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)

My Trip to Gainesville, Part 1

This is a story about my trip to Gainesville on February 4. It’s going to have to be split into 2-parts because it is not just about the Gator basketball game I attended, it also encompasses the tragic crash 0n I-75 at the end of January. That’s in this part. The next one will be about Old Florida - Cross Creek and Micanopy. While this will touch briefly on Cross Creek, it won’t say anything about Micanopy, which is the oldest inland settlement in the state. This post will be heavy with photos. Most can be enlarged.

HISTORY AND THE OLD SOUTH

Ever since I was a young boy, I’ve had a keen interest in history. Growing up in New Jersey, it was impossible to miss because the area is rich with stories of days gone by. Much of the Revolutionary War was fought in my own back yard, for instance, and before that was the French & Indian War of the 1750s.

While libraries are teeming with books on history, my affection for it lays somewhere else, deep within my mind. I seek the presence of history. I like to sense it all around me. Although not an obsession, I often wonder, as I walk about, who took the same steps one hundred years before me; a thousand and more years earlier, and I yearn to learn, because I can only guess as far back as our history books tell us. I know there’s more than that.

Growing up, it was easy to explore our heritage. Where I lived was just northwest of Princeton, and that made it somewhat simple to visit historical sites and museums from Philadelphia to New York City and everywhere in between. Every so often, I’d hear news about the skeletal remains of a Redcoat and his musket being discovered in the rafters of an old house while it was being renovated. I lived in several homes that dated back to a generation or two before the Revolutionary War. The church where my late grandfather preached was established in 1733.

Some of you may find me morbid for this, but I’ve always liked to walk through old cemeteries. I’d look at the names and dates on the tombstones and wonder who they were in life. What did they do? Were they friendly? Who did they leave behind? In my own hometown of Flemington, there is a small tract of land up the street from where I lived known as the Case Family Burial Ground. Several members of the Case family are resting there, along with a Delaware Indian chief named Tuccamirgan, who died in 1750. The grave was dug deep enough for him to be placed in a sitting position, facing east.

While I am quite intrigued by my humble beginnings, I am just as fascinated with the American Civil War. Of course, being a Yankee and all, I never could get a firm grasp on the Confederacy until I moved to Florida. We were never taught to hate southerners, but we were aware that many southerners were raised to hate northerners — so we thought. It wasn’t all that many years ago when the ‘colored folk’ used separate water fountains and bathrooms in the south. When I moved to the Orlando area in ‘81, I didn’t know what to expect. To me, the Civil War ended over a century ago, so there was nothing more to it than history. Every so often, I’ll hear about how the war has never ended and that the south will one day rise again, but for what reason? To what end? Instead, I like to focus on the rich culture of the south, and that’s something I was never taught in school. It’s not anything that could be taught in school. You must live it in order to feel it.

I’ve been in central Florida for 31 years now, longer than I lived up north and I’ve got to say, I like it here. No, that doesn’t mean I’d ever give up on my home town or state, and Orlando’s not known as a bastion of Old Florida, but there’s definitely something romantic about pockets of the south. I guess you could say the bug caught me during a screening of Gone With The Wind during my freshman year of high school in, of all places, New Jersey.

There was a land of Cavaliers and Cotton Fields called the “Old South.” Here in this pretty world, Gallantry took its last bow. Here was the last ever to be seen of Knights and their Ladies Fair, of Master and of Slave. Look for it only in books, for it is no more than a dream remembered, a Civilization gone with the wind…

- From the opening of the film Gone with the Wind (1939)

While I don’t sense anything genuinely historical about Orlando, I have found the ‘Deep South’ — through north Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi — to be both mythical and mystical. There’s no way to explain it in a sentence or two. It’s something that has to grow on you. The bug next caught me when I flew to New Orleans on a private jet back in the early 90s. I felt something tragic about the city but I could never pin it on anything. As festive as the place was, an innate sense of sadness always seemed to be right around the corner, on the other side of the wrought iron gate.

I’ve since been back to New Orleans, but I’ve also traveled to and visited other towns from here to Houston. One of my favorite stops was Natchez, Mississippi, rife with tales of the Civil War. This story, however, is not about the war between the states, this is about one state, and it’s called Old Florida, home of majestic magnolias, stately live oaks and cypress trees jutting up from the water. However, there are two issues to cover first. 

