Phil Ammann
A round-up of Sunday editorials from Florida’s leading newspapers:
Tampa Bay Times — Florida prison rife with abuses
Inmates in Florida state prisons should be able to serve their sentences without the fear of being raped or abused. But too often that is the reality for inmates at Lowell Correctional Institution, a women’s prison in Ocala. Current and former inmates describe a prison rife with sexual assault, prostitution, physical abuse and neglect at the hands of guards and other staff members. This systemic dysfunction cannot be tolerated, and it underscores the well-documented need for sweeping reform in the Department of Corrections.
With nearly 2,700 inmates, Lowell is the largest women’s prison in the United States. According to an investigative series published last week by the Miami Herald, the institution also is home to a culture that is notoriously corrupt, where guards favor inmates who have sexual relationships with them and harass and seek to harm others who don’t cooperate. The Herald uncovered a litany of abuses ranging from male prison staffers who routinely walk through women’s showers to sexual abuse by both male and female staffers. Inmates who comply with demands for sex are rewarded with drugs and other contraband. Those who don’t submit risk officers’ wrath. Inmates’ punishments have ranged from guards withholding basic needs such as soap and sanitary pads to losing their belongings or visitation rights. Inmates who filed complaints about guards who coerced them to have sex or who committed other offenses were often sent to confinement in a 10- by 12-foot cell until they recanted.
Despite the threat of punishment for speaking out, 137 Lowell inmates logged allegations of staff sexual misconduct and 14 cases of sexual harassment from 2013 through most of 2015. The department settled just one case and says others are under investigation. Most officers at the center of complaints went unpunished. Some were later transferred to other prisons, a red flag that signals the Corrections Department knew something was amiss. With a department that rarely punishes bad guards and moves the worst around like chess pieces, no wonder so few inmates speak out about potential abuse.
Bradenton Herald — Padi the dog finally free to relief of owners, community; euthanasia law ruled unconstitutional
Padi is finally free. With the fate of the 4-year-old male Labrador mix secure, thanks to an expected favorable judicial ruling, Paul Gartenberg can also breathe freely. His precious pet no longer faces euthanasia under Florida’s flawed dangerous dog statute and can now return to his Pet Clinic, should Gartenberg take Padi back to the scene where this saga began.
Judge Andrew Owens struck down Florida’s patently unfair law that required canines responsible for severe injuries to be put down without question. Other courts around the state have also ruled the statute unconstitutional for denying due process by not allowing a defense, but the law remained on the books.
The circumstances surrounding Padi’s bite of a 4-year-old child at Gartenberg’s clinic in June lacked clarity from Day One. While witnesses largely agreed that Padi retreated into a corner of the office to elude the child, the youngster followed. Then the accounts clash over whether the child or Padi lunged at the other first.
The child required stitches and reconstructive surgery, thus triggering a portion of the dangerous dog law that mandates canines that cause severe injury to people be euthanized.
Manatee County Animal Services followed the law to the letter, to the consternation of pet rescue organizations and animal rights advocates here and around the country, many citing legal rulings that did not apply to this jurisdiction. County commissioners were wrongly blamed, too, even pummeled with messages containing horrible comments and accusations.
To the great relief of Padi’s defenders and pet lovers, Judge Andrew Owens ruled this week that the provision of the statute being applied to Padi failed to follow the law’s intent — declaring it “arbitrary and unduly oppressive.”
The Daytona Beach News-Journal — Judge tramples First Amendment rights
A South Florida judge not only has a troubling disinclination to respect the First Amendment right to a free press. He also has a strange faith in the utility of closing barn doors behind fleeing horses.
Palm Beach County Judge Circuit Judge Jack Schramm Cox recently ordered the Palm Beach Post to remove transcripts of a convicted murderer’s jailhouse phone calls from the newspaper’s website and to delete any excerpts of previously posted stories from story files. The Post in October had published a story of about convicted killer Frederick “Rock” Cobia, a notorious jailhouse informant who in phone calls bragged about his ability to elicit confessions from fellow inmates and how he had arranged a deal with prosecutors for a lighter sentence. The judge accepted Cobia’s lawyer’s argument that publishing her clients’ comments violated his privacy.
The Post complied with the order, but is appealing it. It should be a slam-dunk victory for the newspaper — and for media freedom in general.
