Something I've Been Working On...

This is tentative art (and a working title) for a book cover. Needless to say, it has been keeping me busy, but I should be back to blogging very soon. There’s lots of work involved in this project, with much more ahead. But HEY! My blog comes first. Sorry I haven’t been answering comments, but I certainly have been reading them.

Never say never, but I have no deadline for this book. If you ask me when it will be published, let alone finished, I won’t be able to tell you.

The Heart of the Matter

I don’t think anyone will ever be able to connect  the racism dots when it comes to George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin. The really creepy part about the two names is that they will forever be interconnected, like Abraham Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth. While not of the same magnitude as a presidential assassination, a life is still a life is still a life, and none is more valuable than another, whether red, yellow, black, white or any shade in between. We’re not talking red state/blue state; we’re talking about life and death, and it’s not a game.

Let’s take a quick look at the sad case of 45-year-old Michael Dunn. News reports say he “allegedly” fired 8-9 shots into an SUV parked at a convenience store on Friday night. I say there’s nothing alleged about it. He did it. The question is why. He said he didn’t mean to kill anyone. 8 or 9 bullets and he didn’t mean to what? The fact that he fired at all is a tragedy.

From all accounts, Dunn and his girlfriend had just left his son’s wedding reception and stopped at the Gate Food Post convenience store at 8251 Southside Blvd. in Jacksonville on the way back to their hotel room. He pulled up next to the SUV that had music booming LOUDLY. When he got out of his vehicle, he confronted the four occupants and complained. TURN IT DOWN, he screamed. An argument ensued and Dunn pulled out his gun. Some of the shots struck and killed 17-year-old high school student Jordan Davis, who was sitting in the backseat. No one in the SUV was armed, according to initial reports. Lt. Rob Schoonover with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office said, “They were listening to a little music. It was loud, they admitted that, but, I mean, that’s not reason for someone to open fire on them.” (See: Many unanswered questions in loud music killing)

I hate to drag Florida through the coals again because shootings happen all over the world. Texas is a great state for shooting from the hip, so we are far from alone. Taken at face value, this seems to be your typical white-on-black shooting, and in some circles, the killer would be considered justified because of two simple “reasons” — the shooter owned his gun legally and the victim was black. Or African-American, if we need to be politically correct. Need more ‘splainin’? Talk to the hand. Yet it seems that the mere fact of being white and owning a gun somehow legitimizes a killing, but only if the victim is of color. God forbid that two white boys with concealed carry permits gun each other down. That would never make the news because there’s no worthy angle, and angles are the nature of news; black/white or white/black. Just like Hispanic/Hispanic doesn’t go far. There’s no racial edge.

We may question the motives of an angry white man leaving his son’s wedding reception where, I’m sure, alcohol flowed freely. We don’t know if Dunn even had a drop to drink, but we do know that a defenseless 17-year-old boy is dead. What sort of threat could any of the young men have been to the gunman? Why, if the shooter was so innocent, did he leave the scene and return to his hotel, only to drive home to Brevard County in the morning, where he was found and arrested? No one EVER shoots up a vehicle and leaves the scene unless they hope there are no witnesses.

Dunn entered a not guilty plea on Monday to charges of second-degree murder and attempted murder. His attorney said he acted responsibly and in self-defense. Shades of stand your ground! I can see it coming! At the precise second Dunn pulled out his gun, he felt threatened.

I feel that people like George Zimmerman and Michael Dunn make a mockery of the stand your ground law, but some dynamics are at work. While its intent may be all well and good, there are idiots who interpret SYG as a license to kill. They take more than the law into their own hands because, in both situations here, the shooter was the instigator, the judge, the jury and the executioner. It seems as if people like them believe they are wearing SYG armor and are impervious to prosecution. It’s called an arrogant sense of entitlement. Go figure.

Mark my words, Dunn’s defense team will subpoena Jordan Davis’s cell phone records. If the boy owned a smart phone, the defense will collect information from it; who he talked to, sent text messages to, and where he visited online. Rest assured, if he listened to Hip Hop music, used Hip Hop text language and visited gangsta sites, like all of today’s youth, he will be painted as a no good degenerate, just like the picture Mark O’Mara will try to portray of Trayvon Martin. It’s called character assassination. This leads me to an obvious segue. Please allow me to ‘splain. Yo, Yo, Yo…

§

Word on the street (and in the Orlando Sentinel) is that law enforcement has failed to download all of the data from Trayvon Martin’s cell phone, particularly what’s stored on the chip residing inside the phone. Why? Because the phone is still password protected. Tracy Martin, Trayvon’s father, knows the PIN, but he has yet to turn it over to authorities. There may be a few reasons for withholding that number, too, but what’s important to note first is that the defense does have information regarding the last few calls, according to Mark O’Mara. We’ll get back to that.

The gist of the matter is rather plain and easy to understand, but first the problem about perception. If Tracy Martin is keeping the PIN away from law enforcement, he must be hiding something, right? I mean, what else could the reason be? This would prove the kid was up to no good and deserved to be shot. George’s mission from God that night was to take out a boy who was clearly on a path of evil and destruction. Who knows how many people he would have harmed had he not been stopped right then and there; the night of February 26?

Yeah, right. How delusional.

If the Sanford police came to my door, showed me a photograph of my dead son and said he was killed in self-defense, only to find out later that the circumstances might not have been as law enforcement presented them; that my son was actually the victim instead, would I be inclined to trust them with any evidence at all? Remember, it was the Sanford police that insisted the screams for help came from Zimmerman, and when pumped for an answer to that very question at a most inopportune moment, Tracy said he didn’t think it was Trayvon’s voice. Is it? Is it? Well, is it? The man was in agony and denial at the time. What would anyone expect from a grieving father after recently finding out his son was killed and never coming back?

As time went on, it became apparent to Trayvon’s parents that the police were doing nothing to seek the truth regarding the death of their son. Things had deteriorated to the point that, on March 5, Sgt. Joe Santiago asked Tracy for the PIN, and his response was, at best, less than obligatory. He told the sergeant he’d check with his attorney. Three days later, during a March 8 news conference, Martin told the media he would not help the police because they were of no help to him. “My son left Sanford, Florida, in a body bag while George Zimmerman went to sleep in his own bed.”

What we must remember is that, while the PIN has been elusive, gaining important information from the phone has not. It was eventually sent to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, where crime lab specialist Stephen Brenton was able to analyze the contents of the SIM and SD cards. Without the PIN, the data on the phone’s internal chip remains a mystery, but the two cards were revealing enough. From the Orlando Sentinel:

The information downloaded by Brenton at the FDLE lab “tells me the last few phone calls, but that’s about it,” [Zimmerman defense attorney] O’Mara said. “It looks like there is other information that I should have.”

This leads me right back to the heart of the matter. What difference does it make to anyone about the phone calls, text messages and Website visits Trayvon made days and weeks leading up to his death? O’Mara has records leading up to the shooting. What more does he need? Well, just like what I expect any criminal defense team to do, O’Mara’s goal will be to assassinate the character of Trayvon Martin. To what other end would it serve? That would mean Trayvon would die twice — once in real life and once in the courtroom — and if I were his parents, I’d do nothing to help the defense team. Absolutely nothing. Because everything will be taken out of context in a world where half-full becomes half-empty, and innocent texts between Trayvon and his mother could readily turn into a new and freakier Casey Anthony sideshow; where simple words become innuendo, perversions, and complete distortions of the truth. That would truly be heartbreaking.

Cross posted on the Daily Kos

Anatomy of a Filicide

Tony Pipitone from WKMG just reported that a search for “foolproof suffication” was performed on the Anthony family computer on June 16, 2008, the day Caylee Anthony died. Jose Baez claims that George did it, but Pipitone says that, according to the timeline, it couldn’t have been him. He was already at work. At the time, Casey’s cell phone was pinging in the immediate area of the house. 

Baez wrote about this in his book. He waited for the information to be admitted during the trial, but the procecution never produced it. While it’s true the defense was part of the dicovery process, this was evidence each side had the opportunity to examine. It was not something Baez had to share since the State could have readily concluded the same thing. Unfortunately, OCSO missed it. Had it been introduced, the prosecution would have argued that the death could not have been an accidental drowning and it may have impacted the jury. Sadly, there’s nothing that can be done. Double jeopardy, you know. To most of us, this just adds to what we’ve believed for a long time — that Casey Anthony murdered her daughter and she’s still the most hated woman in America, if not the entire world.

This is a story I wrote and published on March 27, 2009, over three years before the trial. Take from it what you will. Originally, I put a disclaimer at the bottom, calling it a work of fiction. Today, I’m not so sure…

CAUTION! CONTAINS LANGUAGE NOT SUITABLE FOR ALL AGES

It’s a perfect day for a murder

Dear Diary,

Last night I had a terrible fight with my mother. I hate her guts. It’s the worst fight we’ve ever had. Sometimes, I can’t decide who I hate the most, her or Dad, but I am so pissed off, I wish she was dead. Him too. Why, oh why, does she think I am a bad person when it is her? She sucks. I want her out of my life. I need to get away from this house and these people forever.

If Tony would only take me away. He must. He’s got to help me. Why do I feel my life is such a mess? If only I didn’t have the brat. She is nothing more than a pain in my ass. Today, I will start my life all over again. With Tony. Or Ricardo. Or… OK, Jesse. If not Jesse… and SHE will never be with us, whoever I’m with. Jesse? If only you didn’t love her so much, we might still be together. Maybe not.

Mom? You think you can take her away from me, but I will never let you. She would make you so happy because she could be the daughter you’ve always wanted. It was never me. You never loved me. What do you think I should do with her? It’s too late. You can’t have her and I don’t want her. I’ve made my mind up and today is it. That little shit will never, ever ruin my life again. She is dead. Screw you all and you will never find out about her. You think I’m crazy, do you? I’ll show you what crazy is all about. You got it. I’ll get even with you. You won’t ever be able to spoil her again.

Dad? Eff you, you weak son of a bitch. You are such a pussy. You let Mom run all over you. I’ve had enough of you and you think you were such a hotshot cop. Oh yeah? You are nothing and you will never figure out what I did with her because I am way smarter than you. You can rot in Hell. Besides, you always loved Lee more than me. You both did.

Lee? Just go on living in your simple little world. God, if you only knew how much I’ve used you over the years, you’d realize just how stupid you are. So’s your girlfriend. Too bad you’re not here to say good bye.

Brat? Today is the day. You will never see me again. Better yet, I will never see you again. Even better still, your grandmother is going to really, really suffer and in the end, I will laugh at you all. Sleep late. I don’t want you seeing Ci Ci before she goes to work. That’s why our door is shut. OK, here, take Mommy’s nanny Zani pill.

I’ve been planning this day for a long time. It didn’t have to be today, but after last night, this is it. It had to come sometime, because I was going nuts. Today, I feel liberated. My mind is made up. What? You wonder why Mommy is in such a good mood? Quick, go see Grandpa Jo Jo before we go. I need to get ready.

OK, Baby, let’s get going. I’ll see you later, Dad. I’ve got some errands to run. C’mon, let’s go. Say good bye to Jo Jo. Tell him you love him. Yes, we’ll see you later. Wave to him as we drive away. Go ahead, Sweetheart.

12:40 pm

She didn’t really need to go anywhere early that afternoon. She just wanted to get out of that house, away from the pain of the night before, so she drove around, chatting endlessly on her cell phone with her boyfriend, Tony, her ex-boyfriend Jesse, and her then-best friend, Amy, never paying any attention to her daughter. She headed down Chickasaw Trail to Lee Vista Boulevard, where she killed some time, about a half hour, at the shopping plaza; then she took off up Narcoossee to Goldenrod. From there, she headed north to Curry Ford and turned into the Winn Dixie shopping center just to kill more time until her father left and the coast was clear. OK, let’s go home for a minute. Mommy forgot something. It was easy to tell her toddler that they needed to go back home. Besides, the little girl always felt safe and secure in that house. Maybe, she messed her pants and Mom forgot the pull-up diapers and the pack of Nice’n Toddler wipes and that angered her. Oh, Come on. You’re too old for this. Whatever, this was the day she had been planning for a long time. She was starting to feel happy again, something she hadn’t been since before the day her daughter was born. She started the car and drove east on Curry Ford until she turned south on Chickasaw to return to the neighborhood where she grew up.

3:00 pm

When they got back to the house, they went into the bathroom where she cleaned the little girl and dried her off . Then, she led her into the bedroom. Mommy will be right back.  She went out to the garage to get the duct tape and a couple of trash bags. Then, she walked back in, took the bags into the bedroom and began peeling a swath of tape off the roll. Here, Mommy wants to play a little game. Come on, you little brat. She started to stick the tape around her head, from the left side of her face and far into her hair.

