TALLAHASSEE – An appeals court is scheduled to take up a state challenge to the dismissal of a perjury indictment against former Broward County Public Schools Superintendent of Schools Robert Runcie.
A panel of the 4th District Court of Appeals will hear arguments about whether a statewide grand jury had the authority to indict Runcie for alleged perjury involving testimony about a technology contract.
The statewide grand jury was impaneled in 2019 to investigate school safety issues after the Feb. 14, 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland that killed 17 people.
A circuit judge ruled that the statewide grand jury did not have the authority to indict Runcie because the alleged perjury occurred in only one judicial circuit, where crimes are handled by local prosecutors or grand juries.
Attorney General Ashley Moody’s office appealed, raising a series of arguments, including that statewide grand jury members were drawn from multiple circuits. But Runcie’s attorneys argued in a brief this year that the dismissal should be upheld, saying, in part, that the “indictment charged Mr. Runcie with perjury premised on testimony that occurred exclusively in one judicial circuit.”