Leave aside the fact that inmates when making phone calls from jail are clearly notified their conversations may be monitored and recorded. There’s no expectation of privacy. Indeed, the Florida Supreme Court has ruled that inmates have no right to privacy when talking on jailhouse phones.
Furthermore, the transcript at the time was a public record legally obtained by the Post — and is still available elsewhere on the Internet.
The Florida Times-Union —The JSO’s public records policies must be examined
It’s a scandal that the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office has been breaking state record laws by failing to properly save email communications.
It’s a travesty that it was only recently admitted by JSO.
And it’s a disgrace that the JSO’s lapse could conceivably put the prosecution of current cases at risk — as well as imperil the legal validity of past convictions.
Just how long has JSO been violating the law by keeping email communications just 90 days before destroying them?
That question and many others can only be resolved by having a formal, wide-ranging investigation conducted into this scandal.
The JSO didn’t follow the law. It’s that simple. And that can’t be allowed to stand. There must be a probe that demands accountability from the Sheriff’s Office.
But any investigation should also spark a closer look at the troubling culture of obstruction within the JSO.
Florida Today – Brevard goes 2-1 in public trust
What do a school superintendent’s speech, the removal of a Brevard County judge and a juicy raise for county commissioner and/or Palm Bay city official have in common?
All are tests of the public’s trust in their institutions – and leadership’s attitudes about protecting it
But as they sang on “Sesame Street,” one of these things is not like the others. Can you tell which one just doesn’t belong?
In Viera Tuesday, Superintendent Desmond Blackburn revealed his findings from a months-long listening tour of Brevard, including visits to schools, parent groups, churches and service clubs.
His process may sound squishy and slow. But it was necessary in a district said to be suffering poor teacher morale and lack of public trust since the closure of three schools and a controversy over $4.3 million in “improper” payments for software.
Someone, please listen to us, faculty and families seemed to be saying.
So Blackburn did, so far earning respect from every quarter.
The Gainesville Sun – Cheers (not jeers)
We’ve jeered plenty of politicians over the past year, along with other folks needing to be needled.
Maybe the holidays are making us soft, but we’ve decided to stick with only cheers today as Christmas fast approaches. With the state legislative session looming and local elections also right around the corner, we’ll be overloaded with jeers again soon enough.
Cheer: All of the Gainesville and Alachua County groups collecting gifts and food this holiday season, for making Christmas brighter for children and others in need.
A steady stream of these groups has graced the pages of The Sun over the past few weeks, showing the care and generosity throughout our community. They include the Education Foundation of Alachua County, the Eighth Judicial Circuit Bar Association, the Gainesville Junior League, the Gainesville Police Department, Haven Hospice, Lanard Perry and the Partnership for Strong Families.
We’re surely leaving a number of organizations and individuals unmentioned, so give your own cheer to all the others engaged in these efforts.
Cheer: USR Systems and those who attracted the company here, for bringing quality jobs to our community.
The New Jersey-based software firm announced Wednesday it has decided to open a development center in Gainesville. The company expects to make 140 hires over the next three years for jobs paying an average annual wage of $55,000.
The Lakeland Ledger — Medical-pot appeal highlights unappealing process
Florida’s nascent medical marijuana industry has yet to even make its first sale, but it’s already run into problems. Launching the industry — a total of five vendors spread across the state — is already a year behind schedule because of legal challenges. Then, earlier this week a baker’s dozen of companies whose license applications were denied by the Florida Department of Health have challenged their respective rulings, a volume that caught state health officials off guard.
Polk County’s contender makes a compelling case that the DOH fumbled its petition. Badly.
GrowHealthy, which has partnered with McCrory’s Sunny Hill Nursery in Eustis, sought to serve the state’s 14-county Central Florida region with an operation based in a 185-000-square-foot former Sealy mattress factory in Lake Wales. Last month, however, the company finished as runner-up to Knox Nursery in Winter Garden by a minute margin — losing by 0.0041 points.
GrowHealthy is now contesting the denial, citing several factors, with the aid of a high-powered Tallahassee law firm, Greenberg Traurig. GrowHealthy asserts that the Health Department’s three-judge panel erred in tallying up the scores — literally in one instance. On the most basic level, the firm maintains that health officials underscored its partner on one criteria by one point, which by itself would have propelled GrowHealthy past Knox.
