Here's Sen. Haridopolos trying to fight back against Amendments 5 and 6, the Fair Districts amendments. His message? Redistricting is haaaard!

Haridopolos made available the Senate’s redistricting guru, John Guthrie, a nationally renowned expert on the once-a-decade process of redrawing legislative and congressional boundaries, to walk an audience through the process of moving the lines to see how it works in practice.

Among the mountains of data used to draw the lines are Census tidbits on age, sex, race and voter-registration, all mapped down to the neighborhood-level. One blogger in the audience repeatedly wanted to know why voter data was used at all to map political districts, apparently annoying Haridopolos a bit (he told him to stop clicking his pen once).

Haridopolos is also calling Amendments 5 and 6 "lawsuit city." Yet so far, no lawsuit has been filed.

However, there should be no doubt that incumbents in the legislature and Congress who benefit greatly from their gerrymandered districts will fight Amendments 5 and 6 with everything they've got. The very thought of actually having to defend their actions and votes to the people they "represent" in the context of a competitive election scares the bejesus out of them.

Progress Florida's Best of the Blogs for the week ending 2-19-10
Note: Best of the Blogs is featured weekly as part of Progress Florida's popular free Daily Clips service.

The Redistricting Blues
By Tally
Florida Politics
Watching legislative committee hearings, especially contentious ones, is sort of like going to the theater, except there's no plot and the acting's not very good.

Note to Florida Voters: throw out the vultures and speculators
By Gimleteye
Eye on Miami
It was twenty years ago in the Keys and I was a novice activist when I first heard the oldest lie in Florida to justify another development, "expanding our tax base is necessary to provide services for residents."

No Child Left Behind, FCAT, and Children from Haiti
By R.S. Pienta
Leave a Comment A teacher I met via Facebook recently vented her frustration about the No Child Left Behind policy and how it is implemented via rules about FCAT in the state of Florida.

Progress Florida's Best of the Blogs for the week ending 1-22-10
Note: Best of the Blogs is featured weekly as part of Progress Florida's popular free Daily Clips service.

Why FL just got High Speed Rail
By NoFortunateSon
Daily Kos
As a Pinellas County native, I have been waiting 25 years for the announcement heard today: $1.25 billion would be granted for construction of a Florida high speed rail.

What's Crist to do (besides dropping out and endorsing Kendrick Meek)?
By Steve Schale
Steve Schale
If I had a dollar for every question I've gotten about the Crist campaign, just in the last 96 hours, I wouldn't be driving a seven year old car with 130,000 miles.

I suspect the new kid on the block is a bully
By Geniusofdespair
Eye on Miami
The only person who signed the Corporate papers (filed January 21st) for this 501c4 is Richard E. Coates, a Tallahassee lobbyist, who also happens to have as a client Barney Bishop's "Associated Industries of Florida".

CBS Tainting Super Bowl Broadcast
By Daniel Tilson
Progress Florida
In rolling out what they claim is a new policy to begin broadcasting "approved" paid advocacy group advertisements, the CBS TV network is clearly taking the sensitive, low-key high road - airing the first such spot during Super Bowl 44, being played Sunday in our South Florida backyard, with a few additional folks tuning in from around the globe.

Six amendments make the ballot
By Bill Newton
FCAN Blog
It will be another busy year for voters. The Legislature wants us to give up public campaign finance, and we have a chance to make Florida's election districts more fair and eliminate gerrymandering.

Progress Florida's Best of the Blogs for the week ending 1-22-10
Note: Best of the Blogs is featured weekly as part of Progress Florida's popular free Daily Clips service.

Take a look at the "Floridians for Smarter Growth" Logo
By Gimleteye
Eye on Miami
This logo is as phony as the Group, "Floridians for Smarter Growth."

Representative Janet Long pushes bill for stronger early-education Standards
By Peter Schorsch
St. Petersblog 2.0
In the wake of a new report from the business community about Florida’s workforce, State Rep. Janet Long (D-Seminole) today called on legislative leaders to embrace her plan to improve Florida’s pre-kindergarten program.

Dem Registration Gains- Trends in State House Seats
By Steve Schale
Steve Schale
Earlier this week, I took a look at macro-level Florida voter registration trends, which showed that despite a difficult political climate, Democrats are continuing to grow their advantage over Republicans in statewide voter registration.

Our Editorial Cartoon of the Week feature is part of Progress Florida's popular FREE Daily Clips service:

By Andy Marlette, Pensacola News Journal

BONUS CARTOON


By Jeff Parker, Florida Today

Pdf documents supporting statements made in my letter to Florida Today are available by e-mailing studio8@infionline.net and putting "pdf please" in the subject line. I'm too ill and tired to address how asinine an Innocence Commission is with a mainstream media promoting incumbent thugs and peacocks with ongoing, glaring omissions of facts (peacocks as in Haridopolos and Crist, and thugs as in Wolfinger and Moxley). Exonerees don't confuse compensation with justice; they want and deserve both. Criminal prosecutions are the most visible of all activities for police, prosecutors and judges; true miscreants show the full spectrum of their behaviors in matters that get less attention, as previously addressed in my blog about Executive Orders in October. Only a full-fledged federal investigation and criminal prosecution will address all the harm done.




From: Susan Chandler
Date: December 14, 2009 12:18:48 PM EST
To: John Glisch , letters@floridatoday.com
Cc: Governor Charlie Crist , cig@eog.myflorida.com, Debbie Mayfield , larry.cretul@myfloridahouse.gov, Senator Mike Haridopolos , atwater.jeff.web@flsenate.gov, jrusso@pd18.net, Norm Wolfinger , Scott H Maxwell , TCPalm Daily Newsbreak , Gretl Plessinger , Sandy D'Alemberte , mschlakman@admin.fsu.edu, "Barry Scheck, Innocence Project" , "Maddy deLone, Innocence Project" , Seth Miller
Subject: "Motion Denied in Dillon case" 12/4/09; "Lawyers call for a squad on innocence" 12/12/09, etc.

Dear Florida Today:

I write once again to document information that discounts Gannett's reporting.

Roger Dale Chapman appeared at William Dillon's compensation hearing in Tallahassee, ostensibly to apologize to Dillon for lying about him on the stand and support Dillon's exoneration compensation claim, but noticeably more concerned with claiming he'd been coached to lie by former Brevard deputy Thomas Fair. As Chapman wasn't due to be rereleased until February, I've requested contact information for the appropriate records custodians to get the facts surrounding Chapman's somehow getting out early yet again, apparently without supervision this time. It's more than a little suspicious for a dangerous career felon to continually get early releases.

Florida Today's December 4th article, "Motion denied in Dillon case," portrayed Fair successfully getting his "belief" on the record in Dillon's exoneration compensation hearings that supported State Attorney Wolfinger's spurious claims that Dillon was released on technicalities, belied by DNA tests, Chapman's lies, misrepresented evidence, witness intimidation, officer misconduct, the use of John Preston's phony scent evidence expertise, etc.

Florida Today allowed Wolfinger to state that he had investigated cases involving Preston after Wilton Dedge's 2004 DNA exoneration in "Trials in which dog was used to be reviewed" on July 25th, 2009. Wolfinger did no such thing; I've known this since November of 2008 through asking Wolfinger's records custodian for his list of Preston's appearances. There isn't one. Wolfinger's custodian wrote that I was requesting an investigation, and that I would have to pay for it.

