What this office does
The State Attorney is the elected chief prosecutor for the 11th Judicial Circuit, which is coextensive with Miami-Dade County. The office decides whether to file criminal charges after an arrest, what those charges will be, and how cases proceed through negotiation or trial in state court, covering everything from misdemeanors to capital felonies. It also runs specialized units covering areas like public corruption, cold cases, and domestic violence, and represents the state's interests before local grand juries.
How the office works
Unlike the Property Appraiser, Tax Collector, Supervisor of Elections, Sheriff, and Clerk of Courts, the State Attorney is not one of the five offices created directly by Amendment 10; it's a separate state constitutional office elected for each of Florida's judicial circuits, of which Miami-Dade's 11th Circuit is one. The State Attorney serves a four-year term and, unlike a county department, reports to no county official; the office is part of the state's judicial branch structure rather than county government.
Current officeholder
Katherine Fernandez Rundle, a Democrat, has led the office since March 1993, when Governor Lawton Chiles appointed her to complete the term of her predecessor, Janet Reno, after Reno became U.S. Attorney General. Voters elected her in her own right in 1994, making her the first Cuban-American State Attorney in Miami-Dade and Florida history and the first Hispanic woman to hold the post statewide. She has been re-elected every four years since, most recently unopposed in November 2024 for a term running through January 2029. Before her appointment, she spent 15 years as an Assistant State Attorney, including as chief assistant to Reno, and helped create the office's first domestic violence unit.
Official State Attorney's Office website ↗