But GrowHealthy also argues that the Health Department overlooked some glaring holes in its competitor’s application.
Miami Herald — Florida counties helping the mentally ill
Alarmed at the millions in taxpayer dollars drained managing the mentally ill and the homeless when they run afoul of the law, many Florida counties are uniting to seek a reset on how the state deals with these troubled offenders. County leaders are right — the majority of them need help, and jail is not the place where they will get it.
In the upcoming legislative session, the Florida Association of Counties wants lawmakers to overhaul the way the criminal-justice system deals with this vulnerable population.
“We need to decriminalize homelessness and mental illness,” Broward Commissioner Barbara Sharief told the Editorial Board this week. Ms. Sharief is president of FAC. Several remedial bills are being offered up in Tallahassee, and we commend FAC for taking a lead on this crucial issue.
The association says increased funding and coordination of programs and services for persons with behavioral health issues is needed to improve their overall health and quality of life, and to reduce the burden on county jails, courts, hospital emergency rooms — and taxpayers’ wallets.
The plight of mentally ill residents in Florida, where comprehensive care is dismal, has been an ongoing challenge. Florida still ranks a shameful 49th in per-capita funding for mental-health programs — set to be $420 million this year, same as last year. The state spends $40 per mentally ill person, compared to a national average of $122. Yet an estimated 3.9 million Floridians have some type of mental-health challenge.
The additional money indirectly helps agencies like Camillus House in Miami, which offers shelter to homeless people, many suffering from substance abuse and psychiatric problems, Executive Director Shed Boren told the Editorial Board, which this week toured its new campus. Camillus House, through programs like its landmark Lazarus Project, actively seeks out the mentally ill among the homeless population and directs them to social-service programs.
Orlando Sentinel — Tenure shouldn’t be license to harm
Florida Atlantic University Professor James Tracy likes a debate, so we’ll offer an important topic:
Should professors be able to espouse hurtful and offensive opinions while hiding behind the protective shields of academic freedom and tenure?
In our view, academic freedom is not a license to do or say whatever you want, consequences be damned. So we welcome the termination proceedings begun against Tracy this week by FAU, a university he continues to embarrass with his “didn’t happen” conspiracy theories about the Sandy Hook Elementary School slaughter, the Boston Marathon bombing, the San Bernardino shooting and other mass attacks.
Like all freedoms, academic freedom has its limits. And Tracy has gained national notoriety not because he’s a blogger spouting wacky theories, but because he is a tenured professor at FAU, where he has influence over students.
Yes, freedom of thought and expression should flourish at universities, but so should high standards of research.
Tracy’s behavior also should stoke the debate in Florida about whether tenure is a good thing, or whether its virtual “lifetime job” guarantee allows some professors to become lazy, incompetent or, in this case, a never-ending embarrassment to the university and its community. In September, the State College of Florida near Bradenton became the first state community college to drop tenure for new professors, in part so that the college could fire misbehaving professors more easily. Look for the trend to spread.
Ocala StarBanner — Rose gambled … and he lost
Every gambler knows that the secret to surviving is knowing what to throw away and what to keep — according, at least, to the country song by Kenny Rogers.
The writer of those lyrics must have never met Pete Rose, who’s not just any gambler.
Rose, Major League Baseball’s all-time leader in hits and one of the game’s icons, has demonstrated again that he doesn’t know what to throw away — his habitual gambling on sports and his hubris — or what to keep, such as any sense of maturity and semblance of dedication to the game he claims to love.
On Monday, MLB Commissioner Robert Manfred Jr., released a report on his consideration of Rose’s plea to be removed from the sport’s “permanently ineligible list.”
Rose was placed on the list in 1989 — in effect, banned from managing, coaching or otherwise working for major-league teams — for violating Rule 21. He remains accused of betting on baseball in 1985 and 1986, as an active player, and in 1987 as manager of the Cincinnati Reds.
In a game that has historically tolerated a certain amount of subtle rule-breaking, there is but one cardinal rule: no gambling on baseball. The evidence against Rose in 1989 was compelling and led him to agree to the “permanent” ban. He later confessed to gambling on the game in a book published in 2004.