According to Wolfinger's records custodian, no one from the media had requested a list. And that is not as bad as it gets.

Florida Today reported on December 4th, "Fair, in his affidavit, calls Chapman's testimony "slanderous, libelous and defamatory to the good moral character of myself, Investigator Dan Wilmer and Judge Dean Moxley." Hanging Dillon out to dry - Florida Today did not print any of its archived information about Wilmer, Moxley or Fair, information that doesn't support Fair's glowing character endorsements.

Dan Wilmer - perhaps there are two; one honest, one not. Florida Today challenged the Sheriff's office over Wilmer's denial of the existence of a memo linking a prostitute to another deputy, with that challenge proving that Wilmer lied, according to the November 1995 Brechner report.

Judge John Dean Moxley - whether he's goes by John or Dean, there's but one Moxley involved, and he has a low moral character. Florida Today previously reported that he helped prosecute Juan Ramos, Wilton Dedge and others using untenable trial tactics like those listed above.

Thomas Fair - according to Florida Today's October 27, 2008 article, "Ex-police tester says he got fired unjustly," Fair claimed he'd been dismissed for speaking up about financial mismanagement. It's feasible that Chapman's statements at Dillon's hearing were solicited to undermine Fair's credibility in fighting to get his job back; it's also feasible that Fair is playing along with a dark charade to get reinstated. The latter seems the likelier scenario; Moxley was the initial judicial assignment of Fair's employment lawsuit.

Florida Today's ongoing disinterest in its own archives and public records remains married to its determination to steer the course of events away from a rule-of-law resolution of clouded convictions, as further evidenced by appending Annette Clifford's comment to John Torres December 4th article, implying a Grand Jury investigation of Preston cases is appropriate.

Grand Juries conduct secret hearings with evidence and testimony requirements that are inferior to our courts. The public, nationwide, has been endangered by Preston's perjuries for close to thirty years. Secrecy is obviously not in the public's best interest when it leaves miscreants on the job and felons on the streets. When Preston's, Keith Pikett's and other DNA discredited dog handlers are scrupulously investigated, there will likely be a bloody body count resulting from putting the wrong men behind bars based on their "scent evidence."

Florida's Chief Inspector General is obligated by statute to initiate investigations of public misconduct; CIG Miguel has refused to do so and Gov. Crist hasn't requested her resignation for nonfeasance. Florida's Bar and Judiciary aren't self-policing themselves. Florida's Legislature refused to step up and check and balance the Executive and Judicial branches despite knowledge of the scale of false expert testimony, including Preston's testimony in the 9th Judicial Circuit resulting in Linroy Bottoson's execution that gives that district a vested interest in upholding Preston-tainted convictions and makes Crist's Executive Order Number 09-147 yet another untenable tactic deployed against Gary Bennett, unless - of course - Preston testified in every judicial circuit in Florida.

It's the FBI's job to investigate bogus scent evidence experts involvement in prosecutions, including at their behest. Through an issuance resulting from accepting a Petition for a Writ of Mandamus, the FBI can be compelled by the US Supreme Court to immediately adhere to its mandates. A Petition stands a good chance; one of my requests for an FBI investigation included reporting an Internet scam that abused the FBI logo; the FBI e-mailed a prompt response to the scam. Additionally, the FBI protected dogs ahead of men in investigating dogfighting operations in several states this year while men framed by canine scent evidence remained caged.

Florida Today's December 12th article, "Lawyers call for a squad on innocence," suggests that there was a "mistake" involved in Willton Dedge's prosecution, as if there could possibly be no malice behind pressing for "finality" - the bizarre Brevard prosecutorial pretense that innocence has an expiration date - to hide the deployment of Preston and the same coached jailhouse informant used against Gerald Stano, the latter fact omitted by Florida Today in its graphics, "Cases involving Preston." That snitch recanted, too, but Florida Today didn't connect the dots from Clarence Zacke to Chapman. Nor is there any attempt of record, to my knowledge, of Florida Today trying to find out who coached James E. Gilmore to testify against Juan Ramos, or any mention of the two inmates who testified against Gary Bennett.

Despite Gannett's contrary conviction, callousness is not contagious; those fighting for impunity for civil servants that ruined the lives of innocent men remain an aberrant minority. As the majority doesn't always remain silent and the US Supreme Court is unpredictable, Gannett would be wise to report factually before the finger-pointing Fair initiated becomes earnest. Relieving employees of being mired in misanthropic muck would undoubtedly be a welcome holiday bonus.

Regards,

Susan Chandler

Christine Bramuchi, Linda Kobert, and Kathleen Oropeza are not kitchen table names in Florida, but you'll be learning more about them and their fight for Florida's public schools over the next several months. Last week, they made headlines across the state when they, along with several other plantiffs, filed a lawsuit against the state of Florida. Their charge? Florida has been shortchanging public schools, and it's time for an overhaul:

The plaintiffs want a court to declare that the state has violated the Florida Constitution and to order state leaders to create a "remedial plan" for fulfilling that constitutional obligation.

"I hope it's a catalyst for change," said Thom Rumberger, one of the plaintiff's attorneys and a prominent Republican in Tallahassee.

Then the Florida Legislature will need to find a way to fund schools adequately, he said.

I'm of the belief that while this lawsuit is about education funding, indirectly this lawsuit is an indictment of Florida's banana republic-like political system.

The fight to get adequate resources into Florida schools is a battle that has been raging since the 90s (and I'm sure many would argue this fight goes back to the creation of the Florida Lottery in the late 80s.) However, things really took a turn for the worst when Jeb Bush became governor in 1998, bringing strong Republican majorities with him to both houses of the legislature. Jeb, unlike his brother, was an intellectual conservative, and proceeded to turn our state into a giant right wing policy laboratory where the latest "free market" idea in vogue could be tried out. Jeb, along with his many conservative allies in the legislature, promptly tied teachers hands with an overbearing high stakes test (the FCAT), forced local governments to pick up the tab for most new expenses, and helped contribute to our state's mostly last place status in key barometers (overall funding, per pupil spending, graduation rates, etc.)

But Florida voters wanted something different. The same year Bush was elected, Floridians passed an amendment adding new language to our state's constitution. The beginning of Article IX now reads:

The education of children is a fundamental value of the people of the State of Florida. It is, therefore, a paramount duty of the state to make adequate provision for the education of all children residing within its borders.

In 2002, Floridians voted to amend the constitution to force the legislature to provide money to reduce class sizes, giving students more personalized attention from teachers. Here's most of the language:

To assure that children attending public schools obtain a high quality education, the legislature shall make adequate provision to ensure that, by the beginning of the 2010 school year, there are a sufficient number of classrooms so that:

(1) The maximum number of students who are assigned to each teacher who is teaching in public school classrooms for prekindergarten through grade 3 does not exceed 18 students;

(2) The maximum number of students who are assigned to each teacher who is teaching in public school classrooms for grades 4 through 8 does not exceed 22 students; and

(3) The maximum number of students who are assigned to each teacher who is teaching in public school classrooms for grades 9 through 12 does not exceed 25 students.

The class size requirements of this subsection do not apply to extracurricular classes. Payment of the costs associated with reducing class size to meet these requirements is the responsibility of the state and not of local schools districts.

