Florida Bar closes review of complaint against retired state attorney in Schofield case
The Florida Bar has finished its review of a complaint against retired State Attorney Jerry Hill, finding no grounds for further investigation.
The organization that represents all lawyers in Florida recently sent a letter to Lakeland resident Billy Townsend, who filed a complaint against Hill in June. Townsend accused Hill of providing misleading testimony at a 2020 parole hearing for Leo Schofield Jr., who was convicted in 1989 of the stabbing death of his wife, Michelle Saum Schofield.
The letter, which Townsend shared with media members, reported a “no probable cause finding” after a grievance committee reviewed his complaint.
“On Feb 21, 2024, the grievance committee found no probable cause for further disciplinary proceedings in this matter,” the letter read, adding, “This matter is now closed.”
The complaint
In his 24-page complaint, Townsend alleged that Hill misled the three-member Florida Commission on Offender Review in 2020 by mixing references to Schofield and his father, along with Jeremy Scott, a convicted murderer who has told journalists that he killed Michelle Schofield.
Townsend, a former Polk County School Board member and an independent journalist, accused Hill of violating The Florida Bar’s rules on candor toward the tribunal, misconduct and truthfulness in statements to others.
Hill, who retired in 2017, was state attorney when Schofield was prosecuted in the 1980s and often represents the State Attorney’s Office for the 10th Judicial Circuit at parole reviews in Tallahassee. Townsend quoted extensively in the complaint from Hill’s statement at the 2020 parole hearing, where he spoke on behalf of current State Attorney Brian Haas.
Townsend accused Hill of repeated and “constant conflation of Leo Schofield Jr. and his father, Leo Schofield Sr. in ways so imprecise and careless as to suggest an intentional effort to confuse the public and the commissioners.”
In particular, Townsend cited Hill’s statement that “the defendant” confessed to Michelle’s killing. Hill had previously referred to Schofield as “defendant” 18 times before using the word in reference to Scott, Townsend wrote.
Schofield, serving a life sentence since 1989, has steadfastly maintained his innocence.
Douglas A. Wyler, a lawyer with Jacobs, Scholz and Wyler, a Fernandina Beach firm, submitted a response to the complaint in August. Wyler wrote that Hill “without equivocation stands by every word contained in his comments to the Parole Commission regarding Leo Schofield.”
Wyler urged the committee to contact the three parole commissioners and ask whether they felt deceived by Hill’s statements at the 2020 hearing.
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Though Townsend devoted most of his complaint to Hill’s statement at the hearing, he also accused Hill of misconduct, claiming the lawyer had replied, “F--- you” when Townsend approached him before a Polk County Commission meeting and asked when he would correct the record of his statement from 2020.
Reaction to the decision
The State Attorney’s Office issued a statement by email: “We are pleased, yet not surprised, by the dismissal of the frivolous complaint. We thank the Florida Bar and the Gainesville Grievance Committee for reviewing the matter.”
Hill declined to comment.
Townsend criticized The Florida Bar for ending the review.
"This seems to be a case of prominent lawyers protecting prominent lawyers from any consequence or public embarrassment resulting from bad behavior,” Townsend said in a text message. “It is shameful, but not surprising, that Florida’s official body of lawyers thinks it’s fine to tell a tribunal that a defendant confessed when that defendant did not – and then refuse to correct the record. I think the Bar’s lack of explanation speaks loudly of the Bar’s shame.”
Schofield's national attention
Schofield’s case has gained international attention since the release of “Bone Valley,” a podcast created by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Gilbert King. The series, featuring an examination of the trial transcripts and interviews with Schofield, asserts that he was wrongly convicted. The series has drawn an audience of more than 7 million, according to its production company.
Another podcast, “The Prosecutors,” has more recently examined the Schofield case in a nine-part series released this year. In the podcast, a lawyer and a former federal prosecutor have been highly critical of the late John Aguero, the prosecutor who handled Schofield’s trial.
"The Schofield conviction, as multiple prosecutors elsewhere have said, is an ongoing moral and legal abomination, for which Florida lawyers bear most blame,” Townsend wrote. “It’s hardly surprising they would choose one of their own over justice and basic legal decency."
The Florida Commission on Offender Review considered possible parole for Schofield in May and voted for a one-year extension of his release date. Schofield, 57, is expected to have another review this spring. He is now incarcerated at Everglades Correctional Institution.
Gary White can be reached at [email protected] or 863-802-7518. Follow on X @garywhite13.
This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Florida Bar: No probable cause in complaint against retired prosecutor