Technically, the ban was permanent in name only. The Major League Rules enable someone on the ineligible list to apply for “reinstatement,” which Rose did in February.
Commissioner Manfred wisely agreed to revisit the case.
Rose’s lawyer said his client had “reconfigured” his life — the implication being that “Charlie Hustle” had quit gambling.
Pensacola News-Journal — UWF, community partner to study our past
Pensacola’s 456-year history came alive on Thursday with the announcement that there is finally proof we’re home to the first multiyear European colony in the United States. It’s a major historical find and further solidifies the city’s importance in the country’s history.
UWF President Judy Bense admitted she wanted to jump up and down in celebration of the announcement. Her passion was evident when she promised the university would share our history while working closely with affected property owners.
Morris Marx, former UWF president, credited Bense with creating a town-gown passion for the area’s history, first as a professor and archaeologist then as president of the school. He said the research of the colony is another example of the school’s three-pronged mission of teaching, research and public service.
“There will be students on-site getting hands-on learning,” Marx, who served as UWF president from 1988-2002, said following the announcement. “The public service they will be performing will be preserving our history.”
He added to the celebratory mood of the event: “It’s a wonderful day.”
The discovery of Tristan de Luna y Arellano’s colony eluded professional and amateur archaeologists alike for decades. While this development is important, there are years of study ahead. As John Worth, associate professor of historical archaeology in UWF’s department anthropology, said during Thursday’s news conference, “The real work begins right now.” He is the principal investigator for this find. The university’s search will include finding the boundaries of the colony, which no doubt will be large because of the population of the settlement. They promise to share their research along the way.
The Palm Beach Post — Prayers aren’t enough for gun violence victims
On Nov. 19, less than a week after the terrorist attacks in Paris, my wife Carol and I were scheduled to leave for a Thanksgiving vacation in Madrid. “No, no, don’t go,” advised friends and family. “Europe isn’t safe. It’s too dangerous.”
Are they kidding? The most dangerous place in the world today is the United States. Think about it: A first-grade classroom. A college campus. A navy office building. A movie theater. A shopping center. A church. A women’s health clinic. And now a center for the developmentally disabled. All sites of mass shootings.
The latest, San Bernardino, Calif., on Dec. 2, where 14 people were gunned down, another 17 wounded, at an office holiday party. According to Shootingtracker.com, that made the 354th mass shooting — defined as four or more dead or wounded — in the 334 days since Jan. 1, more than one a day. That’s on top of the 89 people killed by gun violence every day. And those mass shootings have occurred all over the country, in some 220 cities in 47 states. Is nowhere in America safe?
So once again we have to ask: What will it take? How many innocent people have to be killed? How many families destroyed? How many communities shattered? Before politicians have the guts to stand up to the NRA and adopt some tough, but common-sense, gun safety measures?
As President Barack Obama noted in comments to CBS News immediately after news of the California shootings broke, “We have a pattern now of mass shootings in this country that has no parallel anywhere else in the world.” No other civilized nation on earth suffers from that same kind of repeated, senseless domestic terrorism. Why? Because no other civilized nation offers the same easy access to guns.
Panama City News-Herald — Carpet-bombing: Wall-to-wall folly
After the Paris and San Bernardino attacks, Americans are simultaneously eager to smash the Islamic State and wary of another major ground war in the Middle East. Some presidential candidates have found the perfect way to satisfy both impulses: turning large swaths of Iraq and Syria into a smoking heap of debris and body parts.
Donald Trump has said, “I would bomb the [expletive] out of them.” Ted Cruz has vowed, “We will utterly destroy them. We will carpet-bomb them into oblivion.”
They haven’t gotten to the point reached by John McCain in 2007, when he sang a few bars of what he called “that old Beach Boys song ‘Bomb Iran.’” But Cruz shares McCain’s capacity for amusement. “I don’t know if sand can glow in the dark, but we’re going to find out,” he promised an audience in Iowa.
Neither candidate is likely to pay a political price for embracing wanton destruction. Massive, merciless aerial bombardment sounds good to voters because it’s simple, low-risk and spectacular on TV.
Nothing could be better than annihilating vicious enemies at minimal risk. A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll found 73 percent of Americans favor expanded airstrikes on the Islamic State, also known as ISIS.