Of course, the legislature has ignored Florida voters on all counts. With all this mind, Howard Troxler, a columnist for the St. Petersburg Times asks a good question:

Can you win a lawsuit that accuses the Florida Legislature of doing a lousy job?

The quick answer is yes, absolutely. But there's more to chew on:

Let's say that every claim in the lawsuit is true.

There's still a good question: Can the courts really order the Legislature to do better?

While these rulings aren't always popular, they are absolutely possible. The courts ordered Florida to redistrict based on population rather than by county in the mid 60s. This ended political dominance by North Florida reactionaries and gave power to moderates and liberals from Central and South Florida for the next two decades.

More Troxler:

Maybe they'll win.

Maybe the weight of statistics will convince the courts, as in the famous U.S. Supreme Court ruling on pornography, that they know "high quality" when they (don't) see it.

One of the most overlooked aspects of the famous Brown v. Board of Education decision was the fact that Chief Justice Warren used a lot of statistics demonstrating that segregated schools didn't produce equal results to back up the court's unanimous ruling. I'm not a legal expert, but statistics can play a key role in decision making.

If our Legislature is hostile to education, it is still the Legislature elected by the people of Florida. To be sure, our election system is biased by campaign money loopholes and rigged voting districts. If we addressed those factors, we might have a different Legislature.

But that is hard. To an extent, filing a lawsuit like this is asking the courts to do the work of democracy for us.

I disagree. We have a court system, one of three branches of government, for a reason. The legislature has arrogantly ignored the Florida constitution and the wishes of the people they allegedly represent. There is little to no way to hold them accountable because of gerrymandered districts designed to ensure incumbents' reelection and the free flow of special interest dollars. We've had governors like Jeb Bush who were ideologically predisposed against a strong public education system, and Charlie Crist, who to put it charitably is totally out to lunch in some overly optimistic la-la land. Local school boards are completely cash strapped and tied down by a mountain of unfunded mandates from the legislature and the governor. So what's left? The courts, plain and simple. This is what they were designed to do: to hold the other two branches accountable.

This is why Florida's very political system, not just education, is on trial here. We have a mess in our public education system because our political system as it's set up today can't deliver for Florida voters. That's why this lawsuit, and initiatives like the Fair Districts Amendments are so important to our state's future.

I Inter-tripped over a means to compel the FBI to investigate clouded convictions and the media’s related manipulation of information that affected the outcome of elections, including the number of candidates.

After some research and collaboration to assure airtight arguments and proper format, I’ll file a Petition for a Writ of Mandamus requesting that the U. S. Supreme Court direct the FBI to immediately investigate DNA-discredited scent experts, clouded convictions within the same judicial jurisdictions and the media omissions of fact that recklessly endangered the public, artificially enhancing the reputations of public servants while forestalling their investigation and prosecution.

It’s fitting to go straight to the Supreme Court, even if bogus crime scene dog handlers aside from John Preston are addressed as footnotes; Stephen Epperly is still incarcerated in Virginia from a Preston no-body homicide conviction, making it beside the point whether or not all other remedies in lower courts have been exhausted.

A portrayal of related coached informant testimony will cement the need to address clouded convictions related only by virtue of arrests, prosecutions or trials conducted by the same civil servants, with Jeff Abramowski’s being a case in point. Questionable case transfers, like Gary Bennett’s, will more concretely tie in other jurisdictions that superficially seem benign.

Other Executive Orders portraying suspicious jurisdictional changes resulting in wrist slaps will be supplemented with other cases that are unrelated to incarcerations, opening the door for justice for all, at long last.

That the media made no mention of many dereliction dots, making it impossible to connect them, will be inherently apparent, but explained, none-the-less.

With a little help from political cronies and the media, State Attorney Wolfinger ran unopposed last year, although betraying his constituents since taking office in 1985, and Sen. Haridopolos is in line for Senate President.

Florida Today fails the public again in reporting on the pandemic of violence against women.


From: Susan Chandler
Date: November 10, 2009 7:47:17 AM EST
To: ksummers@floridatoday.com, John Glisch , letters@floridatoday.com
Cc: cig@eog.myflorida.com, Governor Charlie Crist , Senator Mike Haridopolos , Debbie Mayfield
Subject: "Victim's assistance is vital in campaign against domestic abuse" Florida Today, October 27, 2009

Dear Florida Today:

The theme of this article is the theme of many Florida Today articles - blame the victim. Yolanda Garvin-Williams had formerly dropped domestic violence charges against her estranged husband, so - according to Florida Today - it's her fault that he killed her. There's no interviews of family members to ascertain her reasons - women frequently drop the charges when their domestic partners threaten to kill them if they don't. Ms. Garvin-Williams may have dropped the charges out of sheer terror. There's conveniently no interviews of domestic violence shelter workers, because they could detail the reasons that women drop DV charges, and the subplot of the story is to make tarnished officers, prosecutors and judges shine, another recurring theme in Florida Today articles.

There are more women killed by their domestic partners every year then there are law enforcment officers who lose their lives on the job, including officer lives lost in traffic accidents.

Roughly three women per day die from domestic violence in the land of the free and home of the brave. Hundreds per day are seriously injured.

What the police, prosecutors and judiciary say about domestic violence in interviews and what they actually do about domestic violence on the job every day do not match, and all that Florida Today would have had to do to discern and report as much would be to interview women currently residing in domestic violence shelters. Florida Today is already well aware of the need to interview actual victims; I'm sure they've received many emails similar to the one I sent to John Glisch on June 18, 2004.

Further proof of Florida Today's bias is supplied through reading Gov. Crist's Executive Orders, which I assume that someone at the newspaper is assigned to do. The Orders tell a tale of state employees (or their relatives) perpetrating domestic violence and having their cases transferred to another jurisdiction for wrist slaps. If Floridians want real news, they have to read blogs like CourtWatcher; a November 8th post tells of a Castleberry police officer who now has no domestic violence record, if he completed a diversion program as directed. [http://courtwatchflorida.blogspot.com/2009/11/whatever-happened-to.html]

My June, 2004 email to Glisch detailed my personal concerns about Judge John Dean Moxley, who was quoted in the subject article, "While it's just a piece of paper and won't stop a bullet, it stops rational people who had a temporary aberration." Moxley was speaking of injunctions, and he spoke with his typical dishonesty. Most perpetrators of domestic violence exhibit an escalating pattern, not a singular outburst.

Drawing Moxley into the article is blatantly spit-polishing a hopelessly tarnished reputation. Moxley was involved in the lawless persecutions of Juan Ramos, Wilton Dedge, Gerald Stano, William Dillon and likely many others, deploying coached jailhouse informants and bogus "scent evidence expert" John Preston. Jailhouse informant Clarence Zacke named Moxley as one of the prosecutors who coached him to lie on the stand about Dedge and Stano. As a judge, Moxley retained his penchant for perjury and his affinity for ridiculous "scent evidence," and developed a propensity for predation of taxpayers' money. The proof is in my case file. And Crosley Green's. And in Glenda Carlin Busick's book "Brevard Good Ole Boys." And the St. Petersburg Times DROP double dipper database. Throughout most of his career as a prosecutor and judge, Vicki Clark served as Moxley's assistant. My intuition says that the shortest distance between coached jailhouse informants and courthouses will eventually prove to be Ms. Clark's husband, a former Brevard Sheriff's deputy.