Mommy, what are you doing? the little girl wondered, unable to really speak like an adult and too tired too fight. Mommy, Mommy, Murfurlbalbl… The tape was now wrapped around the toddlers head and Mommy tore it off the roll, making sure it was stuck firmly to her mouth. She picked the small child up, who was lightly kicking and breathing through her nostrils, wimpering like crazy, as if begging for her life, but the pill had begun to take its toll.

Stop kicking, you little shit! Tears of fear were rolling off the little girl’s face as she struggled to free herself, but she was no match for her mother, as slight of build as she was. Finally, the Xanax she had given her earlier kicked in and the precious bundle of joy gave up. She set her daughter down and hurried into the bathroom to grab a bottle from under the sink. She poured the homemade chloroform onto a wad of folded up toilet paper, returned and held it against her daughter’s nose, just to make sure. All of the faith and trust this girl had in her mother was as weak as her now shallow breaths. What was so different this time as her mother picked her up, was how much heavier she seemed. I guess she never knew much about dead weight. Well, she was never as bright as she thought she was.

She carried her out into the back yard and walked up to the above ground swimming pool. The body made a light splash as it was dropped in. She held her under water until the bubbles stopped. It didn’t take long. The child-like breaths that once smelled like a field of fresh flowers on a breezy Spring day were forever silenced. The life she brought into this world was now dead by her own hands. To her, it was the most exhilarating, the most liberating feeling in a long, long time - until she tried to lift the child out of the water. Wow! This kid is heavy. She hadn’t thought about how much the water would log her down. She propped her little body against the edge of the pool, pulling her arms out and over the side. That gave her a chance to go get the pool ladder that would act as leverage as she struggled to pull the girl out of the water.

One of the things she’s known for is that she doesn’t like to follow directions. She’s never been good at finishing jobs, either. If her mother hadn’t been around to lecture and complain, her bedroom would have been a mess. When she pressed the ladder against the swimming pool, she never attached it firmly. That’s why the ladder was left next to the pool and it explains why she never closed the gate behind her. She never followed up on anything unless someone like her mother was behind her every step of the way and that angered her so.

3:30 pm

Fortunately for her, the pet dogs were napping when she re-entered the house. Casey always demanded that her parents stay out of her room. They always granted her wish for privacy. She was, after all, an adult woman and she needed her space. She walked into the bedroom, dropped her daughter onto the floor and put her soiled clothes into one of the bags. She dried the body and opened the other bag to put her little girl inside. Then, she pushed her under the bed, grabbed the bag of clothes and walked out of the room, shutting the door firmly behind her. She had to be very careful about making sure the door was properly closed. For one night, her bedroom was to be Caylee’s mausoleum. When she walked out the front door with bag in hand, she took one more brief look inside the house before locking the door. Good bye, she thought. Eff this house. No more fights. No more nagging. I am free, but she knew she had to come back tomorrow. This was enough work for one day.

Call Me A "Gagnostic"

 As a writer and journalist, I don’t particularly believe in gag orders, so when the second gag order motion was filed by the State on October 18, I had a feeling it, too, would be turned down, just like the first one on April 30. Sure, the first one was denied by a different judge, but the law is pretty clear about what a gag order is, and George Zimmerman’s defense team has not reached the brink of breaching the legal levee to a point of overflowing; when the public is flooded with pre-trial information that may possibly prejudice a jury down the road. Of course, this is assuming that the State passes its first hurdle — the ‘not yet filed’ defense motion for immunity. We won’t go there. Not now, anyway.

The definition of a gag order is quite simple. Law.com describes it as “a judge’s order prohibiting the attorneys and the parties to a pending lawsuit or criminal prosecution from talking to the media or the public about the case.” The description further states that a gag order “has the secondary purpose of preventing the lawyers from trying the case in the press and on television, and thus creating a public mood (which could get ugly) in favor of one party or the other.” A gag order would apply toward law enforcement officials and include all witnesses.

The second part of the description is intriguing because attorneys have been trying cases in the media since the first stone tablet announced something of legal merit thousands of years ago. Before then, it was grunt of mouth that spread the news, and I’m sure that, back then, there were lawyers that hung their slate shingles over cave entrances advertising their services. In those days, they probably wore custom-tailored saber-toothed fur ensembles to court instead of more mundane beaver skins.

Back to the present. The only thing that’s new about the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin case is that the Internet has evolved over the years. We didn’t see it during the O.J. Simpson era of the mid-90s because, unlike today, there wasn’t really a huge need for it. Cell phones were the size of bricks, they were very expensive, and most people were still content with their beepers, fax machines and copiers. I went online sometime in the mid-to-late-90s, but I was in information superhighway diapers until the early 2000s. That’s the way it is in the courtroom now because most laws regarding trial publicity were written prior to the massive explosion of the digital age. If we only go back four years, we witnessed it with the bombastic blast of information regarding the Casey Anthony case, the likes of which we’ve never seen. Thousands of documents were released to the public due to Florida’s liberal Sunshine Law. It wasn’t without problems, though. Case in point: If two different sized tires were found in the woods where Caylee was found, you’d better bet the public retreaded them and overinflated their minds to believe that Casey threw those tires there for a reason. They dissected everything. Why were those tires there? What was Casey hiding? Who helped her? Roy Kronk? God forbid that they might have been there since 2003. Yes, they became Casey’s tires, yet they never swayed the jury one way or the other. There’s a reason for that. They weren’t hers and they were never introduced as evidence at trial. Those woods had been used as a dumping ground for years. That’s the problem with evidence. It’s not always evidence.

Granted, the Zimmerman defense had been publishing all sorts of information on its site, the gzlegalcase, about their client and some of the evidence that’s been released to date, but it was nothing more than what’s been released to the public, anyway. The defense has merely been offering their own interpretations, and some conflicts with the way the State thinks. While the State has been very tight-lipped, that doesn’t mean the defense must play the same game. Most certainly, it doesn’t mean that we have to believe what anyone says, either.

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During the gag order aspect of the hearing on October 26, Bernie de la Rionda rambled on. At times, I found him to be inconsistent and somewhat disheveled, wordwise. He asserted that the defense Website had been somewhat unethical. Zimmerman & Company called witnesses liars and tried to bypass the media by offering their own version of the case instead of how the media might interpret it. I disagree. We are given the same information in discovery. We can write our own commentary. For instance, Zimmerman’s medical records indicate he may have sustained a broken nose during the fight with Trayvon the night of February 26. O’Mara clearly said it’s a fact and undisputed that his client’s nose was broken. I don’t have to believe O’Mara and neither do you, and that’s the whole point.

Discovery impacts potential jurors a heck of a lot more than anything the defense throws out, in my opinion, and no proof exists either way. His nose was broken, his nose wasn’t broken. You decide. Ostensibly, both sides will offer tons of rhetoric at trial. It’s the name of the game. There is one point where I may agree with de la Rionda. It’s when he commented about the defense site’s quote asking for donations from those who would do the same thing if they were in Zimmerman’s shoes. That’s pretty tasteless and crass, not to mention cold-hearted and grossly opinionated. SEND MONEY IF YOU THINK TRAYVON DESERVED TO DIE. Never mind that O’Mara’s job is to defend his client, not bark for money. If O’Mara has a fault, it’s that he can be overtly insensitive at times.

When O’Mara got up to explain why he had done nothing wrong to warrant the gag, I agreed with him until he asserted that the attorneys for Trayvon’s parents were using the race card. Yes, early on, it turned ugly in a racial kind of way, but O’Mara practically accused Benjamin Crump of inciting a race war. That’s just not true. I attended the National Rally for Justice on Behalf of Trayvon Martin in Sanford on March 22, and all I heard from the speakers, including Rev. Al Sharpton, was nothing but justice, justice, justice. Take it through the court system! That’s all they have been seeking. Not retribution. O’Mara claimed that Crump called Zimmerman a racist murderer and, I’m sorry, but I never heard that. If you can show me where Crump did, in fact, say it, I’ll eat my hat.

He also accused Crump and Natalie Jackson of being surrogates for the State. That’s not true, either, any more than saying that Robert Zimmerman is working for the defense. O’Mara claims that, as a surrogate for the State, Crump must be as bound to Florida Rule 4-3.6 as the immediate attorneys involved in the case. I disagree. Crump does not represent the State. His represents Trayvon’s family. Period. Even if a gag order were in place, it would have no bearing on him. I feel that the intent of this sort of strategy in the courtroom was to throw the judge off course. “They went thataway!” It didn’t work because Judge Nelson didn’t blink. She would not budge, and she often had to remind the defense and prosecution to stay on the road.

§

I was fairly certain before the hearing began that Judge Nelson was going to rule against the gag order motion. While I had some problems with the defense, did anything ever rise to the level that I would consider iffy? No, but I can understand some of the issues at hand. For instance, what separates bloggers from mainstream media? The Huffington Post is a blog, but it’s the media. Daily Kos is as much a part of the media as the New York Times Website. So is NewsBusters. Then there’s Marinade Dave. We won’t go there, but my point is clear. There’s no single distinguishing line that separates media outlets, so why can’t the defense have a blog?

When O’Mara slightly belittled de la Rionda by reminding him this is 2012 and that law books are no longer on shelves, it reminded me of the final presidential debate on foreign policy, when Obama ridiculed Romney about the armed forces no longer fighting with bayonets. While I understood the president’s point, I knew he was wrong. Marines still carry bayonets. In that vein, not all attorneys are Internet savvy. The last time I checked, Office Depot and Staples still sell legal pads and writing instruments with ink, not just digital tablets and capacitative touch screen pens.

But now that we are in the midst of a technology frenzy that continues to skyrocket into the future, at a time when my six month old 3rd generation iPad is already obsolete, I question what good a gag order would do in today’s world. Just how would it impact a jury seven months into the future when we live in an age of lightning LTE speed? The old saying, today’s news is at the bottom of tomorrow’s birdcage, no longer applies because you can’t clean up birdpoop with the Orlando Sentinel dot com. This morning’s news is already old and who can remember what happened yesterday? Other than something that impacts us tremendously, like Superstorm Sandy, who cares? By the time George Zimmerman goes to trial, no one will remember O’Mara’s ramblings from last month, let alone care. Trust me on that one (but I do find it peculiar that nothing new has been posted on the gzlegalcase site [as of this writing] since October 23.)

Ultimately, Judge Nelson denied the motion because alternatives are available to the court to “ensure that an impartial jury can be selected. Those tools include a change of venue, a larger than normal jury venire, individualized voir dire, and stern instructions to the jurors as to their sworn duty to decide the issues based only upon the evidence.” I fully concur, but I think the best news to come out of her order was one simple, yet important, thing. Had a gag order been placed, other than Benjamin Crump, the media would have had no one else to talk to but Robert Zimmerman, Jr, and no one but the media and his own family care about him. And he only matters when there’s nothing better to report. Count your blessings. It’s good to be a gagnostic.

[Prior to the start of the hearing, I wasn’t sure I could get an Internet connection on my iPad. I did, but in the meantime, I asked Rene Stutzman, senior reporter at the Orlando Sentinel, if she had any paper to spare. She gave me her legal pad without hesitation. That was very kind and generous of her. Of course, I gave it back.]

Cross posted on the Daily Kos

Suburban Drive - Four Years After

Suburban Drive is not far from Orlando International Airport, so as I left the Gun Rights Policy Conference early Saturday evening, heading for home, I decided to take a peek at where Caylee Anthony’s remains were found. What does it look like today? It’s been over four years since that steamy night in mid-June of 2008, when her tiny body and personal effects were thrown into those woods like a bag of trash.

What I expected to find was something akin to what it looked like back then, dumped beneath a tree in kudzu infested woods, a mere 19’ 8” from the curb. From all of my trips to the site, I never sensed the spirit of Caylee, but I was aware of all sorts of vermin, like snakes, that call the place home. I never wanted to go near it at night because of what may be lurking about.

What I saw Saturday was pretty much what I expected. Soon after law enforcement, anthropologists and forensic teams moved in on December 11, the day she was found by Orange County water utility meter reader Roy Kronk, the place was rendered as bald as the top of my head, as if an exfoliant like Agent Orange had been sprayed throughout. I knew the place would take a number of years to spring back to life and I didn’t expect it to ever look quite like it did that fateful day, before investigators began their work. Mother Nature has taken back what is hers, and for six short months, Mother Nature was more of a mother than Caylee ever had.

To anyone who questions whether she was purposely killed, I will tell you what I heard from prosecutor Jeff Ashton on more than one occasion — you don’t make an accident look like a murder.

You don’t throw a precious little girl into dark and murky woods, either; dead or alive. 

