McCabe’s death and Dillinger’s departure means new faces will fill the Pinellas-Pasco circuit’s top criminal justice positions for the first time in decades. The governor will have to appoint an interim state attorney, and then voters will elect a new state attorney in 2022. In April he was automatically elected to another four-year term that was to start Tuesday. McCabe’s only contested election was his first one in 1992, and he has run unopposed since. Lindsey was again sentenced to life in prison. Petersburg police Officer David Crawford in 2011. 23, 2013 re-sentencing hearing of Nicholas Lindsey Jr. “I just hope that the public will be satisfied with what I do.”Ĭhief Assistant State Attorney Bruce Bartlett, left, and Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Bernie McCabe, right, confer during the Sept. “Trying to step in for Bernie - they’re hard shoes to fill,” Bartlett said. The chief judge on Saturday appointed Chief Assistant State Attorney Bruce Bartlett, McCabe’s longtime second-in-command and close friend, as acting state attorney. The state attorney was a “consummate professional, very ethical,” said Bob Dillinger, who retired last week after 24 years as Pinellas-Pasco’s top public defender. “He was a great leader for the state attorney’s office and has a legacy that will be very, very difficult to surpass.” He was a keen politician, and he was always mindful of the other justice partners,” said Pinellas-Pasco Chief Judge Anthony Rondolino, who had known McCabe since both were young attorneys.
He had a superior insight into our judicial system. When the news of McCabe’s death broke Saturday, the region’s top officials offered praise. “I don’t know if there’s anything else that I could find that would give me the sense of fulfillment that I get out of this office.” I can cook reasonably well, but I can’t do that all the time … I think I would feel a big void (if I wasn’t working),” he said. In a 2018 interview with the Times, McCabe said his job meant everything to him. McCabe leaves behind a wife, Denise, who he married in 1969, and two children.
“It’s no secret he’s been in poor health,” said Pinellas Pasco Clerk of the Circuit Court Ken Burke, a longtime friend of the state attorney. McCabe provided no details about his health then. In February, he suffered what he called an “adverse health event” before the pandemic and started working from home. He had been in poor health for some time.
He also led the office in its unsuccessful prosecution of the Church of Scientology. Instead, McCabe’s historic career went in the opposite direction: He spent a half-century as a prosecutor and in 1992 was elected to the top job.Īs Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney, he spent nearly three decades overseeing the prosecution of murderers, cop-killers and con men in both counties. “I was always fascinated by Perry Mason,” he told the Tampa Bay Times in 2018. When Bernie McCabe first thought about becoming a lawyer, the name that came to mind was TV’s most famous defense attorney.
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