Many of you are familiar with Nika1. She is a frequent contributor on my blog and a good friend. About a month ago, she asked me if I’d be interested in going to a live Gator (University of Florida) basketball game with her. Yes! Of course I would! I’ve been to several football games, but never basketball, something I’ve always wanted to do. I first went to see Nika1 in late September of 2010, when she invited me up for a football game. While there, she took me around the neighborhood. That included the rural area where she lives, and where her family has lived for many generations. Once again, I sensed the old south, but in this case, it was Old Florida, and its roots were deep in history.

Three weeks ago, on February 4, I drove up to the house she shares with Ali Rose, her beautiful Australian Shepherd. She had plans for me, too. After the basketball game, we were going to go to Cross Creek, made famous by The Yearling, the 1938 novel written by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. She won the Pulitzer Prize for it in 1939. Fascinating, I thought. Very much so.

ANATOMY OF A TRAGEDY

Almost a week before my drive, a terrible accident happened on I-75, in the middle of Paynes Prairie. 11 people died. To help you understand Paynes Prairie, it is generally a swampy area, but the weather has been exceedingly dry in Florida, and in this state, droughts breed brush fires, and lots of them. Many burn out of control.

Burned Brush in Background

On the way up to the game on US-441, Nika1 told me what happened. 441 is east of 75 and they run parallel to each other. The fire started east of 441. The first series of accidents began just before midnight, on January 28. Smoke and fog wafted west across the highways and the first 911 call came in at 11:53:14 from I-75 to report the heavy smoke and fog. Moments later, another 911 caller reported hearing accidents. Then, another one came in saying they saw the accidents. Moments later, all traffic was stopped.

Those accidents were not fatal, but it prompted the Florida Highway Patrol to shut down the interstate by 12:45 am. At 3:21 am, the decision was made to reopen it, and the rest is history. By 4:00 am, you couldn’t see past your nose. Heading southbound, a semi had stopped in the right lane and a Dodge pickup truck plowed into it, followed by a Ford Expedition. The two Ford occupants were able to escape through the back just before it burst into flames.  The occupants in the pickup truck were on their way to a funeral, but sadly, all three family members perished.

By now, frantic calls were coming into the Alachua County Communications Center. Of course, when troopers, sheriff’s deputies and emergency vehicles arrived, they couldn’t see, either.

In the northbound lanes, two church vans were heading to Georgia. One van crashed into the rear corner of a semi stopped in the middle lane and it sliced through the van, killing five family members. One 15-year-old girl survived. The occupants of the other van survived. In front of the semi was a Toyota Matrix sandwiched between that one and one in front of it. The young couple in the Matrix died.

Meanwhile, another semi had stopped in the middle southbound lane. It was hit by a Dodge pickup and the driver was able to escape with minor injuries. Then, a Pontiac Grand Prix smashed into the back of that pickup and the driver died.

Had the drivers of those semis pulled off of the road instead of stopping in the lanes, would lives have been saved? You bet, but it will be a long time before the investigation into this tragedy is sorted out. That includes why FHP decided to reopen the interstate after it was closed.

What surprised me was that the fire burned east of 441. Nika1 told me another person died on that highway, but it didn’t make headlines like the big one.

The above photo represents what Paynes Prairie would look like during normal weather conditions.

GO GATORS!

As much of a horror as the accident was, there was a basketball game to attend, and the Gators intended to win it. This was, after all, why I took the trip to begin with, not including my visit with Nika1. The team was playing Vanderbilt. We had gotten there in plenty of time to nestle into our seats, where brand new t-shirts were nicely folded for spectators. Yes, FREE! Blue in color, the back had the Texaco logo and some type, and the front said “ROWDY yet refined REPTILE” with the Gator green and orange logo. It was a great game to watch and it was made better by the Gator’s victory. The final score was 73-65. The pictures can do the talking…

The first photo is the University of Florida Century Tower in Gainesville. Begun in 1953, it is 157 feet (48 m) tall.

Part 2 will come next week and it will take you through Old Florida and a Michael J. Fox movie. Mostly, it will be a selection of photographs I took.

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.

Just As Important As President's Day

More on the Josh Powell Fiasco

This is really a response to BMan’s comment on my last post, and I felt it was worthy of a new post. He put a lot of thought into it and I put a lot of thought into my response.