Caylee Marie Anthony. Born 8/9/05. Found at 8905 Suburban Drive.

—

To the right of the cross is a tree wrapped in kudzu (Photo 4.) At its base was where Caylee’s skull and personal effects were found, along with other bones. The rest of her skeletal remains were scattered over a half-mile area.

Click photos to enlarge

Cindy Anthony's Mother Passes

  From the Orlando Sentinel:

Shirley Marie Plesea

PLESEA, SHIRLEY MARIE, 85 of Mt. Dora, passed away Thursday September 6, 2012, after enduring metastatic breast cancer. Born Shirley Marie Giddings, a native of Warren, OH, she and her surviving husband of 66 years, Alexander retired to Florida in 1989. She leaves behind three sons, Daniel of Fort Meyers, Gary of Port St. Lucie, Rick of Murfreesboro, TN; a daughter Cynthia Anthony of Orlando; five grandchildren; and her sister Mary Lou Lillicotch of VA. She is preceded by her mother Velma Lucille Giddings; her brother Robert Giddings; her sister Anne Markle; and her great granddaughter Caylee Marie. Shirley was a devoted wife, loving mother and grandmother, a cherished sister and friend. She will be sadly missed. In lieu of flowers, the family is requesting a donation be made in her memory to Susan G. Koman for the Cure. Donations can be made online or mailed to:

Susan G. Koman

Attention Donor Services

PO Box 650309

Dallas TX 752650309

To everyone who followed the Casey Anthony case, we all had a soft spot in our hearts for Shirley. At this time, I would like to extend my condolences to her entire family. Take comfort in knowing that she is holding on to Caylee Marie.

The Labors of Social Ostracization

IT’S ALIVE! IT’S ALIVE! IT’S ALIVE!

“Osterman’s book and TV spot, although well-intentioned, are ill-timed and done without input and NOT approved by the defense.”

So said a recent @gzlegalcase Tweet from the George Zimmerman Legal Case website in response to the release of Mark & Sondra Osterman’s book, Defending our Friend: the Most Hated Man in America. Mark and his wife are the Zimmermans’ closest friends. Mark considers George his brother. It’s much more than just a mere bromance. From Dr. Phil’s interview:

“George had pure ideals, a nobility of character that I admired. I kind of wanted to be like him,” Mark says. “When I first heard that George had shot someone else, I was extremely shocked. I know that it would have been the absolute last resort.”

I sense a rather strange relationship between Mark O’Mara and his client. I’m certain that the attorney begged his ticket to fame and fortune to refrain from going on The Sean Hannity Show to spill the latest version of his face-to-face with Trayvon Martin. I think Osterman, Zimmerman’s own personal zenmeister, coaxed his li’l grasshopper to take to the airways. Unfortunately, that particular outing did absolutely nothing to enhance his credibility, but I suspect it was God’s plan all along to show the world exactly what made this grasshopper hop. In that regard, Osterman succeeded, and so did God, I guess, because li’l grasshopper ended up winning the hearts of no one. But don’t tell the Ostermans.

That’s why I am inclined to believe that this new book revelation came with George and Shellie’s blessings. Another shot. Any opportunity li’l grasshopper has to expose his name to glaring lights and stardom, he’s all for it. Cha-cha-ching! After all, he took this shooting as his ticket to paradise, as he and his wife alluded to in a taped phone conversation during his initial incarceration at the Seminole County jail, as the money kept rolling in:

“After this is all over, you’re going to be able to just have a great life,” Shellie said.

“We will,” George replied. “I’m excited.”

“Yeah, you should be. You should be excited,” Shellie said. “I wish you were here, of course.”

“I will be,” he said.

“Isn’t it crazy how something like this just makes you put everything in perspective in life?” Shellie said. “It’s amazing how insignificant the things we stress out over are.”

“I agree,” he replied.

Imagine that. They both agreed that the shooting death of Trayvon Martin was so insignificant, it was nothing to “stress out” over. Why, even the second-degree murder charge was nothing but a farce, and this is a complete contradiction of what Osterman told Dr. Phil. Oh, how George cried and cried. What this illustrates to me is that Zimmerman looked up to Osterman as his iconic mentor; the man who would justify his need to be a top cop. While I’m never going to infer that the 28-year-old set out to shoot anyone that night, he had convinced himself that it was a right thing to do given the right circumstances. He was trained. It was pumped into him and he was primed. What better way than to set those circumstances up the right way? His way. This would make him Osterman’s equal. Yes, this was God’s plan; this was his destiny. Osterman would be proud. And in the end, he was.

While I could ostracize the air marshal, I won’t. He has no idea what kind of Frankenstein monster he helped create. He only saw his student’s docile side. Granted, Osterman was once fooled by a con man when he and another Seminole County sheriff’s deputy met Juan Diaz, who convinced them he was a second basemen for the New York Yankees. Sure, the guy took them to strip clubs flashing money, and Osterman ended up losing his job over it in 1998, but that was a long time ago. Certainly, he wouldn’t be deceived again. Would he?

I think so. But still, I won’t hold it against him. Not personally. Even in the 1931 horror movie, we could feel some compassion for Dr. Frankenstein, who didn’t set out to create evil, but in the end, he still came to the beast’s defense and lost whatever innocence was left. While I am convinced Osterman is a fool for believing Zimmerman’s alibis, we all tend to put faith in our friends; some more than others, and there remains that inherent element of naiveté. We want to think people are well-intended. How many professionals — doctors, lawyers, airline pilots and, yes, federal agents — find out their spouses have been cheating on them long, long after the fact? Let’s face it, Zimmerman is a natural born liar. While you may question Osterman on his judgment, I think I’ll be looking at something else that hit me like a brick; something he said on the Dr. Phil show. It may be meaningless, but still…

“When I first heard that George had shot someone else, I was extremely shocked.”

Someone else? Just how many people has George Zimmerman shot? That triggered my alarm. Where was Osterman’s safety when he was shooting his mouth off? Oh, that’s right, he doesn’t use one. Straight from the hip. Just like li’l grasshopper.

TO EACH THEIR OWN

Speaking of the monsters we create, it’s easy to see what can happen when people let things get out of hand. Caution is thrown into the wind and trouble flares. During the entire time I covered the Casey Anthony case, I watched people go from friendly and mild-mannered to as loony as they come, all in the name of justice for a little girl they didn’t even know. Don’t get me wrong, we all seek justice, but people vary on how intent they are to get it and how far they are willing to go to prove it is their way or the highway. Talk about standing your ground. What is often neglected is that it is up to the court system to decide, not the public, as we shockingly found out when the jury came back with their verdicts at the end of Casey’s trial. Interestingly, as adamant as people were throughout that ordeal, how quickly they moved on.

Because I had a popular blog, I was subject to a lot of scrutiny. I think there’s another blogger who is quite aware of that now. Out of the woodwork came bands of miscreants determined to shut me down. I was gay, I had AIDS, I was a convicted felon and so were my parents. I was a plant for the defense out to take down the sitting judge. One woman had her grandchildren chanting “Death to Marinade Dave!” and she proudly told others. Everyone who dared comment on my blog became targets for attack. One was supposed to be thrust into a snow bank and left to die. It was the most disgusting group of people I had ever run into in my life. Ironically, these very people prayed deeply to God that justice would come for Caylee while they hypocritically spewed hatred on people they didn’t know from Adam.

Here we are, at it again. With Zimmerman, there’s the race factor. There’s gun rights. Emotions are running quite high across a much broader spectrum. There’s politics; liberals against conservatives and Democrats against Republicans, not to mention the NRA and Second Amendment rights. There’s a $10,000 bounty on Zimmerman’s head, dead or alive. We are witnessing character assassinations of the “n”th degree, with “n” being the word that most folks should have thrown away with the dirty bath water they washed their mouths out with long ago. Once again, people are getting hurt in so many God-awful ways. Ironically, one blog opens their day with The Lord’s Prayer before their brood goes on a self-righteous rampage on everyone and anyone who stands in their path. Trayvon was a drug addicted thug dealer with a history of violence. Every single word that comes out of the mouth of George Zimmerman is the Gospel truth. Every word. Yet, they really know nothing about him.

This is my opinion. What they talk about over there is their business. While I certainly disagree with their opinions, they have a right to discuss the case the way they want, although I do draw the line on spreading falsehoods and, particularly in this day and age, republishing copyrighted artwork that’s licensed to someone else, especially when it’s pirated from the website they are attacking that actually paid for the work. This is a real war, folks, and people are going to get hurt.

CLICK TO IMAGE TO ENLARGE

There are also blogs that are intent on implicating others in the crime. We saw it with Roy Kronk during the Casey case. The poor guy was run through the ringer because he found Caylee’s body. Even Leonard Padilla claimed Kronk was involved in some sort of intricate daisy chain. Kronk placed the body there, not Casey. How sad that people who do good things are sometimes burned beyond recognition by a false story that’s so fiery to touch, it blinds some to the truth. Sadly, his life will never be the same. Almost a hero, he’s also seen as a villain.

Look at one of the rumors that’s made the rounds of late. Someone was in the vehicle with George Zimmerman the night of the killing. It was Frank Taaffe. No, it was Shellie. No, it was Mark Osterman. Whoever it was, it has become Gospel to those “fact” finders who choose to buy into it. They need no proof because, so it was written, so it must be true. Call it the Lemmings Doctrine.

The problem with this sort of missive is that it can destroy a person. No doubt, Frank Taaffe has his own monsters to fight, and he certainly needs no further encouragement to go off the deep end, so why push him off the edge? Is it fun to belittle a teetering man?

The fact is, George Zimmerman acted alone. All by himself, he pulled the trigger. Why try to include others? In his book, Mark Osterman wrote that Shellie was at her father’s house at the time of the shooting. She immediately called him while he was out walking his dog in his own neighborhood. He was never at the scene prior to the police showing up. Whether you choose to believe him or not is your own prerogative, but I base my opinion not on what he wrote. Instead, I use common sense, just like what generally guided me throughout the Casey Anthony case. I take my guidance through documentation, evidence and the State. Nothing points to anyone else. Not one shred of evidence.

For example, every piece of trash in the woods where Caylee’s body rested was not attributable to her. That old worn out tire did not come off her car. There was no proof the needle in the bottle ever touched her hands. The State of Florida never used it in any of their documents, and that’s where I put my faith. Nowhere in this present case has the State mentioned an accomplice at all, and until they do, the thought of it is not plausible.

In the meantime, we are not put here on this earth to make a mockery of others, are we? Take it from one who knows; one who’s experienced it — it’s not fun being the target of incessant, never ending ridicule, abuse and lies that lead nowhere but down, especially coming from people hiding behind some really strange faith in a god that not only encourages it, but seems to relish in it. That’s not my God, and it’s as much of a mockery of God as Zimmerman telling Sean Hannity that the shooting was God’s will. How ludicrous.

Tree hugger, Tray hugger, what’s the difference if it’s nothing more than a stupid mind game where all that matters is that YOU win? Plow into everyone in your path!

Cross Posted on The Daily Kos

A Full Nelson?

On November 6 of this year, Americans who are registered to vote will have the opportunity to elect the next president of the United States. This may or may not include hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens and half the roster of dead people in the city of Chicago, but that has nothing to do with the context of this post.

If President Barack Obama prevails, he will have another four years in the White House. If Mitt Romney wins, he will be sworn in as the 45th president on January 20, 2013 — Inauguration Day. How this election fits in with the topic du jour is quite simple. There will be a smooth transition between the outgoing and incoming members of the executive branch. It’s the same as it’s almost always been since the inception of this great country. Every four or eight years, we witness this peaceful transference of power, and the country never skips a beat.

It’s the same with the George Zimmerman case. In a 2-1 vote, the Fifth District Court of Appeal rendered its decision regarding Judge Kenneth R. Lester, Jr. 

PER CURIAM.

George Zimmerman petitions for issuance of a writ of prohibition. This is the proper mechanism for challenging the denial of a motion to disqualify a trial judge. See, e.g., Lusskin v. State, 717 So. 2d 1076, 1077 (Fla. 4th DCA 1998). Reviewing the matter de novo, see R.M.C. v. D.C., 77 So. 3d 234, 236 (Fla. 1st DCA 2012), we grant the petition…[.] Accordingly, we direct the trial judge to enter an order of disqualification which requests the chief circuit judge to appoint a successor judge.

PETITION GRANTED.

While some may gloat over the decision to remove Lester from this case, I most certainly do not. I feel that the judge scolded Zimmerman and nothing more. I am convinced that he would have soldiered on, putting that reprimand behind him. He would heve continued to rule judiciously and fairly, but that’s old news now; what’s done is done. There’s no point in arguing over the how and why of it. While we had our discussions and disagreements over the motion to recuse and subsequent writ of prohibition, today, it is nothing more than water under the bridge, and it’s time to move on.