At the turn of the century, the Melbourne Police Department was a mess. There were internal and external investigations of officer misconduct, including domestic violence. Chief Chandler resigned; Chief Carey took over. Both chiefs thought domestic violence was no big deal. The FDLE was content with their attitude. The advice I received in a domestic violence shelter was to be grateful that I got out alive and to just forget about recovering my home and possessions. I was told to hide. I didn't heed that advice, but in group sessions I learned that most women did, especially the women who had children. They relayed tales of officers laughing at them while they cried; officers refusing to respond to calls when injunctions were violated, let alone make arrests. I didn't find out till years later that the day the MPD finally allowed me to file a complaint was the day after my then-husband had been arrested in a prostitution sting. Violating procedure, the Palm Bay Police Department had released an impounded vehicle titled solely in my name without notifying me, blaming the towing company, much to the owner of the company's ire. He gave me the officer's name who authorized the release. The MPD covered for the PBPD, and the FDLE covered for both, and the Attorney General, Chief Inspector General and Governor covered for them all.

Brevard isn't a safe place to live because Florida Today finds most truths inconvenient. If we don't have laws like other states that allow officers to make arrests and prosecutors to file charges based on visible evidence of domestic violence, we should. And our legislators won't address that need until newspapers make it clear. So who's fault is it - really - that Yolanda Garvin-Williams is dead - hers, or yours?

Sincerely,

Susan Chandler

Never thought I'd write that admonishment. But I never though I'd keep tripping over the wrongfully convicted like just so many askew stepping stones, either.


From: Susan Chandler
Date: November 9, 2009 5:43:19 PM EST
To: ACLUFLCentralPresident@gmail.com
Subject: Fwd: Police Ban Banner in Front of Courthouse

Dear Central Florida ACLU:

A small group of Floridians are attempting to address Florida's wrongful convictions; some of us have been laboring for years.

While in Orlando to file an Amicus Brief in Tommy Zeigler's case, Ray McEachern tried to stage a protest today to increase public awareness of our efforts and garner more support. His email, below, apprised the group of what happened.

I believe that Ray should have been able to peacefully protest anything he wanted without interference from the police. William "Tommy" Zeigler has been on death row - wrongfully - for 33 years.

Eschewing the old saw "silence is golden," Francis Bacon said, "Silence is the virtue of fools."

Please do something about the police stopping Ray from telling Orlando about Tommy.

Regards,

Susan Chandler

--------------------------------------------------------------

Police Order Courthouse Banner Removed
Contact: Ray McEachern 813-909-0217

Orlando - The grassroots Committee for Justice for Tommy Zeigler was ordered by police today to remove the table displaying the above banner 15 minutes after it was put up on the public sidewalk several hundred feet from the Orange County Courthose. The goup was at the court house to file an amicus curiae brief in support of a petition to test DNA that they say will prove Zeigler is innocent of the murders he has spent 33 years on death row for.

The Amicus brief questioned why the state attorney would accuse Zeigler of sucking the genitals of a dead man Zeigler was convicted of killing when there was no evidence of such an act. Assistant state attorney, Jeff Ashton made the claim in a hearing before Judge Whitehead to try to excuse the state's error at the original trial. At the trial in 1976, State Attorney Robert Eagan demonstrated his theory of how the blood stain got on Zeigler's shirt by telling Zeigler in front of the jury, " You can't tell me how you held Perry Edwards around the neck and clubbed him with your right hand as you held him with your left?" Perry Edwards was also killed in the attack as were Zeigler's wife and her mother.

The DNA proved it was Charlie Mays blood whom Zeigler had claimed was the man who shot him in the stomach as he entered his furniture store in Winter Garden on Christmas Eve, 1975. A recent deposition by a retired detective found evidence that Mays was the shooter in the murder of another store owner by the name of Jacob Reddick. That murder was never solved.

For more information, go to www.freetommyz.com ..

----------------------------------------------
P.S. for a pdf copy of the banner, email studio8@infionline with "banner" in the subject line

Screaming gets attention. So does writing about screaming. It's one of the artifices in Florida Today's arsenal; artifices that are wearing thinner by the day.




From: Susan Chandler
Date: November 8, 2009 3:31:59 AM EST
To: John Glisch , letters@floridatoday.com
Cc: Governor Charlie Crist , cig@eog.myflorida.com, Senator Mike Haridopolos , Debbie Mayfield
Subject: Our Views: Justice ignored - Florida Today 11/6/09

Dear Florida Today:

I'm frankly amazed at FT's Editorial Board's pernicious persistence in misinforming the public on "what still must happen" in investigating John Preston's participation in criminal investigations and trials over 25 years ago, resulting in three upset convictions to date, with perhaps scores to follow.

Your November 6th editorial, "Our Views: Justice ignored," says "Gov. Charlie Crist and Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum have shamefully ignored mounting evidence since 2006 that screams for a broader investigation."

As I've previously pointed out to FT, in different words, screams for oversight are - by law - unnecessary.

Florida Statute, Title IV, Chapter 14, 14.32 Office of Chief Inspector General, (2)(a), states, "The Chief Inspector General shall: initiate, supervise and coordinate investigations, recommend policies, and carry out other activities designed to deter, detect, prevent, and eradicate fraud, waste, abuse, mismanagement and misconduct in government."

FT has yet to publish any attempts to contact Chief Inspector Miguel to see why she hasn't initiated an investigation of already detected misconduct.

And although I suspect FT printed "since 2006" for a purpose, the year has no special significance. Geraldo Rivera discredited Preston in 1984 on ABC's "20/20;" the same year State Attorney Norm Wolfinger won his first election. Upon taking office in 1985, Wolfinger did nothing to ensure that there had been candor before the tribunal in regards to Preston and coached jailhouse informants such as he'd encountered in defending Juan Ramos and Gary Bennett.

1998 is more significant. Gerald Stano fried in Old Sparky that year, although the coached jailhouse snitch recanted in time to save him, retracting testimony against Wilton Dedge simultaneously (DNA exonerated, 2004), and naming those that coached him - prosecutors Chris White and John Dean Moxley.

Moxley is now an elected judge, and he still has a provable penchant for perjury.

"What still must happen" is that Florida Today must start telling the truth, either to the public now, or the FBI later. (The FBI's mandate to investigate public corruption affecting trial and election outcomes is published at http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cid/pubcorrupt/pubcorrupt.htm.)

Sincerely,

Susan Chandler

Okay, the title is a lie.

But Altman did weight in on something that will make Brevard a safer place to live.

Okay, that was another lie.

What Altman weighed in on was gun control. Kind of.

Florida Today reported in their November 6th article from staff and wire reports, "Altman: Don't ask about guns in home" that Floridians seeking to adopt children shouldn't have to disclose gun ownership to an adoption agency. Whoever the heck "staff and wire reports" are, they took the time to have NRA lobbyist Marion Hammer explain why adoption workers have to back off: "An adoption agency has no right to subvert the privacy of gun owners."

My daughter is adopted. I answered questions about guns. Adoption workers ask about them to make sure you're aware of how to make it safe to have guns and children under the same roof. They ask because they want to make sure an arsenal of AK47's doesn't betray that you're a whacko that somehow knows how to pass the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory with flying colors. Or have they stopped checking prospective parents' health, mental and otherwise, because those requirements, too, are invasive?