When we go to Nostradamus’s quatrains, they can be interpreted in any number of ways to suit the person or group that’s trying to prove a link between him and the event. For instance, Hister became Hitler, but in actuality, Hister is the Latin word for Danube. Sure, that’s in Germany, but no reputable source lists any support for the claim that it was a prediction of war brought on by Hitler’s Nazis, nor was it a war forged against him by the Allies. That’s but one example and we all know they are legion, meaning lots and lots of interpretations to fit the mood du jour.

In “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance”, the dialogue between the newspaper editor and the hero, Senator Rance Stoddard, played by Jimmy Stewart, was pretty much the way it was when bad guys roamed the west. By that, I mean John Ford, who directed many westerns from 1939-1965, pretty much wrote the script for what we now perceive was the true old west. In real life, it wasn’t. To be blunt, almost every town had prostitutes, but not Shinbone, for example. Anyway, what the editor said as his interview with Stoddard ended was, “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”

It came near the end of the movie after Stoddard explained what really happened to villain Liberty Valance, played by Lee Marvin. Stoddard said that he wasn’t the town’s hero, it was Tom Doniphon, played by the iconic John Wayne. Doniphon shot the bad guy.

That’s how legends are borne, and the name Nostradamus is legendary.

If we pay heed to the Mayan calendar the way some read Nostradamus, then yes, the world will end this year, but that’s not at all what the calendar infers. The Mayans created a long count calendar to document past and future events. They also had a 52 year calendar, but the long count calendar spans 5,126 years, beginning in the year 3114 B.C and ending on Dec.21, 2012 if, and only if, it’s based on our Gregorian calendar. Dec. 21 is also the beginning of the winter solstice for the Northern Hemisphere, so if you live in Australia, you won’t die that day.

Here’s where the interpreters got it all wrong, and that’s why the ‘end of days’ predictions are way off kilter. As I said in the prevoius post, there are no such things as predictions, although educated guesses may work based on factual information that supports the propositions. In other words, A conditions B; if this, then that could happen – only there’s nothing to base the prediction on because it would mean the earth was formed in 3114 B.C. And it will end 5,126 years later, in 2012. But guess what? The earth is a lot older than 5,126 years and, therefore, the 2012 date is rendered meaningless. There’s nothing to base the hypothesis on. It does not compute.

As for Josh, yes, it could have been established that he was a risk, but first we have to address the issue of what separates a “person of interest” and a “suspect.” During the Bush administration, it came about, in a round-about, straightforward sort of way, if that makes sense, as a means to classify terrorists. It soon trickled down to law enforcement. The main difference between POI and suspect comes in the form of constitutional protection. If someone’s name is plastered all over the news as the suspect and it turns out law enforcement goofed, all sorts of lawsuits can be filed. Look at the case of Richard Jewell, the first named (and only) suspect in the Centennial Olympic Park bombing during the summer of 1996. He was completely exonerated, but by then, the mess had turned into a huge fiasco. He filed a series of suits against media outlets that libeled him, including NBC, Tom Brokaw in particular. He settled that suit for $500,000, but bear in mind, Jewell was sued by some of the injured while a suspect and it complicated things further. His exoneration came later that same year by a US Attorney; unprecedented at the time.

What we’ve learned is that you’d better be sure before you name someone a suspect because it could open the floodgates to potential legal problems.

Okay, fine, but what about Josh Powell? Certainly he was a suspect from Day 1, right? Yes and no. No, meaning there wasn’t any evidence. Nothing. Nil. Nada. Just that his wife didn’t come home and he took his very young sons out camping in sub-freezing weather. Very suspicious. Utilizing the “person of interest” euphemism instead of the direct finger pointing nomenclature of “suspect” for Josh meant there hadn’t been enough evidence to do much of anything, and it most likely meant that the Utah police department investigating the case had little to share with their Washington counterparts. It also meant they had nothing to keep him from leaving the state with his sons.

Unfortunately, if someone is named a POI, their life will change, but at the same time, if someone is named a suspect, it could ruin an innocent person’s life for years to come. There’s always that stigma. If you look at Dale Smith II, in the missing Michelle Parker case, if it turns out he is not responsible for Michelle’s disappearance, he could possibly file lawsuits. However, that does not mean he’ll win, but the odds are much better than if he were just named a person of interest.