I am convinced that, just like our election process, there will be a very smooth transition from Judge Lester to the person Chief Judge Alan A. Dickey names as his successor. Who will it be…?

First of all, let me explain what I know about the inner workings of a courthouse, having some experience in it. 

At the very beginning of the Casey Anthony case, Ninth Circuit court Chief Judge Belvin Perry, Jr. asked several judges if they’d be willing to take the case. One by one, they said their dockets were too full. Keep in mind that these were judges working the criminal division, not civil. Judges routinely rotate between criminal and civil every two years or so. No one wanted the case. Perry then turned to someone else. He made a wise choice when he asked Judge Stan Strickland to take the case. You are one of my best judges and, most certainly, extremely qualified to handle it. Strickland agreed, despite having recently moved from criminal to civil. It’s important to note that Strickland continued to hear civil cases, too. Judges, like criminal defense attorneys and prosecutors, are not narrow-minded or restricted. Like servers in a restaurant, they can wait on more than one customer at a time. Trust me, to Judge Lester, the Zimmerman case was just a job and nothing more. What happened to him is part of the process.

When the first judge in the Casey Anthony case was asked to step down, he did so without argument. Why he did it is of no relevance in the Zimmerman case. What matters now is, where do we go from here? When Judge Strickland removed himself from the bench, what happened next was somewhat revealing and it will be similar, if not identical, to the type situation that Judge Dickey is faced with today.

[Since this writing, Judge Debra Nelson has been named to replace Judge Lester.]

During the Anthony mess, media pundits were reporting that, generally, chief judges take on highly problematic cases. Judge Belvin Perry certainly did end up doing just that, but in the interim, it was far from as simplistic as the news actually reported. Behind the scenes, Perry was asking his Orange County circuit court judges to take over the case. I will never reveal how I know that, but it came from more than two sources — all at the top. One-by-one, they turned him down. Do you see the caseload I’m sitting on? I’ve got over 3,000 cases on my docket right now, was the common mantra. Ultimately, Perry was left with no choice. It was, after all, a most problematic case and, reluctantly, he decided to take the helm. The rest, they say, is history.

§

In one of his recorded phone calls from jail, Zimmerman discussed what judge he wanted with his wife, Shellie. This was just as Mark O’Mara signed on to defend him, so it was an early conversation. Zimmerman hoped to get retired judge O.H. Eaton. Eaton has a sterling reputation as a fair judge, levelheaded and extremely knowledgeable in law. What Zimmerman knew about him then is a mystery, but even I was aware of it.

He ain’t gonna end up with Judge Eaton. And I’ll tell you why I think that. Eaton is a retired judge. That’s not to say he’s too old. It has nothing to do with that. Retired judges are not salaried. Retired judges are freelancers. They make a lot more $ per hour than sitting judges. This trial is at least a year away. Would the taxpayers of the 18th District, particularly voters in Seminole County, agree to that kind of arrangement? Granted, you couldn’t end up with a better judge, but would he be willing to take on the task if asked? He doesn’t need it. He’s the kind of retired judge who listens to cases to take the burden off other judges, but they are not major cases like this one. If Dickey runs out of judges in Seminole County, better yet that he would discuss this matter with some of his active judges in Brevard County before handing it over to someone outside of his circuit. Technically, Eaton is no longer active.

One of the names being bandied about is Seminole Circuit Judge Debra S. Nelson. She is every bit as qualified as Judge Lester to sit in judgement of Zimmerman. As a matter of fact, she is most deserving because she is also a no-nonsense judge who was appointed to the 18th Judicial Circuit in 1999 by then-governor Jeb Bush.

In 2007, Judge Nelson presided over a rape case. The accused male, then 41, was eventually convicted of dragging a 10-year-old girl into the woods, choking and raping her. It might be interesting to note that the perpetrator, Antonio Rosales, was in the United States illegally. Also, during the trial, he confessed to murdering a woman in Tucson, Arizona.

While his trial was under way, he went berserk in the courtroom:

His defense attorney, Tim Caudill, moved for a mistrial. He claimed that the outburst tainted the jury. Judge Nelson rejected that, and upon sentencing, she did something unusual. Let me preface this first. Because of the girl’s age, in rape convictions, the charge carries a mandatory life sentence. Judge Nelson decided to take it two steps further. She added two additional life sentences, but she never gave a reason why. To this day, the sentence stands. (See also: Orlando-area jury convicts illegal immigrant of 2003 child rape)

What’s most interesting to me is that Judge Nelson has a reputation for setting harsh sentences. In George Zimmerman’s case, he’s facing a mandatory 25-years to life in prison. That’s because of the 10-20-life law enacted by Governor Jeb Bush in 1998. It’s sometimes referred to as “Use a gun and you’re done” law. According to Florida’s 10-20-life statute, anyone who pulls a gun during a crime receives:

• Felon in possession of a gun - mandatory minimum 3 year prison sentence
• Brandishing a gun in the commission of a crime - mandatory minimum 10 year sentence
• Discharging a gun in the commission of a crime - mandatory minimum 20 year sentence
• Injuring or killing another person in the commission of a crime, by discharging a firearm - 25 years to life in state prison

Just ask Marissa Alexander, a young Jacksonville mother who was convicted of three counts of aggravated assault and sentenced to 20-years for firing a warning shot into a wall during an argument with her husband. She lost her Stand Your Ground motion and she had, what appears on the surface, to be more of an excuse for pulling the trigger than Zimmerman will ever be able to conjure up. Incidentally, the prosecutor during that case was none other than Angela Corey. She said that Alexander was angry and reckless the night of the shooting, not fearful of her life. She will bring the same argument into court when Zimmerman files his immunity motion. Was he more angry or afraid? If in fear, was is objective or subjective?

Judge Lester ruled judiciously and so will his successor. Whoever Zimmerman ends up with, that’s it. There will be no more musical benches, and who he gets will not be singing anything in his ears. He may be laughing today, but his silly games are now over.

Just for your information, In 2012, Judge Lester was deemed the best judge in Seminole County (in all categories) by his peers of criminal defense attorneys and prosecutors. So was another judge in Orange County back in the day. Oh well. If Judge Dickey decides to take the case, it’s not going to be any easier than Nelson or anyone else. Judges are not amused by the antics of George Zimmerman. Of course, that’s my opinion, but I am allowed to be judgmental… or let me say, I am allowed to say so. So will the next judge. Zimmerman is plum out of dismissal motions.

Click to enlarge image

ORDER GRANTING DEFENDANT’S VERIFIED MOTION TO DISQUALIFY JUDGE

This article was written prior to the court’s decision regarding Judge Debra Nelson.

New Photo of Casey Emerges

Bond, Revoke Bond

Call me old fashioned or set in my ways or something, but I got used to the courtrooms run by Orange County judges Stan Strickland and Belvin Perry, Jr. By that, I mean, when we went to the Casey Anthony hearings, chances were good that the honorables would have been inclined to rule on new motions — ones presented that day — at a later date, giving the prosecution and defense (and us) time to ingest and digest the gist of what had just been presented. In other words, the judges routinely gave the opposing side an opportunity to work up a legal response to be argued at a subsequent hearing.

Don’t get me wrong. In no way am I questioning the manner in which Seminole County judge Kenneth R. Lester, Jr. (yes, another junior) runs his courtroom. As a matter of fact, I sensed from the start that this was a no nonsense judge; one who knows the law and how to interpret and implement it. Fair and firm… that’s what I’d call him. Balanced, too, but while attending the hearing last Friday, I never expected to hear a motion that had been filed a mere two hours earlier, followed by an immediate decision from the judge. Where did that come from, and why didn’t Mark O’Mara, George Zimmerman’s lead defense attorney, protest? Well, there’s more to the story, but first, the matter at hand. While the ending may have shocked us, it wasn’t the reason why we were there to begin with.

The hearing was to argue for and against releasing information pursuant to Florida’s rules of discovery, otherwise known as the Sunshine Law. The state said that the names of witnesses should be kept out of public view for their own protection. The defense agreed, and added that things should be kept at a slow pace for now. There’s no reason to release the information at the moment because there are a lot of people to interview further. This will take time.

The media wants everything made public because that’s the law, argued Orlando Sentinel attorney Rachel Fugate in response, and, eventually, the names will be made public anyway. Why not now? So far, she said, the state and defense haven’t shown good cause why any information should remain behind closed doors, and to be honest, it all depends on which way you look at things. Here, the crux of the matter goes well beyond protecting innocent witnesses, unlike the Casey Anthony case, which she compared it to. Casey never admitted that she killed anyone. George did, and that’s part of the problem, aside from race and outrage being major factors. Most of the public agreed with the prosecution in State v. Casey Anthony. Here, it’s deeply split.

Aside from race, the state contends that George Zimmerman’s statements to investigators add up to a confession, and because of that, they are exempt from disclosure. Of course, the defense disagrees. Yes, the defendant admitted he shot and killed the victim, but it was not a murder. It was in self-defense.

Judge Lester called it a matter of what’s inculpatory and what’s exculpatory. One says it’s a fish; the other says it’s a fowl, he added. Inculpatory is evidence that can establish a defendant’s guilt, while exculpatory is evidence that tends to clear a defendant of guilt.

In the end, the judge decided to follow the law and release the discovery documents, but not without poring over them, piecemeal, in camera, and redacted, which means he will most likely censor some of what’s released, like in the first document dump. And just like Judge Perry, Judge Lester reminded the attorneys that this will be no trial by ambush! What you see is what you get.

Incidentally, defense attorney Mark O’Mara said he expects to see a new round of discovery by Monday or Tuesday, so keep your eyes open, folks.

§

When Judge Lester abruptly revoked George Zimmerman’s bond on Friday, it caught me off guard. Like I said at the beginning of this post, I pretty much thought the court would allow time for the defense to prepare. After all, the motion was filed that morning. But I missed something along the way.

At the April 27 hearing to discuss the motions filed by media attorneys, O’Mara stated that his client had misinformed the court about his financial standing at the bond hearing held a week earlier, on April 20. (This signaled the prosecution to go on the offense and dig up some damning information.) While George sat silent in the courtroom, his wife Shellie, out of camera view, lied under oath about their financial situation. He was fully aware of what she was saying and doing. Instead of being flat broke like she testified, he had amassed a small fortune in excess of $135,000, give or take a few truckloads of chicken feed.

That’s not all. There was a problem with the passport — or passports — George held. At the bond hearing, he surrendered his U.S. passport and “tendered it to the court.” It was due to expire in May anyway. So far, so good, except that he failed to inform the court that he held another passport. It seems the first one was lost and he had applied for a replacement in 2004. Passports are good for ten years, so that means the new one is still good for another two years. Meanwhile, the old one resurfaced and that’s the one he turned over. While there is nothing illegal about it, the state had every right to cry foul. George is, after all, a defendant in a murder case, and the state takes EVERYTHING seriously. So does his team of defense attorneys.

And then there’s the judge.

While Judge Lester overlooked George’s indiscretion concerning the passport, he may have done so because of George’s overt lies concerning his finances. Obviously, that was the case in court last Friday, and because defense counsel had previously mentioned the money issue back on April 27, it was no real surprise when the state smacked George with its MOTION TO REVOKE BOND that day.

Did the defense see it coming? I don’t really know, but I will say this. Upon entering the courthouse, you have to pass through a security screen which includes removing your shoes. When you get to the 5th floor courtroom, you must pass through another security checkpoint before entering. As I was placing my personal items back in my pockets, Mark O’Mara came upon me. We spoke briefly. I told him how polite and respectful he was to me when Bill Sheaffer introduced us during the Anthony trial. Mark, if you recall, was hired as a legal consultant for WKMG. If you think back, you may remember Mark NeJame was also with the CBS affiliate. Anyway, whenever O’Mara and I saw each other again during the trial, we always exchanged greetings. He’s a real gentleman. This time, I did wish him the best in the courtroom and he didn’t seem preoccupied with anything that may have been coming down the pike. After the hearing, I spoke to him again, and he agreed when I said it wasn’t a good day.

“No, it wasn’t,” he admitted.

If I had to take an educated guess, I would say that the defense team did not expect this broadside from prosecutor Bernie De la Rionda, and to be honest, I don’t think it was the motion itself as much as it was De la Rionda’s blow-by-blow vocal delivery and the judge’s abrupt decision to revoke bond. It was a veritable wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am, slam dunk, bada-bing sorta thing.

