florida — Hillsborough, Pinellas, Miami-Dade, and Duval. The Harvard Law School’s Fair Punishment Project’s report notes these “outlier counties” are plagued by persistent problems of overzealous prosecutors, ineffective defense lawyers, and racial bias. “Researchers found that the impact of these systemic problems included the conviction of innocent…
Is Mark Ober a relic of the past? That’s clearly the charge being made about the man who has served as the Hillsborough County State Attorney for the past 16 years in a new television ad out on Tuesday for Andrew Warren, the former federal prosecutor turned Democratic candidate for Hillsborough County State Attorney. The 30-second ad — now airing on local broadcast and cable stations — takes aim at the GOP incumbent, painting him as behind the times in dealing with how the…
A report issued by a children’s advocacy group last week singled out Hillsborough County as one of three outliers in the state when it comes to its propensity towards arresting juveniles. Unlike so many other counties in Florida who have adopted the use of writing out civil citations instead of arrests when it comes to juveniles, the report by the Children’s Campaign revealed that Hillsborough issued civil citations over arrests in only 32 percent of eligible cases in 2014-15, a dramatic number when…