In the late 70's, the hoops were numerous. They safety checked the house, they even tested our well water. Our friends and relatives had to fill out forms. They made us describe what we'd do if the child developed criminal tendencies; what we'd do if the child turned out to be gay. They even - gasp - inquired about our religious beliefs. They popped in at odd hours to make sure we weren't doing odd things. They poked and prodded and snooped like a child's life was at stake. Because it was.

Sen. Altman should get a grip and borrow a clue. There are rapists and killers roaming Brevard because prosecutors and law enforcement don't give a damn if they get the right guy - any guy will do; and, to put that guy away, they'll release a career felon willing to tell lies on the stand. Ask Juan Ramos, Wilton Dedge, William Dillon and Gerald Stano. Oh, wait. You can't ask Gerald Stano. He was executed in '98 even though the coached snitch recanted his testimony against Stano and Dedge in time to keep Stano from being fried in Old Sparky. Dedge didn't get out for another six years.

Sen. Altman should sponsor Juan Ramos' exoneration compensation. Immediately. The Legislature may disqualify Dillon for compensation if the legislators are allowed to continue to pretend to the public, through disingenuous "staff and wire reports," that they don't know that wrongful convictions are habitual in Brevard.

In response to teachers protesting hikes in their health insurance costs, in "Our Views: Tone it down" on October 27th, Florida Today's editors said, "We’re strong supporters of Brevard educators, as we’ve proven in advocating better state funding for schools and better pay for teachers."

Florida Today's argument boils down to this: the rest of the working world is having a tougher time than all youse teachers, so just shut up, already.

Here's my version of showing strong support for the teachers - providing a resource naming the Brevard School Board members that were collecting wages and retirement benefits simultaneously at the time the St. Petersburg Times printed their double dipper database in 2008. Simply go to the main web page [http://www.tampabay.com/specials/2008/interactives/retirement-loophole/], and then select Brevard Co School Board under "Refine results by." Hopefully, some of the double dippers have actually retired by now.

Peruse the database, read the other articles it references and all the while keep in mind the SPT disclaimer that some civil servants' wages are allowed to be kept secret, by law; see just how many Brevard civil servants are riding the gravy train - there seems to be more in Brevard than the county non-residents confuse it with - big, bad Broward. Most of the rest of the working world had to actually retire to collect retirement benefits, and had their retirement benefits reduced reflecting economic losses specific to their industry. Not so with Florida's double dippers. Puzzling SBA financial losses, now under formal investigation by the SEC, have done nothing to inspire Florida's legislators to close the welfare-for-the-wealthly loophole they created.

Don't shut up, Brevard teachers and support staff. You've endured a two year pay freeze, according to the article, and now you're going to face increased health care costs and reduced coverage on top of inflation. An either/or isn't unreasonable -- unfreeze wages or freeze health care premiums. Even though taxpayers can be mislead into opposing you in the absence of all the applicable facts - as the comments on Florida Today's editorial indicates - they likely don't want to overpay the Board while underpaying y'all.

Although Florida Today asked "how" and "where" questions in their editorial and I in turn posed a "what" question, the crux of Brevard's corruption conundrum remains a question of "when."

Quando, quando, quando.

When is anyone going to do the job they're paid to do, and swore to do, in providing oversight that's decades overdue?


From: Susan Chandler
Date: November 4, 2009 12:19:14 AM EST
To: John Glisch , letters@floridatoday.com
Cc: Governor Charlie Crist , cig@eog.myflorida.com
Subject: "Our Views: Travesties of justice" Florida Today 11/3/09

Dear Florida Today:

Once again, Gannett is sparing no ink in establishing the appearance of outrage over injustices, "State leaders must stop ignoring the glaring examples of misconduct in the 1980s-era trials and order a full probe. Where are you, Gov. Charlie Crist? Where are you, Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum? How many travesties of justice will it take to win your attention?"

I have a hunch that the number of travesties it takes to win Charlie Crist's attention is exactly the same number of travesties it will take for you to report that it is the statutory obligation of Florida's Chief Inspector General to initiate investigations of complaints regarding public servant misconduct.

That number will match, according to my intuition, the number of travesties it will take for you to report that the FBI is mandated to investigate public misconduct that affects the outcome of trials, and that the local field office, along with a covey of retired agents, including Sen. Haridopolos' father, believe that mandates are optional - the former by arrogant declaration, the latter by spurious public support of an incumbent Sheriff who's failed to internally investigate his agency's role in frame-ups.

My intuition tells me, too, that the exact number of travesties will have you report that Florida's Legislature is obliged to check and balance the Executive and Judicial branches' callous indifference to clouded convictions, not simply cheerlead select survivors of decades-old frame-ups. None have lifted a finger to secure Juan Ramos' compensation.

Through the electronic grapevine, rumor reached me that James Dvorak's homicide, for which Bill Dillon served 27 years, will be re-investigated. I rechecked the Brevard County Sheriff's Office cold case web page recently, expecting it to show some new sign of order since a cold case had been reportedly resolved. It's still in disarray. The Canova Beach homicide of an elderly woman - Pauline Scandale - still bears no information that could possibly bring resolution. Perhaps there was an inconvenience factor to posting the date of the Ms. Scandale's homicide, as Dvorak was bludgeoned to death on Canova Beach. Perhaps it's mere carelessness. Either way, the BCSO looks bad.

John Dean Moxley is now four-for-four in involvement in resolved Preston matters. He served as a prosecutor against Juan Ramos, Wilton Dedge and Gerald Stano, and was in the background on Bill Dillon's case. Moxley's former long-time assistant, Vicki Clark, is married to former BCSO Deputy Ron Clark. Through Roger Dale Chapman's public apology to Bill Dillon, Thom Fair has been mentioned in connection with obtaining coached informant testimony, but my intuition says that Fair won't prove to be the shortest distance between coached informants and the courthouse. It very much matters that resolution for Stano took the form of being fried alive in Old Sparky, with evidence lawfully allowed to be destroyed after 60 days. It very much matters that Gannett took the low road and did not reveal in it's summation of Preston cases that the same coached snitch testified against Dedge and Stano, and had recanted prior to Stano's 1998 state-sanctioned homicide.

Gary Bennett's Preston-related case should not have been transferred by Gov. Crist's Execuctive Order to the 9th Judicial Circuit, where Linroy Bottoson was convicted after John Preston testified against him. As Bottoson was subsequently executed, the 9th has a vested interest in making Preston frame-ups stick. Gannett gave no ink whatsoever to Bennett being transferred from one set of unclean hands to another; State Attorney Lawson Lamar's reputation for fairness is the equivalent of State Attorney Norm Wolfinger's, it is only through sporadic, artificial outrage that either double dipper gets reelected - there's been as little in print about William "Tommy" Zeigler bogus Orange County capital conviction as there has Gerald Stano's Brevard County capital conviction. The only difference is that Tommy is still alive, and enough of us are working on freeing him that it is very likely to happen, despite the congealed corruption that has kept him on death row for 33 years.