Here’s the bottom line. George Zimmerman lied. While you may not have heard his own voice doing the lying, he did so through his legal counsel and through the testimony of his wife, in sickness and in health; through good and through bad. And the bad part about it was that he manipulated his attorneys and his spouse. That, in my opinion, is what really perturbed the judge the most. And lying to the court, of course. It’s a cold day in hell when you can pull the wool over a judge’s eyes, let alone get a chuckle out of him for trying.

While he sat in the Seminole County jail awaiting his bond hearing, George played his sudden fortune like a Wall Street pro, only he did it in code, assuming the law would never understand a word of it. Well, George, those plastic decoder rings you used to get in cereal and Cracker Jack boxes as a kid were invented a long, long time ago, before Dick Tracy, and it doesn’t take much of a brainiac to figure out that $135 = $135,000 in code-speak. Duh. It’s stuff like this that truly makes me wonder if George actually thinks of himself as some sort of comic book superhero who’s above the law. It’s not Superman… it’s… it’s Zimmerman!

Despite George’s immature attempt at deception, I’m going to go out on a limb and take a stab at how the judge will respond to a second bond motion filed by the defense requesting his release. Sure, it will be granted, but the judge is out of town this week, so George will have to sit and stew for awhile. God knows, he earned it. Of course, when the hearing is eventually held, he will kiss a good chunk that money in limbo good bye. Bond should be set to the tune of $1,000,000 if you ask me, which, when decoded, translates into a $100,000 down payment; still a mere pittance to a guy like him and his loyal minions, but a huge slice of the pie when it comes to the not so small matter of mounting legal fees.

[Since this writing, the defense team has decided against filing a new motion for a bond hearing at this time. See: Update For Motion On Bond]

Until the hearing comes, George and his defense team will need to do some serious head banging. He profoundly impacted his credibility with the judge. To those who disagree, listen to O’Mara’s own words. “There is a credibility question that now needs to be rehabilitated by explaining in a way what they were thinking, when they did what they did, and we’ll address it… I think that explanation or apology, if it is, should go directly to the person who deserves it. In this case, that is Judge Lester.” (See: George Zimmerman returns to Seminole County Jail)

Take a look, too, at what the Orlando Sentinel put together from their own reporting and research. This is something a jury will not ignore.

Zimmerman’s untrue statements

• The night he shot Trayvon Martin to death, police say Zimmerman told them his record was squeaky-clean. In fact, he had been charged in 2005 with resisting arrest without violence during an altercation with a state alcohol officer. Zimmerman wound up in a pretrial-diversion program, a scaled-down version of probation offered to nonviolent first-time offenders.
• When he was booked into the Seminole County Jail on April 23, he told the booking officer that he never had been in a pretrial-diversion program before, documents show.
• At his April 20 bond hearing, while making a surprise apology to Trayvon’s family, Zimmerman said he didn’t realize Trayvon was so young. In his call to police moments before the shooting, however, he described Trayvon — who was 17 — as in his “late teens.”

These things, plus the money deception, will not bode well for the defense. The judge will give George an opportunity to explain himself, but what does O’Mara think? “My understanding was that Judge Lester seemed to indicate that he wanted testimony. That is a very complex decision to make about what effect that would have, not only at the hearing itself, but any future testimony, so we haven’t made that decision yet.”

I don’t think I’m even close to going out on a limb when I say that George can kiss the old stand your ground defense good bye. Since it will be Judge Lester’s decision to make, wasn’t it really stupid of George to lie to him, of all people? Wasn’t that a blatant lack of common sense and honesty? Or was it stupidity? Couldn’t the night of February 26 have been the same thing? A blatant lack of common sense and honesty?

Because I am so sure this case will go to trial unless a plea deal is made — which I strongly doubt, George is going to have to do something to regain his credibility, but I don’t know what. His defense team is doing its best at damage control, but how much good will it do?

From the George Zimmerman Legal Defense Website, Details Regarding The Request For A Second Bond Hearing For George Zimmerman:

(Edited for content)

While Mr. Zimmerman acknowledges that he allowed his financial situation to be misstated in court, the defense will emphasize that in all other regards, Mr. Zimmerman has been forthright and cooperative. He gave several voluntary statements to the police, re-enacted the events for them, gave voice exemplars for comparison and stayed in ongoing contact with the Department of Law Enforcement during his initial stage of being in hiding. He has twice surrendered himself to law enforcement when asked to do so, and this should demonstrate that Mr. Zimmerman is not a flight risk. He has also complied with all conditions of his release, including curfew, keeping in touch with his supervising officers, and maintaining his GPS monitoring, without violation.

Why did George stay “in ongoing contact with the Department of Law Enforcement” when he first went into hiding? Because he thought of himself as one of them? A cop’s cop? Among his peers? The first thing a defense attorney worth his weight in salt would say to a new client is to shut up. That’s why this statement is meaningless. Of course it was his initial contact because, on advice of counsel, he stopped talking after that.

He has twice surrendered himself to law enforcement when asked to do so, and this should demonstrate that Mr. Zimmerman is not a flight risk. He has also complied with all conditions of his release, including curfew, keeping in touch with his supervising officers, and maintaining his GPS monitoring, without violation.

This, too, goes without saying. Isn’t that a given? This is what he was supposed to do, and most people comply with the law. Besides, once the cash was out of his hands, where was he supposed to hide? With what? Once the defense learned of the money, it was transferred into a trust fund where George couldn’t touch it. Neither could his wife.

The audio recordings of Mr. Zimmerman’s phone conversations while in jail make it clear that Mr. Zimmerman knew a significant sum had been raised by his original fundraising website. We feel the failure to disclose these funds was caused by fear, mistrust, and confusion. The gravity of this mistake has been distinctly illustrated, and Mr. Zimmerman understands that this mistake has undermined his credibility, which he will have to work to repair.

“We feel the failure to disclose these funds was caused by fear, mistrust, and confusion.” This is damage control at its finest. This is why exemplary defense counsel deserves to make the big bucks, and I’ve got to hand it to Mr. O’Mara, who I totally respect and admire. That sentence says it all, but it’s a classic contortion of relativity and relevance. It’s pointing the finger one way while speaking in another direction. Why? While focusing on George’s innate fear, mistrust and confusion, which we can all relate to, its actual intent is to confuse us and take the heat off him.

If George was really fearful, mistrusting and confused, why did he lie to the court? If he did nothing wrong, what was he fearful of there, of all places? The court was the first place he should have trusted. After all, the truth shall set him free. Right?

Bond, Revoke Bond

Blackfields & McWhites, Part 1

“FBI may charge George Zimmerman with hate crime”

That was the heading of an online story published at the WFTV Website on Monday, May 14, 2012. WFTV-Channel 9 is the ABC network affiliate located in Orlando. The opening paragraph was very revealing in the sense of what it failed to do. It revealed nothing new or, for that matter, particularly newsworthy.

SANFORD, Fla. —  WFTV has learned charges against George Zimmerman could be getting more serious.

State prosecutors said Zimmerman, a neighborhood watchman, profiled and stalked 17-year-old Trayvon Martin before killing him, so the FBI is now looking into charging him with a hate crime.

What’s so strange about this kind of journalism is that it fuels the fire. It’s called baiting. While starting the article with a leading statement, WFTV has learned, it offers nothing new beyond what we didn’t already know. What, exactly, did WFTV learn, and what does the word could mean, as in the charges could be getting more serious? THAT’S NOT NEWS! IT’S GUESSING! The article later adds a revelation:

FBI investigators are actively questioning witnesses in the retreat at the Twin Lakes neighborhood, seeking evidence for a possible federal hate crime charge.

Of course they are! That goes without saying. If the FBI is investigating any crime, agents from the bureau routinely interview everyone in sight of the crime. And everywhere else, for that matter. The remainder of the story is nothing more than superfluous fluff, a term I last used early in the Casey Anthony case — long before the trial and, quite possibly, while critiquing another WFTV piece. You see, soon after I began writing about Caylee and her mother, I was reminded of how biased the news could really be. In college in the 1970s, I wrote an article, An unbiased look at news slants that explained how it’s done every day. I’ve republished it over the years (with improvements) and it’s an easy read. It describes how simple it is to write a news story in a manner that subtly offers an opinion.

While attending most of the Casey Anthony hearings beginning in October, 2009, I got a lot of advice from many of the local journalists covering the case. They were familiar with me and my work. It wasn’t just advice, though. There were rumblings going on in O’do, the unofficial slang word for Orlando. Was WFTV on State Attorney Lawson Lamar’s payroll or something? I mean, it took me no time at all to see how blatant it was that the station got the jump on stories coming out of the State, and nothing at all from the defense. It was apparent that WFTV was pro-prosecution, in my opinion, and I was far from alone in my thinking.

In many of the posts I wrote before covering the trial for Orlando magazine, I made my assertions clear about bias. How I know I was far from alone in this regard was because of the feedback I garnered from other journalists covering the case. What’s up with that station? I was asked. 

Here’s the deal. I’m not about ready to accuse a television news organization of unfair reporting. You are smart enough to figure it out yourself; but doesn’t it seem like the WFTV headline about charging George Zimmerman with a hate crime is a bit premature and racially baiting? The article contains no meat or any legs to stand on and it only serves to provoke the Trayvon Martin camp of supporters.

I don’t know. Perhaps May 15 was a slow news day around Orlando. It’s interesting to note that the story broke at 4:47 pm, just in time for the 5:00 o’clock news hour, and only one station reported it. Huh. Do you think it has anything to do with ratings?

(By the way, other news outlets reporting on the WFTV story don’t count.)

Part 2: George & Cindy's "Charity" Website Suspended

As I continue writing my next post about Trayvon Martin’s tragic death and George Zimmerman’s present situation, I thought it would be interesting to let you know what’s been happening in the world of George and Cindy. After all, it wasn’t all THAT long ago when the Anthony family owned the daily headlines…

On March 17, I reported that their Caylee’s Fund charity had been suspended. Well, lo and behold, it’s back up and running. However, that’s not my reason for this post. It seems that Dr. Phil’s six-figure donation (whatever the amount) has not been paid, or it’s been safely tucked away somewhere, out of the public’s view. In any event, it looks like their fundraising endeavors have been a bust. Take a look and see for yourself:

You can also do your own search HERE by typing “caylee” inside the box to the right of “Business Name:” (sans “quotation” marks)

Remember, the new charity has nothing to do with missing children. It focuses on grandparents’ rights, or lack thereof, in the state of Florida. As such, I reserve comment on what I think about it, but it is a legitimate organization.

George & Cindy's "Charity" Website Suspended

Someone alerted me to a good-sized development in Caylee’s Fund that should have us all relieved and, possibly, perplexed. It’s been suspended! Why? I don’t know, but I’m sure it has nothing to do with a lack of funding. Purportedly, Dr. Phil paid the non-profit $500,000 to have George and Cindy Anthony appear on his show, but he only acknowledged it was a six-figure amount. Rumors have swirled for months that Casey was paid a whopping $120,000 from the fund, but I cannot show proof of any kind. 

I have said on several occasions that the possibility is real that George and Cindy Anthony made a pact with the devil in order to get their daughter out of jail. By that, I don’t mean literally. It’s a euphimism, unless you think Casey is, in fact, the devil. Just prior to the start of the trial, Cindy and Mark Lippman met privately with Casey’s attorney, Jose Baez. Lippman is George and Cindy’s lawyer. George was not invited to the meeting and this said volumes to me. It meant that Cindy and Lippman were in on the defense strategy to do a character assassination of George — one that began during Baez’s opening statement at trial — or it meant that George was conspicuously absent from the meeting to make it look like he had nothing to do with the made-up story. 

At one of the final hearings before the trial began, I was in the courtroom when Baez asked George on the stand if he would do anything for his daughter. Most of you should remember it, too. George’s reaction? Yes, absolutely, he would do anything, and he was quite vocal about it. When asked if he would lie for Casey, his answer was a resounding YES! 

This signalled (to me) that what most of us had sensed all along was true. The Anthonys were, and remain, natural born liars. With the information gathered from the mouth of George Anthony, he spoke the truth, under oath, that he was willing to do anything to rescue his grandchild’s alleged murderer. Did this include his willingness to be the fall guy? All he had to do was take the bashing because, in the end, no one in the public would believe he ever sexually molested anyone in his family, let alone do any harm to Caylee. Simply put, just deny everything on the stand, which he did, but in the end, it confounded the jury and the plan worked. George came across looking like a liar and a loser — and that’s all the jury had to see to create a semblance of doubt. George looked guilty of something.

Want more? Cindy stated under oath that she made chloroform searches at home on two separate dates, while her bosses at Gentiva Health, Deborah Polisano and John Camperlengo, testified that she couldn’t have because she was at work and logged into her work computer. They also had time cards to prove she was there. Despite their testimony, the defense still managed to muddle the evidence and Casey is free because of it. Job well done, George! Take a bow, Cindy!

