Miami judge tries to get disciplinary charges linked to Rundle texts dismissed
A judge who is facing disciplinary charges over text messages to Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle was merely expressing her First Amendment rights and was not interfering in one of Miami’s most notorious murder cases, her attorney argued during a hearing Monday.
Bronwyn Miller, now a judge on the 3rd District Court of Appeal in Miami, was a prosecutor in Fernandez Rundle’s office in 2005 when she secured the death penalty conviction against Corey Smith, who murdered four people in Liberty City in the 1990s when he was a drug kingpin and gang leader.
But after the state changed the law requiring only a two-thirds vote by a jury to recommend the death penalty, rather than a unanimous decision, Smith was granted a new death-penalty resentencing hearing in 2024. During the resentencing phase, Miller sent text messages to her former boss Fernandez Rundle about the case, concerned about her reputation as she had prosecuted Smith.
Last year, a state judicial investigative panel brought formal disciplinary charges against Miller over the content of the text messages, saying they cast doubt on whether she could act impartially as a judge.
Miller “did nothing in her official capacity” as an appellate court judge when she sent the text messages, said Sandy Bohrer, Miller’s attorney, in Monday’s hearing.
“Judge Miller wasn’t speaking as a judge. She was speaking as a witness and as a victim,” Bohrer said, adding Miller had been threatened by Smith in the past and was ordered to testify during the resentencing hearings.
Miller was not involved as a judge in the resentencing hearing; Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Andrea Ricker Wolfson presided over the case.
But Miller was critical of Wolfson’s handling of the case, even calling for her removal from the case in texts to Fernandez Rundle. And she fumed when prosecutors waived the death penalty against Smith last year after a series of missteps.
“More tanking of a case where nobody did anything wrong. Unbelievable Hope you have a great weekend,” Miller texted Fernandez Rundle.
Bohrer argued the formal disciplinary charges brought against Miller should be dismissed. In October, the investigative panel found probable cause to file the charges against Miller.
The charges focused on Miller’s texts with Fernandez Rundle during Smith’s resentencing. The investigative panel said the texts to Fernandez Rundle “appear to be coercive.” Fernandez Rundle attended Monday’s hearing.
“Judge Miller did nothing to interfere... with the resentencing hearing,” Bohrer argued.
Miller expressed strong opinions, but that’s her First Amendment right, Bohrer argued. The comments she made about defense attorneys having different ethical obligations from prosecutors are “not disparaging of defense attorneys” but simply true, the attorney said. (As an appellate court judge, Miller reviews appeals filed by criminal defense attorneys.)
READ MORE: Miami judge under fire for text exchanges wants disciplinary charges dismissed
“They play by different rules,” Miller said in one of the texts. “No defense attorney should be training [assistant state attorneys]. It should be someone who knows that prosecutors are held to higher ethics.”
Bohrer said Miller did not attempt to coerce Fernandez Rundle, and the state attorney appeared to welcome the conversations.
The Miami Herald obtained Miller’s text messages with Fernandez Rundle and published them in an online article on Nov. 10, 2024. Three days later, on Nov. 13, Miller reported herself to the Florida Judicial Qualifications Commission.
READ MORE: Miami judge’s venomous texts come back to bite her in crumbling death penalty case
Smith was resentenced to 30 years in the new deal with prosecutors. Smith’s attorneys accused prosecutors of coaching witnesses’ testimonies and speaking to a convicted murderer in a recorded jail call about a difficult witness.
“We’re here because people didn’t like what she said,” Bohrer said.
First Amendment rights not suppressed: lawyer
The disciplinary charges are “completely consistent” with Miller’s First Amendment rights, said attorney John Woodlee, who presented arguments for the state investigative panel, which investigates potential judicial misconduct. Nothing in the record, he added, suggests that the oversight panel was trying to suppress Miller’s critical viewpoints.
A crime victim’s rights, Woodlee said, are limited and don’t include weighing in on disqualifying a judge from a criminal case. In a text to Fernandez Rundle, Miller suggested that Fernandez Rundle attempt to disqualify Wolfson so “Then all rulings can be reconsidered.”
Throughout the hearing, Woodlee suggested that the text messages cast doubt on Miller’s capacity to act impartially as a judge.
Judge Morris Silberman, who presided over Monday’s proceeding, will issue his ruling in a written order.
This story was originally published April 21, 2026 at 3:29 PM.