There will never be enough travesties for Gannett to stop playing politics and start reporting news that keeps those they have a fiduciary relationship with safe - subscribers, advertisers and still others (public notice incomes). Gannett will continue "he said, she said" reporting as though State Attorney Norm Wolfinger and Sen. Mike Haridopolos have equal credibility to Bill Dillon and Wilton Dedge. It'll take a lawsuit that challenges Gannett's actions as interfering in the election process and/or obstructing justice, in defiance of requirements that corporations behave as would a prudent person in the same circumstances - and ordinary prudent persons do not willfully facilitate the persecution of innocents, decades-long cover-ups, etc. Somewhere out there, there's an attorney with the right stuff who will see the potential for immortality and go for it. And once the attorney finds out that the corruption is ongoing, resulting in Jeff Abramowski's life sentence, he or she will be "loaded for bear." But in the meantime ...

The question I pose of Gannett isn't "Where are you?" - because you're everywhere - it's instead "What are you?"

Your feigned outrage has kept innocents behind bars for decades while rapists and killers found new victims; it's kept callous, corrupt public servants on the job to do further harm; it's kept Brevardians crying themselves to sleep at night over persecuted loved ones; it's put Brevardians in exile, unable to bear memories of persecution - Bill Dillon moved to Ohio to see if distance could provide peace.

You're certainly not a news organization, so, seriously, Gannett, what are you?

Sincerely,

Susan Chandler

The next Big Election Day in Florida, as in most of America, is still a year away.  On November 2nd, 2010, voters will have the opportunity to rid themselves of an awful lot of public office-holding dead weight - as in the kind that drags down a state - starting with but in no way limited to Governor Charlie Crist, his hand-picked lackey of a fill-in U.S. Senator, George Lemieux, and Attorney General Bill McCollum.

On 11/2/10, Floridians will get a chance to elect Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink as our next governor, U.S. Congressman Kendrick Meek as our new United States Senator, and one of two fine State Senators, Dave Aaronberg or Dan Gelber, as our top law enforcement officer.

Take a close look at these talented, true public servants, visit their websites, read their positions on the issues and compare the talk they talk with the walk they walk - as opposed to their Republican counterparts currently holding or seeking to inherit the offices in question.   Read More »

I received a personal plea from a well-intentioned lady looking to have others join her in entreating Gov. Crist to exhibit the spirit of Christmas by pardoning William "Tommy" Zeigler, who has wrongfully spent 33 years on death row. She's clearly under the impression that Gov. Crist is being treated unfairly by the media, when the truth is that the media's inattention to Crist's failed oversight borders on election tampering.

Here is my response to the kind-hearted Christian so very mistaken in believing she was addressing another in writing to Gov. Crist:

From: Susan Chandler
Date: October 29, 2009 2:29:22 AM EDT
To: "V...
Subject: Re: an early Christmas gift for Tommy?

Dear V...:

Gov. Crist's email address is Charlie.Crist@eog.myflorida.com. I copy him on emails frequently, probably twice a week on average. I can't honor your request to approach him directly requesting that he pardon Tommy Z in time for Christmas. Please bear with me if my pain medication makes my explanation less coherent than it should be.

Two Christmases ago, I repeatedly requested via email that Gov. Crist release Bill Dillon on recognizance pending the outcome of DNA results. Bill's mother has an inoperable brain tumor. It's stable now; it wasn't then. Just as A. G. Crist ignored my pleas concerning Wilton Dedge (freed, 2004) and others that I believe to have been wrongfully convicted or executed, Gov. Crist ignored my Christmas plea for Bill.

I believe it's a miracle, from so many of us praying, that Amy Dillon lived to see Bill walk free and has had almost a year to get reacquainted with her gentle giant of a son, so grievously harmed in prison - raped within the first hour and knowing no peace in the 27 years behind layers of razor wire that followed - and knowing no peace even now. Bill's essentially serving a second undeserved sentence, this one imposed on him by his conscience and Gov. Crist's callousness. Hearing Bill personally tell his story breaks the hearts of those that have them; he shouldn't have had to make one public appearance to spread the word that there are many innocents behind bars, let alone travel the state.

I'm fighting for peace of mind for Bill, Wilton, Juan Ramos, Alan Crotzer and others who have already won their freedom, and fighting for freedom for Crosley Green, Jeff Abramowski, John Dobbs, Gary Bennett and scores of others aside from Tommy that appear to have been wrongfully convicted, and fighting to clear the names of those that were wrongfully executed. I'm fighting for other Floridians that have gotten in touch with me after reading my blogs or letters to the editor. They were harmed by the same civil servants involved in the clouded convictions, who logically behave just as improperly in other aspects of their public employment. I fear for the safety of some that have reached out.

Gov. Crist knows that he is obligated by statute to protect the life, liberty and property of Florida's inhabitants. While ignoring Bill, Tommy and perhaps 100 others, Crist rapidly acted to pardon disabled attorney Richard Paey, who apparently had no basis for an innocence claim. This established Crist's belief in a caste system wherein precious few, if any, deserving Floridians will receive the benefit of Crist's adherence to his sworn and fiduciary responsibilities.

When Crist won his bid for Governor, I said, "Forgive them, Lord, they know not what they do." I will pray the same prayer if he's successful in winning a Senate seat, which I will continue to try to prevent by reminding the FBI of their mandate to investigate public corruption that affects the outcome of trials. The FBI busted dogfighting rings in several states while ignoring over 1,000 clouded convictions related to DNA discredited "scent evidence experts" John Preston and Keith Pikett. They protected man's best friend ahead of actual men, keeping innocents locked up while killers and rapists found additional victims.

Too many people are crying themselves to sleep tonight because Crist has unlawfully decided that oversight is optional, V.... His caste system endangers the public and persecutes innocents, ruining or taking their lives and ripping their families apart. It is our Legislature's job to hold Crist in check; they have demonstrated rare cowardice in failing to do so. The criticisms of Crist, if earnest prayers are answered, will become increasingly harsh - Crist knows that State Attorney Lawson Lamar is disinterested in justice for Tommy, John Dobbs and others; it is why Crist transferred Gary Bennett's case to Lamar's jurisdiction. Sadly, the only reason that Crist wound honor your request, or any other request for oversight, is out of fear that he will soon be held accountable. It's a very reasonable fear, many of us are working very hard to have justice prevail over politics.

Warm regards,
Susan

When we're ill, most of us have odd comforts we allow ourselves. I've got YouTube playing Kermit the Frog singing "Rainbow Connection" in the background, reminding me of singing it to my daughter when she was little and under the weather. The very best thing that can happen is to have good wishes reach you out of the blue without anyone knowing you're sick.

Thanks to those who requested via email, along with kind words, copies of State Attorney Norm Wolfinger's awful letter to Special Master Kent Wetherell that spuriously attempts to portray Bill Dillon as unworthy of exoneration compensation for the 27 years of his life he lost after being maliciously prosecuted.

Wolfinger couldn't be so boldly blasphemous without enablers in Tallahasee and the media. Someday the dreamers will triumph over the dastardly, making the rainbow connection. Until then, we just have to keep writing letters as if innocent people's lives depend on them. Because they do.

From: Susan Chandler
Date: October 24, 2009 1:13:32 PM EDT
To: Senator Mike Haridopolos
Cc: Debbie Mayfield , cig@eog.myflorida.com, Governor Charlie Crist , letters@floridatoday.com, John Glisch , Norm Wolfinger , jrusso@pd18.net
Subject: "Matt Reed: Haridopolos tackles issues"

Dear Senator Haridopolos:

When a news article is well-written, the online comments section is absent information that the article should have contained.