There have been other rumors swirling about. A recent one was that Cindy was spotted in a community where Casey had been seen, but once again, I have no proof. The problem I have with this sort of rumor is that no one has produced a photograph of the grieving grandmother, especially when smartphones with cameras are everywhere today. To be succinct, George and Cindy have been conspicuously absent lately. There are no Kodak moments. I say, if the present mimics the past, it could mean that George and Cindy are up to no good. Somewhere.

The person who told me about the website also wondered about the house on Hopespring Drive; that it looks vacant, but of all the visits I’ve made in that neck of the woods, it’s looked empty for a long time, even when I’ve known they were home. Just to be sure, I’ll probably take a ride down there to check it out one of these days, but in the meantime, can anyone explain why the charity site has been suspended? What was it, a misappropriation of funds? Caught red-handed?

Disclaimer: Of course, all of this is pure conjecture on my part. }}}wink wink{{{

ADDENDUM 10:00 PM:

Look here and see that this one has disappeared, too:

CAYLEEMARIEANTHONYFOUNDATION

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Zenaida's Trial Against Casey Postponed

ORDER GRANTING RENEWED MOTION TO CONTINUE TRIAL

Patience is a virtue, and we certainly did learn that from all of the postponements in Casey Anthony’s criminal trial. This time, with regard to the Zenaida Gonzalez (Plaintiff) v. Casey Anthony (Defendant) civil trial, Ninth Circuit Court Judge Lisa T. Munyon chose to postpone it until January 2, 2013. This trial had been postponed in the past for several reasons, all stemming from motions filed by the defense, but this time, both sides agreed that one more postponement was necessary. Why?

Let’s start with the basics, beginning with what’s been going on since the start of the new year. On February 29, the defense made a request to continue the trial date by filing a motion to Abate Trial Deadlines. A continuance means to postpone a date set by the court. Last week, on March 6, the judge heard the motion and the plaintiff’s objection to the continuance. Zenaida and her team of lawyers were ready to go to trial. After hearing from both sides, Judge Munyon chose to deny the defense motion that day. Jury selection was scheduled to start on April 10, 2012, with the trial slated to begin the following week in the same courtroom as the criminal trial. That would be Courtroom 23.

All honky dory, right? No, because on March 9, Zenaida’s attorneys filed a Notice of Conflict stating that they were scheduled to be in a Duval County courtroom trying other civil matters beginning on April 9. Their reasoning was solid. The Duval court scheduled that trial date before Munyon set this trial date in September of 2011. Munyon chose to go with what court had precedence. Since Duval set the date first, Orange/Osceola would have to wait. (See: Florida Rules 2.550(a)(6) - The case in which the trial date has been first set generally should take precedence.)

There’s more to it than just that, though. Judge Munyon could have ignored the request had the costs of rescheduling been too much of a burden on Florida taxpayers. After consulting with court representatives and the sheriff’s office, the grand total for a continuance would come to a mere $157.00, and that includes additional summonses to prospective jurors, printing, sorting, and mailing fees. Lest you think that’s all there is, guess again. Judge Munyon wasn’t able to secure Courtroom 23 for the week of April 10, and what that translates into is that the cost to the sheriff’s office for additional security would exceed the costs expended for the summonses. That’s because there are three other courtrooms on that floor, meaning the potential for a lot of people milling around. Okay, fine, but why so long of a postponement? It’s because Courtroom 23, the only courtroom on that floor, is in use. January 2, 2013 is the earliest time it will be available for two consecutive weeks.

So, what we have ahead of us are deadline adjustments originally set on September 1, 2011. We’re talking about 8+ months in the future now. The judge did set a two-week deadline from the date of her order (March 13) to file any notices of conflict for the new trial date. There is a hearing scheduled for March 23. The judge ordered that it remain on the docket and limited the proceeding to motions for summary judgment and all matters related to discovery, such as Gonzalez’s request for Anthony’s residential address. A motion for summary judgment, in this case, means the motion the defense filed to have the case against Anthony thrown out.

As far as I’m concerned, we should be used to it. After three years, plus this mess, we should know by now not to hold our breath. If you think this will ever end, guess again. This time it was the plaintiff’s request that did the trick.

Jose Baez: Free as a Bird

Yesterday, The Florida Bar cleared Jose Baez of the two complaints filed against him after finding no probable cause. He will face no disciplinary action whatsoever. The decisions were sent to Mr. Timothy Patrick Chinaris and Mr. John A. Weiss, both co-counsel for the respondent.

Complaint of The Florida Bar against Jose Angel Baez
The Florida Bar File No.: 2011-30,708 (19A)

NOTICE OF NO PROBABLE CAUSE AND LETTER OF ADVICE

In the matter of last year’s sanction and $583 fine by Chief Judge Belvin Perry, Jr. for his willful violation of an order by the court to share discovery documents with the prosecution, the Florida Bar’s grievance committee “believes the failure to fully comply with the discovery orders was unintentional and realizes that Mr. Baez has expressed remorse for his conduct and also had to pay fines to the court due to previously imposed sanctions. The committee accepts the explanation that the complexity and volume of the case caused unintentional lapses.”

Please note the acknowledgement of the complexity and volume of the Anthony case.

At the same time, the committee did not let Baez get away without any form of reprimand. It added that, “Nevertheless, every attorney has an obligation to ensure that each and every court order receives full compliance. Mr. Baez is strongly advised that he should be cognizant of the need to completely comply with all orders of the court in the future.”

Complaint of The Florida Bar against Jose Angel Baez
The Florida Bar File No.: 2012-30,171 (19A)

In a letter from The Florida Bar addressed to Jose Baez’s legal representatives, “the Nineteenth Judicial Circuit Grievance Committee ‘A’ unanimously found no probable cause for disciplinary proceedings in the above-referenced case. The vote was 7 to 0. The committee is comprised of both lawyers and nonlawyers.”

This complaint was filed over his neglect to correct the mistake over Casey’s probation period being served while incarcerated. Judge Stan Strickland alerted the court after the trial ended that his order was specific about Anthony’s probation being served after her release, if ever. Due to a court mistake, the order was not made clear, but in the end, Strickland and Perry asserted that attorneys are bound by their profession and obligated to clarify and rectify any and all errors. Baez claimed he overlooked it and it was not done intentionally.

In it’s response to this complaint, the grievance committee stated that it had “thoroughly reviewed all the court records and documents and conducted several interviews. The grievance committee is cognizant of the fact that the case involved a complex fact situation and many months had passed since the probation order at issue. Your client indicated to the grievance committee that his representations to the court were not made to mislead the court but were made based upon his understanding of the context of the question. The grievance committee has concluded that there is not clear and convincing evidence that the conduct violated the Rules Regulating the Florida Bar in this matter. Therefore this case is now closed.

“For the reasons set forth herein, our file on this matter has been closed. Pursuant to the Bar’s records retention schedule, the computer record and file will be disposed of one year from the date of closing.”

Well, there you have it. No more Casey, no more complaints. Whatever your opinion in the matter, the case is closed and Jose Baez is free to fly south or anywhere else he chooses. Time to move on.

To view the documents, please click on the images to enlarge. The bottom links are the PDF files.

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Complaint of The Florida Bar against Jose Angel Baez
The Florida Bar File No.: 2011-30,708 (19A)

Complaint of The Florida Bar against Jose Angel Baez
The Florida Bar File No.: 2012-30,171 (19A)

Odds & Ends and Odd Endings

JOSE BAEZ

By now, most of you are already aware that Jose Baez is no longer affiliated with the client who turned his name into household fame. Cheney Mason made that clear a month or so ago when he stated that Baez severed all ties with her right after sentencing. It’s now official:

By clicking on the above image, you can inspect it at a much larger scale. Very revealing are the lines drawn through his name, his affiliation with the client and his work number, that signify his departure. Scan all the way down to the bottom left and you’ll also find that a Notice of Withdrawal [of] Attorney of Record was filed on 2/21/2012. 

There hasn’t been much said about it until now, but it’s most likely what I assumed since it was first reported. First of all, Casey Anthony is an ingrate. She only thinks of herself, which is something most of us will agree on. I can’t say for sure, but my guess is that it was one of those “I quit!” moments, followed by a typical response from an ingrate, “You can’t quit! You’re fired!”

While I am not offering any sympathy or line of defense for Baez, I do look at it from a rational point of view. After the trial, logic dictated that he didn’t need her any longer. He won the case and garnered one heck of a lot of publicity. He’s set because of it, no matter what anyone may think of him. He’s not the first criminal defense attorney to clasp a client from the clutches of the executioner’s claws, nor will he be the last. Think of Johnnie Cochran and OJ, but the world didn’t go wild when he was found not guilty of two counts of first-degree slaughter, and Cochran’s legal practice and notoriety gained significantly in the wake of that trial.

Here’s one little detail I’ll bet you’re not familiar with. Baez was the lead attorney on another murder case while the Anthony story was taking center stage. Contrary to what some may think, attorneys do work on multiple cases at a time. Speaking of time, please take time to watch the video below. It will open a number of eyes because, clearly, this client was not guilty, contrary to what the prosecution thought.

Back to the famous fall out. What Bob Kealing reported on Tuesday, in a nutshell, was that Casey was quite upset that her attorney didn’t land her a big dollar TV interview; something her parents were able to do for their charity, and trust me, I use that term loosely. In any event, so what? The man spent the last three years of his life eating, breathing, and… well, never mind, all things Casey. He was attacked from the left and from the right; from the front and from the back, but lest you think I’m being too kind, I am not. He knew what a strain it would be, but he also knew what the end reward could be and, in the end, he gambled correctly. The best possible thing for him to do was to stop affiliating with her. In a thunderous flash, she became toxic. Now, I’d venture a guess that he’d disagree with me publicly on what I just wrote, but that’s the way I see it. Like it or not, because of the outcome of the Anthony trial, he’ll have speaking gigs and new clients for years to come. That is, as long as he keeps his license to practice law, and I expect him to do just that, whatever the outcome of the Bar complaints filed against him. In other words, I don’t think they are significant enough to disbar him if he loses.

JEFF ASHTON

There’s a little bit of a situation unfurling with former prosecutor, now candidate Jeff Ashton, over his decision to represent his son in a Seminole County DUI trial. Clearly, there are two brains of thought. It’s understandable that any attorney would come to their child’s defense. I’ll give him that and add that no matter what, we can look at his worth as a caring parent and not argue the point. At the same time, he is running for the office of Ninth District (Orange/Osceola) State Attorney. If elected, he would be responsible for prosecuting people in the same boat, so was it a wise thing to do? In a later press conference, he said he had a problem with voters who couldn’t understand what he did as a father. Like I said, he’s loyal, but I read a lot of comments on Hal Boedeker’s Orlando Sentinel television blog and many of them were firmly against his decision. Some of them added that he’s just another typical lawyer and no hero after all. Do I agree with that assessment? No, but I will say that, in my opinion, he could have saved himself a lot of votes had he cashed in some of his courthouse chips and asked another attorney to handle his son’s affairs. Now, word comes that he’s defending his daughter, according to Seminole County court records. She was charged with driving without a license and for failing to show proof of insurance. 

While I refuse to blame Ashton for the Casey Anthony loss, at least not to a large extent because it was a team effort, he failed to win his son’s case. If he loses his daughter’s, too, his odds of winning the Democratic primary for state attorney will begin to deteriorate, but not enough to harm him beyond hope. However, it’s a tough road ahead any way he looks at it. Lawson Lamar has a huge political machine in Tallahassee and throughout the state, and lots of powerful friends, not to mention a much larger campaign chest. There’s also the old idiom, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Obviously, he doesn’t see it that way. 

That leads me to Linda Drane Burdick, but first, a little more information. When asked if she would support Jeff in the election, she said that she couldn’t do that in a Democratic primary because she a registered Republican. However, a month or so later, she donated $100 to Lamar’s reelection campaign. Incidentally, two other candidates are in the race. Ryan Williams, also a Democrat and former assistant state attorney, entered the race in September of 2011. And recently joining the fray is Orlando criminal defense attorney Joerg Jaeger, a Republican hellbent on defeating Ashton. He told Orlando Sentinel Senior Reporter Anthony Colarossi that, “I don’t think Jeff is fit to be state attorney.” And he’s made that point exceedingly clear.

JUDGE LINDA DRANE BURDICK?

Back to Miss Linda. In case you haven’t heard, the lead prosecutor in the Anthony trial threw her hat in the ring, along with 22 other applicants, to fill the bench left void when 9th Circuit Judge James Turner was removed for violating several judicial principles, including hugging and kissing a court clerk. This was also reported by Anthony Colarossi in the Feb. 13 issue of the Orlando Sentinel. If I could vote for her, I would! 