Do I think the Washington police were keeping their eyes focused on Powell? Of course they were, but their hands were tied by law. It was the court’s responsibility, but it could only be based on what was presented to the judge in the first place.

I can tell you some interesting stories about legal custody cases and how the state is extremely particular about how they handle each one. Surely, the case worker knew about Josh’s problem in Utah, but she couldn’t really base any court testimony on what he did –- or may have done –- out-of-state. The court would have called her on the carpet for it. It was second-hand information garnered from newspaper clippings, radio, and watching the news. Oh yes, and the Internet. If she contacted Utah authorities, what could they have told her other than he was a person of interest?

So, in the interest of keeping lawsuits in check, her hands were tied. Many police departments will call an almost suspect “a person of interest” for a very good reason, but the results of the psychological evaluation Josh had last October should have sent sirens blaring. If the court felt it was necessary to examine him further by administering a psycho-sexual test, why allow him to see his children at all, especially now that they were aware that anime child porn was found on his computer? In my opinion, he shouldn’t have been allowed to see his sons until he passed that one. Surely, there should have been concern over the polygraph test, too, because he would have been probed about the disappearance of his wife.

Despite the fact that all of the visitations between Josh and his sons were supervised, it wasn’t enough, obviously. The thing the judge could have done would have been to be much more prudent. Yes, it’s nice you moved away from your perverted father, but we found some pretty sick stuff on your computer, so until the results of your psycho-sexual test are in my hands, you will meet your children on neutral ground or not at all.

Ultimately, no one else but Josh Powell was to blame. He plotted this course and if it meant blowing up a McDonald’s PlayPlace, he would have done that, too. Judges sometimes base their decisions on how the person handles themselves in the courtroom, or they take it into consideration. Powell was really good at lying and crying. He was a real wolf in sheep’s clothing, alright, but wolves don’t usually eat their young. Who knew he would be capable of doing such a horrible thing?

I’m sure his psyche will be studied for a long time by many professionals, but will it stop other people like Josh from doing the same thing if there’s nothing to “suspect” because they are merely “a person of interest” in another state? I just don’t know.

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.

Bustamante Gets Life

Photo courtesy of Columbia Missourian

Elizabeth Bustamante danced around a trial by pleading guilty to second-degree murder in the death of 9-year-old Elizabeth Olten in October 2009. For sure, no trial saved the state of Missouri a lot of money. She had been charged with first-degree murder but the January plea deal did more than just that. It avoided the possibility of life in prison with no chance of parole.

On Monday and Tuesday of this week, the prosecution and defense argued over her sentence. Tonight, Cole County Circuit Judge Pat Joyce rendered her decision. Just prior to sentencing, Bustamante stood, faced the victim’s family and said, “I really am extremely, very sorry for everything. I know words… [long pause]… can never be enough, and they can never adequately describe how horribly I feel for all of this.”

Later, she said, “If I could give my life to get her back I would. I’m sorry.”

How many times have we heard that?

During the sentencing hearing, prosecutors repeated, over and over again, what the disturbed teenager wrote in her journal on October 21, the night of the murder:

I strangled them and slit their throat and stabbed them now they’re dead. I don’t know how to feel atm [at the moment]. It was ahmazing. As soon as you get over the “ohmygawd I can’t do this” feeling, it’s pretty enjoyable. I’m kinda nervous and shaky though right now. Kay, I gotta go to church now … lol.

A short time later, she went to a youth dance at the Mormon church her family belongs to. 

Tonight was no dance. The judge gave her the maximum sentence allowed for a second-degree murder conviction. — life with the possibility of parole and a consecutive 30-year term for armed criminal action, stemming from the knife she used to slit Olten’s throat and stab her body. To make sure she was dead, she strangled her. 

According to the ColumbianMissourian website, under state guidelines, “Bustamante would have to serve 35 years and 5 months in prison before she is eligible for parole,” according to Missouri Department of Corrections spokesman Chris Cline. “It’s possible that the more than two years Bustamante spent in jail while awaiting her sentencing could be counted toward that time.

“After spending several weeks at a diagnostic prison, Bustamante could be placed in either one of Missouri’s two female prisons or sent out of state. Cline said department officials also would evaluate whether Bustamante should be kept separate from other adult female inmates.”

The now 18-year old was 15 when she committed the murder.

See: Emo Screamo Helter Skelter

And then there were none