What are the priorities for Palm Beach's next state attorney?

With Dave Aronberg's announcement he won't seek reelection next year, the race for Palm Beach County State Attorney has begun. Two contenders have entered the race so far: Deputy Chief Assistant State Attorney Alexcia Cox and veteran West Palm Beach criminal defense attorney Gregg Lerman.

There'll be plenty of time for campaigning and endorsements. The primary doesn't take place until next August and the general election, next November, and Aronberg plans to remain until the end of his term in January 2025. For now, we thought it important to help put this race on readers' radar, because this post is crucial to our daily experience and our ground-level confidence that the values written into our lawbooks are enforced with firmness, tempered by fairness and proportion.

In that light we asked the departing incumbent, as well as candidates Cox and Lerman, to share their priorities for how the office can best serve the public in the years just ahead, their thoughts on what work remains undone and which crimes merit sharper focus.

More: Who is state attorney Dave Aronberg? A study in contradiction.

Cox, who began her career prosecuting domestic violence, believes the State Attorney's Office should continue its focus on issues like that, "speaking up for vulnerable communities, seeking justice, making sure people feel protected." That's also an area in which her perspective would help, she said, as a single mother and someone who would be the first woman and African American in the job.

She'd also put thought into how the residents who suffer from mental illness are charged with crimes. As a prosecutor, she said, she often was approached by parents of those charged who would call 911 not so much to address a case but hoping to secure social services for the illness underlying the crime. The SAO isn't a social service agency but she'd like to explore ways it could be of more help.

She would create an Elder Crimes Unit, to prioritize crimes against senior citizens, whether by scammers or caregivers. Community engagement should be a priority as well, she said, to build respect and trust for the office.

Lerman said that as a defense attorney for 38 years, he's seen how the SAO operates regarding juveniles, capital and non-capital felonies, and how the correctional system operates, from Belle Glade to Gun Club Road, so he has an understanding of where the office's internal problems lie, and how to address them. He also would focus on crimes against the elderly but is skeptical of Cox's plans for a specialized unit for that. "She's been there. What's she done in all these years?" he asked. To make that effort work, it will be important to get law enforcement involved and to educate elderly residents at Century Village to avoid scams, and encourage them to report crimes, he said.

As for public corruption, the SAO and US Attorney's Office should work together, Lerman said. The SAO "needs to be looking and conducting oversight" especially when development proposals raise questions about whether pockets are being lined, he added.

The office should maintain its focus on gun violence, drugs and mental health issues, said Lerman, who added,"I've lost clients to gun violence and have lost friends and family members to drug overdoses." He'd want to get people who have drug problems into treatment, rather than just put "on a carousel" where they go into the system, come out and go back in again.

State attorney Aronberg, looking back on 11 years in the 120-prosecutor office, noted the SAO's success in addressing the county's opioid epidemic and in cleaning up a corrupt sober home industry. That's an area where the office can't rest, he said. The same goes for human trafficking, not as often a kidnapping crime here as it is one of grooming children to run away and enter lives of prostitution, he said.

A tough problem will be for the next state attorney to decide when to try nonviolent youths as juveniles and when as adults, Aronberg said. It's often not easy to decide at what point a rap sheet is too long to afford another chance as a juvenile defendant, he said.

No matter who takes over the office, no matter what their philosophy is, prosecuting violent crime will be a top priority, he said: "making people feel safe."

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Editorial: Priorities for Palm Beach County's next state attorney