LAST WORDS

There have been many changes since the end of the Anthony fiasco. Judge Strickland retired at in December of last year and I don’t blame him. He had an outstanding career on the bench and it goes without saying that we wish him all the best. He is right where he wants to be at this stage in life and all is well in the world.

I also want to wish Jeff Ashton continued success in his career, including the upcoming election, but like Drane Burdick, I won’t be voting for him, either, but not for the same reason. You see, I live in the 18th District, and that’s Seminole County. If you want to learn more about him or contribute to his campaign, read HERE.

Thank you, and hopefully, I won’t have more to say about ‘you know who’ until the date of her civil trial filed by Zenaida Gonzalez - the real one, with no Fernandez in her name.

Predicting A Coward's Way Out

There seems to be a recurring theme when it comes to murder, especially when children are involved. In cases of filicide, when a parent unceremoniously ends the life of their own child — or children, questions are raised about why no one saw it coming. Certainly, we heard it over and over during the course of three years, from July 15, 2008 through the trial and sentencing of Casey Marie Anthony. Why didn’t George and Cindy see what kind of monster their daughter was? Why didn’t they stop her? Today, many in the public still blame them for Caylee’s death.

Then, there’s Alyssa Bustamante, who was sentenced to life in prison this week for brutally murdering her 9-year-old neighbor, Elizabeth Olten. Bustamante was only 15 at the time and her only motive was the thrill of watching someone die by her own hands; to see for herself the eyes of a young and vibrant life fade into a vacuous void. Bustamante not only saw death, she felt it. Night after night, she will wake up from recurring dreams caused by the hellish storm she created; ones that will drown her soul in flash floods of blood gushing from every corner of her mind. Why didn’t anyone see this coming? Surely, someone else is to blame, too, for being so naive.

It seems to be a daily ritual anymore; a rite of passage or something. Horror stories of missing and murdered children pop up in the news and each time we promise ourselves we’ve had enough, but is that really true? Hardly. We are very sensitive creatures, for sure, but sometimes we thrive on the pains of others. Not in a bad sense, mind you, but think about it. We hate accidents, yet whenever we approach one on the highway, we slow down to gawk. Oh my, we think to ourselves, I hope and pray they’re alright. And then we go home to watch it on the news.

What happened to Susan Powell and her sons was a travesty waiting to happen, but did anyone see it coming? Should it have been predicted years ago?

Michel de Nostredame was born 509 years ago. We know him by his Latin name, Nostradamus. The first edition of his most famous book The Prophecies was published in 1555, eleven years before his death, which he never did predict. Today, he has a strong and loyal following that credits him with predicting many worldwide events. Whether true or not remains a source of great consternation, but one thing is plain and simple. Every one of his quatrains is so tenuous, at best, they are rendered useless. In other words, and to be quite blunt about it, every single one of his “predictions” aren’t interpreted until after the fact. Hitler? Oh yes, ol’ Nostrie predicted him over 400-years-ago, but no one knew it until long after the head Nazi was dead. Osama bin Laden and the World Trade Center? Yup, that too.

So what’s my point? Even Nostradamus didn’t truly consider himself a seer; a prophet, and no one has yet to predict something before it happens. Not Nostradamus, nor anyone else for that matter. No one can predict the future any more than someone could ever predict a murder, not counting serial killers. Sure, there are predictions based on similar instances and scientific fact. Rick Rescorla predicted the attacks on the WTC, but he based it on evidence of past atrocities, such as the 1993 bombing. That it remained an easy target was as plain as the nose on his face.

In the case of Josh Powell, what do we know? So far, a rush of information has been gushing and, once again, we have a major problem discerning truth from fiction. But now, after the fact, I “predict” a heavy dose of psychiatric and psychological discussion and diagnoses, but I base it on prior evidence — cause and effect, or causality, in which an action or event produces a certain response. Because of this, then that, only it’s always based on ’after the fact,’ and sometimes the ‘that’ becomes a blame game. I also “predict” this will go on for years.

Josh Powell most likely murdered his wife in 2009. I say this because of what we already know about the night Susan Cox Powell disappeared. Josh took his young sons camping in the middle of a harsh winter night — unfit for most people, and certainly small children. Who gets up in the middle of the night, yanks his kids out of bed and says, “let’s go camping?” Conveniently, he forgot where he camped, too, but the most important part was that Susan was never seen again. 

Authorities in Utah, where the Powell family lived at the time that Susan went missing, have investigated her disappearance as a murder case for at least the past six months now, but without a body, it’s a tough nut to crack. Publicly, they held out hope that she would be found alive, but did they believe it? Seriously? No. Josh moved his sons less than a month later from West Valley City, Utah, to Puyallup, Washington, south of Seattle. That made the case harder to work on because he wasn’t around to cooperate.

Does any other evidence exist? Aside from the late December night camping trip being so absurd, there was a damp spot found on the floor of their home. What was it? No one is saying.

On Monday, following the explosion that took the young boys’ lives, their grandfather, Charles Cox, spoke to the media. When the boys first arrived, they were emotionally distant, but recently they had opened up. He hoped that one day they would be able to remember what happened the night of the camping trip. The boys never did, but Cox then told the story of what Braden had said almost two years ago. Braden was the younger brother. During the summer after Susan went missing, he drew a picture of a van while at a day care center. Three people were in it. The four women in charge asked him what the drawing was.

“That’s us going camping,” he responded.

Who is in the car, one of them asked.

“That’s Daddy, that’s Charlie, that’s me.” Then, he added, “Well, Mommy’s in the trunk.”

If Mommy was in the trunk, why was she there?

He didn’t know, but then he said, “We stopped somewhere and Mommy and Daddy got out and Mommy didn’t come back.”

While this is certainly important, it means virtually nothing to law enforcement. Is the statement of a 3-year-old something that would hold up in court?

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Josh had a tumultuous relationship with his father, Steven. He moved into his father’s house when he left Utah, and they lived together until September of last year, when Steven was arrested and charged with 14 counts of voyeurism and 1 count of child pornography. Prosecutors said that, for at least ten years, he secretly spied on and shot videos of women, including his daughter-in-law, Susan, and two young neighbors as they bathed and used the toilet. Bail was set at $200,000, something he was not flush with, and he remains in jail, but Josh adamantly denied having any knowledge of the pornography. Unfortunately for him, because it was kept in the home they shared, he lost full custody of his sons that month to Charles and Judy Cox, the boys’ maternal grandparents — but there was more to the story than just Steven the Sicko.

Ironically, Josh moved his family to Utah to escape daddy dearest, yet in a September 2011 interview, Steven Powell claimed that he was in love with Susan, and that his son was fine with it. As a matter of fact, she was in love with him, too.

In truth, Susan couldn’t stand the guy. She despised him, she thought he was a creep and she told her friends he was weird and disgusting. It was her idea to move out of state.

Last Wednesday. February 1, Josh was back in court. He had left his father’s place and moved into a house down the street. Surely, this would mean he’d get his sons back, but remember, there’s more to this story. Before we go into those details, let’s take a quick look at what state law is regarding children and families. States bend over backwards to maintain the family core. According to the Washington state Family Law Handbook:

Generally, the government does not interfere in family matters, but there are laws that allow the government to step in to protect a child from harm within the family. Sometimes this will result in  a legal action called a “dependency.” A dependency proceeding is usually, but not always, started by the state after an investigation by a Child Protective Services social worker. The goals of such legal actions are safety of children and reunification and preservation of families.

States seldom like to get involved, and in the case of Josh Powell, the state never intended to completely sever the relationship he had with his sons. Initially, the questions over Steven’s pornography and the safety of the children were the issues. Should the state case workers have insisted that Josh meet his sons on neutral ground? Yes, and initially they did.

When Josh went back to court Wednesday to argue over custody, the issue his in-laws had so adamantly fought over, he made a declaration that he was the best and safest person to raise his two sons, saying he had proven himself to be “a fit and loving father.” In documents filed with the court, he wrote that it was unfair for his sons to be removed from his care based on what his own father had done. During supervised visits, two times a week for three hours each, he demonstrated his love of the boys and his competence as a caregiver. When Child Protective Services completed their investigation on November 30, 2011, he was cleared of any negligent treatment and he should, therefore, be reunited with the boys. “No child wants to be taken from their parents and it is not reasonable to continue this process.”

The case worker in charge was a woman from a company contracted by the state to supervise visitations. Sherry Hill is a spokeswoman for the Children’s Administration at the Department of Social and Health Services in Washington. She said that state authorities work very closely with the courts to determine whether supervised visits should be allowed and held at either a parent’s home or a neutral site. In Josh’s case, the move away from his father’s house demonstrated that the safety of his children was of utmost importance, and there was no need to keep them from the new home. Everything looked good.

“If there had been any indication of suicidal thoughts, or anything that we would have thought there was an intent to harm the children, we would have taken immediate action,” Hill said. “If we had thought that, we would have done what we could. I don’t think there’s anything else we could have done.”

Remember, generally, the government hates to interfere in family matters, and with his compliance, Josh fully expected to regain custody of his children that Wednesday. He wasn’t. Why?

There was one peculiar issue over his own morality, so the judge ordered him to undergo a psycho-sexual testing and evaluation. What’s that, you may ask? Let’s just say it’s not something I would enjoy, but I will never be in a situation where it could possibly arise. If you are interested, you can read here. Or, from the Rosenberg & Associates website, a more palatable explanation:

A psycho-sexual assessment is an evaluation that focuses on an individuals sexual development, sexual history, paraphilic interests, sexual adjustment, risk level, and victimology. It also includes a full social history, familial history, employment/school history, case formulation, and specific treatment recommendations. The evaluation greatly assists attorneys and courts (prior to sentencing for adults), foster care and social service agencies that work with sexually reactive children or children who have been sexually abused, and others.

Paraphilia is a biomedical term that describes sexual arousal to objects, situations or individuals not generally associated with typical standards of stimulation. Need I say more?

Why the judge ordered this test is quite simple, very important and legally valid. It was based on something brought to the court’s attention: the results of the psychological evaluation Josh had last October. Keep in mind that Charlie and Judy Cox were given custody a month earlier. Upon completion of the evaluation, “the psychologist received information from police in West Valley City, Utah, about undisclosed materials found on his computer during a search in 2009. That material prompted the psychologist to recommend a psycho-sexual evaluation before Powell be given custody or expanded visitation rights.” (See: Could More Have Been Done To Save Charlie And Braden Powell? )

[Since the writing of this post, news surfaced that Josh was also ordered to take a polygraph test, and it meant he would have had to answer questions regarding the disappearance of his wife, including the matter of her death. Did he kill her?]

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Up until the day of the explosive fire, there seemed to be no cause for alarm. Although frustrated and depressed over his latest round in the courtroom, Josh seemed to be of sound mind — sound enough that no one in the courtroom had qualms about Charlie and Braden visiting their father at his home instead of a neutral location. The visits were, after all, supervised. He could not be alone with his sons.

Later, Charles Cox said he didn’t really think there was anything more the court could have done legally to protect the boys, but he wasn’t quite comfortable with only one supervisor. “We suspected that if [Josh] had the boys in his control, with him, and he felt the police were closing in, he was capable [of doing them harm.]” He didn’t think the lone female supervisor could have stopped him, and he was right.

Earlier that day, the boys told their family that they did not want to go to their father’s house because they wanted to stay and play with their cousins instead. They needed to go see their father, they were told. They would have plenty of time to play with them again.

When the boys arrived at the house, they ran up to the front door, ahead of the social worker. By the time she got to the entrance, Powell had let his sons in but pushed her out, locking the door behind him.

“He pushed her out. He blocked her out,” Pierce County sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer stated. “The whole thing was planned.”

Minutes before, Powell sent an e-mail to his attorney, Jeff Bassett. It was three words. “I’m sorry, goodbye.”

The rest we know. Two days after his court hearing, Josh Powell set in motion his final plan. The children’s toys were donated. He took $7,000 out of his bank account to settle his bills. No one saw it coming. No one at the bank, no one at Goodwill, and no one in his own family. Last August, he told ABC news that he would always protect his boys. “The people who know me know that I’m a good dad,” Powell told Good Morning America. “I work hard. I put my sons first. I was a good husband. I took care of my family.”

He took care of his family, alright.

There will be lots of investigations, from the top on down in Washington state. Despite Josh Powell’s death, Utah police will press on until they find the truth about Susan. Justice has come for Josh. He will never be reunited with the boys he so loved and fought for. Hell has no place for children.