In the case of the above-captioned Gannett Florida Today article this week, an informed reader commented on the gigantic oil spill off the coast of Australia that indicates that the new, purportedly safer offshore oil rig technology failed. Reporter Reed's failure to ask you about that spill did not take you off the hook for not addressing it; you're to represent your constituents' best interests, not Big Oil's. Out-of-work high-tech Space Coast residents that were paid government funds to make solar technology work in space should logically be paid government funds to perfect the same technology on earth to bring cheap, clean power to our nation. If they can come up with a vehicle that works on Mars, they can come up with an electric car. There likely isn't a single resident in your district that will be employed by endangering our coastline with oil rigs.

I didn't read all the comments; Florida Today's readers' rants, born of being misinformed, quickly become tedious, frightening and/or depressing. Hopefully, another enlightened reader countered your fiscal responsibility claims by commenting on your inability to effectively "tackle" DROP double dipping, which allows the likes of Norm Wolfinger and John Dean Moxley to exercise another form of predation on your constituents, aside from covering up the persecution of innocents for decades. Or perhaps a comment instead countered your fiscal responsibility claims by pointing out that you accepted professorial wages based on credentials you merely aspire to, along with a bogus "book advance," betraying your personal propensity for predation.

I hope that someone commented, "Where's Juan?" to counter your bragging about sponsoring Bill Dillon's exoneration compensation. Juan Ramos deserves his $250,000 to partially right the ruination caused by his five years on death row from John Preston's solicited perjuries. That Ramos' conviction was upset in 1987 is embarrassing for those who are still in the state employ - including Wolfinger and Moxley - that are responsible for the cover-up that kept Wilton Dedge, Dillon and many others behind bars and cost Gerald Stano his life. Through the electronic grapevine, I made Centurion Ministries aware that the 9th Judicial Circuit had used Preston to convict and execute Linroy Bottoson, and that transferring Gary Bennett's Brevard/Preston case there was conflicted. I've since found out that the 9th and 18th trade cases like baseball cards, with Gov. Crist's permission. Crist announced his intention to address South Florida's corruption on October 14th, continuing to deliberately ignore Preston's involvement in a reported 100 Brevard felony investigations.

Gannett pretended that Preston cases had been cleared nationwide 15 years ago. ["Convicted on false evidence; False science often sways juries, judges," authors Laura Frank and John Hanchette, USA Today, July 19, 1994; "The unmasking of Preston's dogs caused an uproar. Cases were overturned in Virginia, Ohio, Florida, Arizona and other states."] Despite Gannett's wiles, I'm even more confident now that there will be a federal investigation of the corruption and cover-up. The White House removed my comment from their facebook wall, "The FBI muddied their own credibility in protecting man's best friend ahead of actual men; after investigating dogfighting rings in several states, they have little choice but to rapidly investigate Florida's framing innocent men." Their censorship means that they read my message loud and clear, and so fast that no one got the chance to comment - this time. As of yesterday, I'm on Twitter and will learn my way around it as haltingly as I did facebook.

Reed claimed you're "one of the most influential Republicans in Florida." If true, what possible reason can there be not to use your influence to make it incumbent upon Florida's Governor to investigate any county wherein two upset convictions indicate use of an identical, untenable trial tactic to stop making taxpayers pay to be kept safe from harmless men like Ramos, Dedge and Dillon, then pay exoneration compensation of top of malicious prosecution costs. Roger Dale Chapman, who bragged to his brother about getting valid rape charges dropped by lying to tighten Dillon's frame-up, was apparently re-released Thursday after a sentence reduction. James E. Gilmore, who lied about Ramos, is a revolving-door offender, apparently released without supervision after the most recent offense. The harm done by coached informants that benefit by continual prosecutorial favors and actual perpetrators that innocents serve time for can only be stopped by an investigation that looks at every single Preston conviction and every subsequent complaint of prosecutorial malice.

So much is made of your ability to amass millions, so little is made of what little those millions actually pay for - pandering, predation, persecution, public endangerment. I have nothing against you personally and no ability to act on it even if I did, but I am forever wondering what it is that you personally have against your constituents and what prompts you to harm them so often.

Regards,

Susan Chandler

Although the writing was originally on two facebook walls, The White House removed it from theirs; it remains in place on mine.

Susan Chandler [to] The White House:
I wrote on my blog, "The FBI muddied their own credibility in protecting man's best friend ahead of actual men; after investigating dogfighting rings in several states, they have little choice but to rapidly investigate Florida's framing ...innocent men." And they really don't. I'm receiving supportive comments from other countries - it's only a matter of time before foreign news services decide to take a look at Juan Ramos', Wilton Dedge's and Bill Dillon's upset convictions and the dark deeds that Governor Crist has tried to help bury.   Read More »

Incapable of introspection, the Polk County Sheriff's Office is on the Internet and Twitter, pressing for an execution.


From: Susan Chandler
Date: October 6, 2009 2:39:18 AM EDT
To: ljohnson@polksheriff.org
Cc: Governor Charlie Crist , cig@eog.myflorida.com
Subject: Bloodthirsty call-out on the taxpayer's dime

Dear Polk County Sheriff's Office:

Your bloodthirsty call-out on the taxpayer's dime for Paul Beasley Johnson's execution is inappropriate on too many levels to address.

Topping the list is that the St. Petersburg Times doesn't think all of Polk County's prosecutions are righteous. Their September 2, 2007 editorial, "Justice demands a new trial" says that the evidence in Michelle Schofield's murder points to Jeremy Scott, not Michelle's husband, Leo Schofield, who's been behind bars for 20 years.

The newspaper's 2008 tampabay.com database of DROP double dippers shows "pride in service" Sheriff Judd is collecting in $5,956.52 per month in "retirement" payments on top of his wages; as of last year, he'd collected $361,416.99. Our legislators have done as little to curb the DROP welfare-for-the-wealthy monster they created as they have in addressing our courts abysmal failure at self-policing.

Without it in any way signifying that our courts have conducted themselves with candor, Florida still holds the national record for the most death row exonerations. An obvious example of judicial ineptness is that despite three related exonerations within one county, our judges still can't rightly remember that self-proclaimed "scent evidence" expert John Preston was resoundingly discredited, let alone trouble themselves to ask their IT department to do a word search and find the scores of other cases Preston's testimony tainted. Men were executed, others have been behind bars wrongfully for close to 30 years.

"If I thought a particular prosecution was wrong or over zealous, I could not say so beyond closed doors," laments retired Metro-Dade officer Marshall Frank in his book "Criminal Injustice in America; Essays by a Career Cop." The book's first chapter damned the historically impoverished for caving in to peer pressure through the construction of a composite youthful offender named Gigo, for "garbage in, garbage out." In Frank's eyes, ghetto kids that cave to peer pressure are garbage; cop that cave to peer pressure are victims - now that I understand the mindset, I pity it.

PIty aside, rabble rousing isn't in your job descriptions - use your home computers and cell phone on your own time, leaving your official positions out of any subsequent grisly death "appeals." Crist's priority is already death; he rushed to execute Wayne Tompkins and John Marek while he ignored obvious innocents like William "Tommy" Zeigler. Any attention Crist pays to Polk should be to Schofield, not Johnson. Since Crist's probably read about Polk County's finest playing Wii while executing a search warrant last month, he'd be wiser to finally heed my pleas to address wrongful convictions after all these years than to listen to y'all, especially since "Outrage" premiered on HBO last night.