But it’s a solution that won’t solve. The first flaw is that even the most ferocious use of air power can’t “completely destroy ISIS” as Cruz imagines. The second is that it stands to multiply our enemies and magnify the dangers we face. And that’s leaving out the matter that Trump and Cruz ignore, which is the death and injury inflicted on innocents.
South Florida Sun Sentinel – Memorial Healthcare’s troubled CEO search
When it came time to winnow the choices for who will be the next chief executive of Memorial Healthcare System — a group of six public hospitals with $1.9 billion in annual revenue — the South Broward Hospital District’s Board of Commissioners appeared Thursday night to be playing a game of 20 Questions.
It all happened — the confusion, the unfairness, the waste of people’s time — because the board was trying to skirt the Sunshine Law that governs the taxpayer-supported health care system. Specifically, the board designed a selection process to hide the names of people interested in becoming the next CEO, a process we believe is illegal.
Worse, while trying to protect the identities of 14 prospects, the board did a grave disservice to the candidates, both the internal applicants and those identified through a nationwide search.
For in deciding whom to interview, the board considered only brief comments from its search firm and a one-page summary so thin it failed to do people justice. With that, the votes began on whether to interview Prospect 1, or Prospect 2, or you get the drift.
In effect, members were making the most important decision of their board careers without knowing the candidates’ names, where the candidates work or whether the candidates had graduated from Harvard University or Mail Order U.
Tallahassee Democrat – Let a judge decide
When disparate voices agree on something, it’s probably worth giving the idea a good hearing.
That’s the case with Florida’s “direct file” system for transferring juvenile offenders to adult courts for trials. It’s not a glamorous law-and-order issue, not going to get anybody re-elected or defeated, but it is probably one of the most important things our legislators will consider when they convene next month.
An unusual coalition is behind the effort to get judges involved in deciding which juveniles deserve to be treated like grown-up criminals. The Southern Poverty Law Center, a liberal advocacy group, and the James Madison Institute, a conservative Tallahassee policy-study organization, have joined with public defenders across the state and some other advocacy groups to change a system that now puts a heavy prosecutorial thumb on the scales of justice.
There are three general ways juveniles get charged as adults — judicial waiver, indictment and “direct file” of charges by a state attorney. The latter method was born of a horrifying 1994 eruption of juvenile crime, and it lets prosecutors put teenage offenders before circuit judges, usually with plea deals that can still result in assignment to the juvenile or youthful-offender system.
We’re not talking about murder or other major felonies here, like the 1993 murder of British tourist Gary Colley at a Jefferson County highway rest stop. Those cases will always wind up in adult court. But burglaries, drug offenses and some teen-sex cases could benefit from having a judge — not a prosecution-minded state attorney — decide which young offenders need to be kept in the minor league of the judicial system.
Direct file usually doesn’t involve a court hearing, presentation of evidence or legal arguments. Prosecutors have discretion to charge 16- and 17-year-olds with adult felonies.
In a meeting with the Democrat editorial board, Second Circuit Public Defender Nancy Daniels said this poses a tough choice for her over-worked staff. They haven’t had depositions or discovery yet, maybe they haven’t questioned witnesses or co-defendants, but they have to tell juveniles and their families what they’re up against: Plead out and get sentenced as a juvenile, or take your chances in adult court and maybe wind up at Florida State Prison.
The Tampa Tribune — Government’s drone rules a necessary intervention
With an estimated 700,000 recreational drones expected to be purchased this holiday season, the Federal Aviation Administration had little choice but to impose new regulations on the owners of the unmanned aircraft.
When used improperly, the remote-controlled drones are a threat to commercial aircraft and encroach on the privacy rights of people in their flight path. The possibility terrorists might use the machines is no longer a distant thought.
By no means will the new rules eliminate the threats. But they do represent a necessary starting point for managing the use of unmanned aircraft, a phenomenon growing by leaps and bounds.
Under the new rules, noncommercial drone owners must provide their name, home address and email address to the FAA and affix a registration number to the aircraft. After a brief grace period, owners will be required to pay a $5 registration fee. All drones between a half-pound and 55 pounds will be required to be registered in a national database. Failing to register could bring fines or a prison sentence.
Drone manufacturers say the rules may hurt business. And hobbyists worry about innocently running afoul of the law.