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To randomly place blame on this person or that agency is wrong. No one got up that morning and asked themselves if this was the day Charlie and Braden would die at their father’s hands. No one expected it in court last week. Except Josh. When agency after agency, including the court and judge, finish blaming each other, we may find out why things fell so out of place; somehow lost in the system. But remember one thing; while we complain about too much government interference, all it takes is something like this to do a complete about face. Then, there isn’t enough. Why is that?

Nostradamus never predicted this tragedy. He never predicted the end of the world, either. Nor did the Mayans and their calendar. As for murder, predicting it is as, well, predictable as pulling petals from a dandelion. I kill you, I kill you not. You decide what is real and what is an illusion, but in the end, I predict we will all be wrong, and that’s my predilection. You can’t guess a coward’s way out.

Emo Screamo Helter Skelter

“Today is my 18th birthday. I’ve sat in jail for over two years now. On October 21, 2009, I fulfilled my deepest desire to watch someone die by my own hands. I wanted to know what it would feel like to kill. It was fun! First, I slit the 9-year-old’s throat. Then, I strangled and stabbed her in the chest. Yes, yes, I watched her die with utter fascination. There’s nothing in the world like it and I found out there’s no higher rush than watching vibrant eyes slowly dim. The gasping and gurgling sounds in her throat were real turn-ons.

“Some people called me an emo. I don’t care; call me what you want, it doesn’t matter. I am a cold-blooded murderer. I was only 15 when I slaughtered Elizabeth Olten. My name is Alyssa Bustamante.”*

Three weeks ago, on January 10, Bustamante stood before Cole County Circuit Court Judge Patricia Joyce in a Jefferson City, Missouri courtroom and pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and armed criminal action. She was originally charged with first-degree murder. Her trial was set to start on Monday, January 30.

Judge Joyce asked her if she understood she was giving up her right to a trial. She said yes. Staring straight into the judge’s eyes, she admitted everything, “I strangled her and stabbed her in the chest.”

“Did you cut her throat, too?” the judge inquired.

“Yes,” Bustamante responded.

The reduced murder charge is due to her plea in lieu of a trial, which will save taxpayers a small fortune. On the plus side, the plea does not include any agreement on a reduced sentence. In other words, no deal was made, so she faces 10 years to life in prison for the murder charge, and no less than 3 years for the armed criminal action charge, defined by Missouri law as:

571.015. 1. Except as provided in subsection 4 of this section, any person who commits any felony under the laws of this state by, with, or through the use, assistance, or aid of a dangerous instrument or deadly weapon is also guilty of the crime of armed criminal action and, upon conviction, shall be punished by imprisonment by the department of corrections and human resources for a term of not less than three years. The punishment imposed pursuant to this subsection shall be in addition to any punishment provided by law for the crime committed by, with, or through the use, assistance, or aid of a dangerous instrument or deadly weapon. No person convicted under this subsection shall be eligible for parole, probation, conditional release or suspended imposition or execution of sentence for a period of three calendar years.

What prompted a young girl to commit such a crime? Was it something inherent in her DNA? Was she destined to be a murderer or was she merely conditioned by outside influences; a product of her own culture and upbringing?

No doubt, Alyssa Bustamante could readily be classified as an emo, but what are emos, and where did the term come from? Clearly, I am not a stereotypical stereotyper. I believe that we are mostly responsible for our own actions, with few exceptions. Certainly, if provoked by a serious threat to our well-being, a defensive reaction would be necessary, and that could include killing a perpetrator. In the case of Elizabeth Olten, Bustamante schemed to kill this child. Whether Olten was the intended victim all along, I don’t know, but they lived very close to each other in St. Martins, a small town just west of Jefferson City.

What, exactly, is an emo?

I guess it’s rather difficult to describe exactly what an emo is because no two people are alike. I am a product of the 60s, and there’s no single definition for a hippie. Some were peace-loving draft dodgers. Others were pot smokers. Some dropped acid and some just dropped out of the mainstream thinking of the masses at the time. You know, a counter-culture philosophy of eschewing the establishment. Peace. Right on. Out of sight, man.

I imagine we could look at Charles Manson as a prime example of a message gone awry. The Beatles song “Helter Skelter” had nothing to do with racism in America, serial killings or hatred of all things pig; as in da fuzz. Cops. Dirty coppers. Paul McCartney wrote the tune as a response to The Who’s Pete Townsend, who wrote the single, “I Can See For Miles.” “Helter Skelter” was inspired by a spiralling amusement park ride and it was intended to prove McCartney’s critics wrong for accusing him of only writing ballads.

Unfortunately, Charles Manson interpreted it as a perfect opportunity to wage a war between blacks and whites, in which racism was  more pronounced then. Power to the People and all. By killing wealthy whites, society would blame blacks, as they were called back then, and retaliate. Racist upheaval! What a concept.

What’s strange was that Manson literally had power over his people, called his “Family” members. Sex was rampant. Through drug-induced orgies, he brainwashed his Family into committing horrible crimes; murdering and slashing a quite pregnant actress, Sharon Tate. That’s just for starters, of course, because more people were slaughtered, but my point is merely that some people are more influenced than others. Despite my involvement in the culture at the time, I was more of a follower of John Lennon, who sang about giving peace a chance. That and my religious upbringing.

Emos are in another world, cleaved from the counter-culture of Punk and Indie rock music.  While the term emo can be traced to the mid-80s through music, it didn’t come into its own until after 9/11. According to Andy Greenwald, author of Nothing Feels Good: Punk Rock, Teenagers, and Emo:

“The media business, so desperate for its self-obsessed, post-9/11 predictions of a return to austerity and the death of irony to come true, had found its next big thing. But it was barely a ‘thing,’ because no one had heard of it, and those who had couldn’t define it. Despite the fact that the hedonistic, materialistic hip-hop of Nelly was still dominating the charts, magazine readers in the summer of ‘02 were informed that the nation was deep in an introverted healing process, and the way it was healing was by wearing thick black glasses and vintage striped shirts. Emo, we were told, would heal us all through fashion.”

Today, emos are generally considered to be emotional, sensitive, shy, introverted and/or angst-ridden; angst meaning a feeling of insecurity, anxiety and apprehension. They can be nervous wrecks on the inside. Sometimes, they harm themselves by cutting their arms and wrists, and occasionally, they take it beyond that by deciding suicide is the way out. Bustamante cut herself, but she took a different path by killing someone else.

Hannah Bond was a wrist-cutting emo living in Kent, UK. In September of 2007, she hanged herself in her family home. On the evening she died, she had argued with her mother over spending the night at a friend’s house. Losing the argument, she said, “I feel like killing myself.” An hour later, she did just that.

Both her mother, Heather Bond, and the coroner blamed emo music for her death at the official inquest. It seems that some emo music glamorizes suicide. Apparently, she had been part of an Internet “emo” cult and her Bebo page contained an image of an emo girl with bloody wrists. At the inquest, it was also learned that Hannah discussed, online, the glamorous part of hanging herself after showing her father her cut wrists, a ritual, which was part of her emo initiation. (See: Emo Girl — Hannah Bond)

Heather told the inquest that she had studied the emo phenomenon since Hannah’s untimely death. “There are websites that show pink teddies hanging themselves,” she stated. “She [Hannah] called emo a fashion and I thought it was normal.”

Little did she know.

We may never know why Alyssa Bustamante chose to murder Elizabeth Olten instead of taking her own life, which she attempted to do in 2007. During the sentencing hearing, set for February 6-7, Cole County prosecutor Mark Richardson and public defenders Donald Catlett and Charles Moreland will present evidence for Judge Joyce to consider before rendering a final decision. Will Bustamante speak on her own behalf? Will she blame herself or something else? I don’t know, but until then, here’s something for you to ponder… What does this picture remind you of? Whose name do you associate it with?

Murder is a strange thing. Sometimes, you get away with it. Sometimes, you don’t.

*Not a direct quote

This Psycho-Babble Takes the Case

‘ABLOWING’ HIS OWN HORN

There are good shrinks and there are bad shrinks. We look at Drs. Danziger and Weitz as being good ones, right? Dr. Keith Ablow, however… well, let’s just say I have a problem with his analysis of Ms. Anthony; certainly no mother-of-the-year back in 2008. Read the entire article Ablow wrote for FOX NEWS. Then, if it suits your fancy, come back (here) and offer up your own opinion. Say whatever you want because I really need to know if I lost my senses…

What Casey Anthony’s psychiatry records tell us — Did Casey really kill Casey?

Personally, I think the world is full of psychotic nuts… er… or maybe I should say nutty psychiatrists. I don’t know, I’m still stunned right now. I think I am, therefore, I am, I think. Or am I?

Leafy Things... with a Dash of Dirt

I’m sure you know there’s more than one explanation for the word leaf.  The Dictionary.com website describes it as “one of the expanded, usually green organs borne by the stem of a plant” and “any similar or corresponding lateral outgrowth of a stem.” It’s safe to say that leaves grow on trees. It’s also true that a leaf could be a two-sided page in a book.

Speaking of trees, I really wanted to write about a tree today, but the book on that is closed at the moment. This was no ordinary tree, mind you, because it was older than Moses and quite majestic. Until several issues are resolved, the tree story will have to wait. In the meantime, I will tell you about a leaf or two in a couple of books.

The winner of the autographed copy of Jeff Ashton’s book, Imperfect Justice, has been notified. While keeping this person’s identity as close to the vest as possible, I will tell you it was Charlee, who lives in Texas. Like I promised, I put all entries in a hat, although I really used a big kitchen bowl instead, and my mother picked the e-mail address while it dangled above her head, sight unseen. Interestingly, today is Charlee’s birthday, so it couldn’t have happened on a better day. Congratulations Charlee, and Happy Birthday!

I think most of you are aware by now that I was mentioned in Ashton’s book. Not only did he reference me as Dave Knechel and Marinade Dave, he even managed to spell my last name correctly. Trust me, Knechel is not an easy one. Of course, I personally thanked him for the acknowledgement and for getting it right.

The second one was brought to my attention by someone you know from my blog and elsewhere around the Internet, Karen C. She told me about a book, From Crime Scene to Courtroom, written by famed forensic pathologist/lawyer Cyril H. Wecht, MD, JD, and noted true-crime journalist Dawna Kauffmann. Subtitled Examining The Mysteries Behind Famous Cases, this book examines the mysteries behind Michael Jackson, Casey Anthony, Drew Peterson, Brian Jones, and more, as the cover asserts.

When Karen told me about this book, of course, I had to order one. While it showed me in a positive light, it managed to get my name wrong. Oh, Knechel was right, but I’m not David L. Knechel, as the book states on page 68 and in the index. I’m David B. Knechel and I have no idea where the “L” came from. Okay, it’s a small mistake, but I did call the publisher this morning to request a correction in subsequent printings. I made it a point to say I was not complaining. As I am well aware, all editors hate mistakes.

In the book, I am described as “an Orlando-based writer, graphic artist, and barbecue aficionado, whose website is called MarinadeDave.com.” Granted, a marinade does not a barbecue sauce make, but back when I was manufacturing and selling it, several of my friends purposely asked me, “Hey Dave, how’s your barbecue sauce doing?” knowing full-well it was not a barbecue sauce.

It only took me a few times of quickly correcting them: “It’s a marinade, not a barbecue sauce!!!” that I finally grasped their only intent — to upset me.

I remembered from years ago how one of my closest friends got exceptionally angry when we asked him how his condo was doing.

“It’s not a condo, *&^*#%^&*()*!! It’s a townhouse!!!” Trust me, I got over the barbecue/marinade joke very early on, and when they still tried, I answered them calmly and ignored what they called it.

On page 75 of the book, I am mentioned again. “The press corps was out in full force for the Anthony trial. Attending some, if not all, of the proceedings were national figures like Nancy Grace, Jane Velez-Mitchell, Jean Casarez, Beth Karas, Geraldo Rivera, Greta Van Susteren, Ashleigh Banfield, and Diane Dimond of thedailybeast.com, as well as local print, television, and radio journalists — among them blogger ‘Marinade Dave’ Knechel, who covered the case for Orlando magazine.”

Trust me, I am highly flattered. Yes, of course, I became part of this case, and there’s no denying it. Fortunately, none of the real and true investigators and authors have implicated me in any way, shape or form of scheming to take down Judge Strickland. That was only the fodder of simple-minded people, including a blogger who shall remain nameless for now.

In any event, I did lay out my plans with a book editor today. I was told it was a good concept as long as it also contains facts about the actual case, along with the sordid details. I know if I do, names will be exposed, including two people who claimed to be in the courtroom daily during the trial when they were not there. One “reported” on a blog and the other is mentioned in the above list. Sorry, I guess you’ll just have to wait.