Sincerely,

Susan Chandler
1060 South Highway US 1 #99
Vero Beach, FL 32962
772-978-0824







From: Agency Announcements
Sent: Monday, October 05, 2009 8:18 AM
To: allmail
Subject: Petition Drive - Our Turn To Appeal



Paul Beasley Johnson has had way too many appeals. Now it is our turn!


APPEAL to your friends and ask them to sign our petition.

APPEAL to your family and ask them to sign.

APPEAL to your co-workers and ask them to sign.

APPEAL to members of the clubs/associations you belong to and ask them to sign.

APPEAL to anyone who will listen and ask them to sign.


As of this e-mail, October 4, 2009, at 1830 hours, we have collected 2232 signatures on our petition drive. We have also mailed over 99 letters to Governor Crist.


People from Iraq, France, Australia, Germany, Norway, and of course all over the US, have signed our petition. Deputy Sheriff T.A. Burnham’s widow signed the petition this morning! (See below)


Most who have responded to this drive are from outside of our agency. WE CAN DO BETTER.


As you read this, please ask the person next to you if they have signed the petition. If not, urge them to do so. …but don’t be too pushy. Some folks don’t believe in the death penalty and it is not our intentions to make anyone feel uncomfortable and/or force anyone into doing something they don’t believe in.


To those of you who have responded: THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!


If you write a letter or offer comments on the petition, please keep them professional.


Our intentions are not to attack Governor Crist, but rather to urge him to sign Johnson’s death warrant, and to do so without further delays.


The number of petition signatures we have received has risen quickly. This is due to Sheriff Judd going public through his media resources. THANK YOU SHERIFF!


…and finally,


Governor Crist knows about this petition drive.


Johnson’s lawyer knows about this petition drive. …and you can bet, Johnson knows too.


Knowledge is a good thing, but actions are better. Join us in urging Governor Crist to take action by signing Johnson’s death warrant. It’s time to give Johnson’s lawyer one less client!


The following link will take you directly to our on-line petition:

http://www.gopetition.com/online/31124.html



Below are two comments offered on the petition. The first is from D/S Burnham’s widow and the second from Darrell Beasley’s sister. (Darrell Beasley was another victim shot and killed by Johnson in January of 1981) Another comment, which I have not included, came from a man in Tampa General Hospital who is awaiting a heart transplant, yet he took the time to sign the petition and offer comments.


I believe that two trials & convictions, one mistrial, over 28 years since this nightmare began, over 20 years on death row, and life at the taxpayers expense, has given Paul Johnson so much more than he gave his victims - Darrell Beasley, William Evans and my late husband, D/S Theron Burnham. I believe it’s time to see justice done and carry out the sentence imposed not once, but twice by the court. Don't you think it’s time?


My name is Carol Beasley. Paul B Johnson shot and killed my brother Darrell Ray Beasley, Jan. 9th, 1981. Too many years have passed in allowance of this man to remain in our prison while we continue to pay for him to be there. Even though he is on death row, he has been allowed to LIVE his life out, whereas my brother's life was taken along with the two other gentleman so horridly. Unfortunately neither of my parents are alive to see the execution of this man. It is time for this to end!







Linda M. Johnson, Lieutenant

MPA, SPI, CPM

Polk County Sheriff's Office

Central District, Bravo Platoon

www.polksheriff.org

ljohnson@polksheriff.org

863-297-1100 Work

863-287-7257 Cell


GRADY JUDD, SHERIFF


Our Vision: Polk County Sheriff's Office members will proactively prevent crime and improve quality of life through community partnerships, innovation, education, teamwork, and exceptional customer service. We will measure, trend, benchmark, and create models to ensure continuous quality service.


"Pride in Service"

The Big Oil roundup: news and information about Big Oil’s push to rig Florida’s coastline for the week ending 9-18-09

A few questions for those who would drill for oil off of Florida's shores
By Bob Rackleff
St. Petersburg Times
The mysterious promoters of offshore oil drilling in Florida waters promise "A Breathtaking Economic Opportunity," in their words.

Four years after buying back oil lease, state considers allowing drilling
By Bruce Ritchie
FloridaEnvironments.com
Excerpt: Mark Ferrulo, an environmental activist who has fought offshore drilling in Florida efforts since 1991, said the dispute points to the influence that money is having in the current drilling debate. He is director of Progress Florida, which opposes drilling.


Click the picture above to urge Senate President Jeff Atwater to oppose state legislative efforts that would allow offshore oil drilling off Florida’s coast.

Oil Drilling opposed by environmentalists, tourism officials and business owners (includes audio)
By Sean Kinane
WMNF Community Radio Tampa
A gigantic oil spill that has been occurring for more than three weeks off the coast of Australia is being used as a warning to Floridians against opening up the state’s coastline to offshore drilling.

Oil drilling means jobs and money, proponents say
By Craig Pittman
St. Petersburg Times
Related: Who's behind Florida Energy Associates?
They appeared in the spring, a secretive group trying to upend Florida's longtime ban on offshore drilling by promising millions of dollars and hundreds of jobs.

Oil-drilling debate gets stickier (includes video)
By Steve Nichols
Fox News Tampa Bay
Opponents of offshore drilling near Florida now have a strong argument from the Timor Sea. The same technology the oil industry touts as being virtually spill-proof is involved in a major incident between Australia and Indonesia.

Don't look now, but oil rigs in our future
By Douglas C. Lyons
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
It may not be the best public policy for a state that's made its reputation, and a considerable tourism industry, from its beaches. But it'll cement Florida's legacy as the laboratory for just about every right-wing political initiative under the sun.

Opponents of offshore drilling say lifting ban could have dire consequences
By Eileen Schulte
St. Petersburg Times
You'll never be able to eat fish from Tampa Bay or the Gulf of Mexico again if oil drilling is allowed within 10 miles of Florida's west coast.

Offshore oil drilling by the numbers
By Harlan Weikle
Tampa Bay Weekly
Three, six and 12 billion barrels are the various estimates of the oil reserves to be found off Florida’s Gulf coast; a mere drop in the bucket compared to the potential economic loss to Florida, say opponents of offshore drilling.

Offshore drilling poll doesn't quite add up
Editorial
Pensacola News Journal
Now here's a surprise: The state's chief business lobbying group conducts a poll on offshore drilling and finds that Floridians overwhelmingly support it, and therefore the Legislature — in a special session to be called on another issue — should act to expose Florida's coast.

Drilling threatens Florida's economic base
Editorial
Daytona Beach News-Journal
To hear them speak, some Florida lawmakers have drill bits for tongues.

Big Oil mixing money and politics in Tallahassee
Editorial
Miami Herald
The well-financed campaign to open Florida waters in the Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas drilling should be greeted with great skepticism by state residents and their representatives in the Legislature.

Oil drilling in state waters bad business
Editorial
Lake Wales News
After falling short of slipping through a bill to allow oil and gas drilling near Florida's coast earlier this year, legislative leaders are greasing the skids to get a similar bill considered during a possible special session in October or November.