Posted on 04/01/2005 4:37:11 AM PST by Tailgunner Joe
The author makes an excellent point about government involvement, but Judge Greer is not the only villain. He was supported by the state and federal judiciary.
Perhaps someone here can answer a question for me. Greer is a probate judge. As I understand it, he would normally hear cases involving the wills and estates of people who are already dead. But Terri Schiavo was not dead and apparently left no will. Why was Greer involved in her case in the first place?
The worst (and corrupt) judge I ever encountered was a Republican. He had the same name as his father, who was a senior judge in the same district court. The people voted for the son because they thought they were voting for the father. Once on the bench, the power of incumbency kept him there. As his father's former law partner put it, "It is a good thing that [the son] was elected. He certainly couldn't practice law."
In many jurisdictions, probate judges are given odd jobs by the legislature. They are best known for cases involving wills and estates, but they can also, for instance, handle the guardianships of orphans. In Ohio, if you want to impeach a city councilman, you can sue in the local probate court. It appears that in Florida, the legislature gave PVS suits to the probate court to handle.
This video will be worth hundreds of thousands of Repub votes in the next several election cycles -- enough to tip an additional six states to the Repubs.
Term limits per case is one idea that has merit, but term limits for federal judges, including the Supremes, would be a further check on the Judicial Branch.
A 12 year term would give federal judges the freedom to decide cases while ignoring the will of the people, but also limit the legal damage caused by any one judge to 12 years.
To rely on installing constructionist judges to the bench belies the fact that men change over time. No one can guarantee that the constructionist judge appointed today will remain a constructionist judge a decade from now.
Congress, who is suppose to be the guardian of the people, has shown itself to be spineless when faced with recalcitrant judges. Congress is good at passing bills, and issuing subpoenas, but lacks the muscle to face down one lone judge in a small Florida town.
Of course, if Congressmen can be found with the belly for a fight with the courts, then those men should be elected to office. But, since such men are hard to find the only guaranteed course for the people is to amend the Constitution.
Where judges are concerned the people need an automatic mechanism that will terminate a judgeship without involving the Congress. Term limits is the check needed on the Judiciary that will restore balance to the three coequal branches of government.
That would explain it. If you are right, I can only hope the Florida legislature will fix the mess it created.
During the 2000 and 2004 elections, I did my share (or maybe more so) of railing against the corrupt Democratic political machines in urban counties that have been notorious for stuffing ballot boxes and using the names of dead voters to pump up Democrat totals. I still hold that Bush may have received 52% of the popular vote in 2000 and 56% in 2004. However, there have been Republican political machines and corruption, and the Grant and harding Administrations were as corrupt as those of Lyndon Johnson and Clinton.
Greer should be pilloried and then run out of the Republican party. We should look into ways to get him expelled from the party and work nationally to get him defeated in the '06 election. We as a party have the right to censure him.
Excellent.
Radical activist judges - out of touch, out of tune, but not out of reach.
But, the Grant and Harding administrations were 140 and 80 years ago.
The corrupt democrat administratiors are still selling their books, collecting the retirements, and re-running for office.
EVERY national democratic official has been lying, cheating, evading the truth and receiving corrupt money and votes.
Wrong. Don't make sweeping generalizations from particular instances.
There are plenty of Greer's about; you can generally find them in areas where corrupt politics are the rule. But, on the whole, there are professional standards and precedents which work against the Greers.
Many, many of the best people around are those serving in the judiciary. If you will study the evolution of this nation, you will readily understand this.
Consider also that if the judiciary were not one of the three branches of government, we would have mob rule - and no way to address grievances except by vendatta as they still do in such places as Sicily.
Pinellas County, Florida - along with the rest of Florida - is suceptible to these actions because of its particular blend of lack of personal roots due to the incoming/transient population and its expansion, along with the accompanying wheeling and dealing - especially in real estate matters.
Witness the 2000 election.
Greer has indicated by his actions/non-actions that he is not a judge - but that instead he is a co-conspirator in a criminal matter.
His country and state organizations should immediately move to disassociate with him. And they probably already have.
Greer will almost surely not be running for re-election - disgraced if not de-barred. There should be other candidates quickly forthcoming.
He is not a judge and he is not a Republican. He is a long-time opportunist. And vile. Period.
Over and over I have heard that Judge Greer's "hands were tied," That there was nothing he could legally do, even if he wanted. While I have heard this denied may times, I never actually heard it refuted. Can anyone here walk us through the reasoning (legal reasoning, not just the moral argument) that would allow the Judge to say the tube had to remain long-term?
2nd question:
The law can be, as Samuel Johnson protested, "an ass." Given that it was legal for Michael to have her starved to death, if Michael said, "Oh Terri and I talked about it, we really love the ocean and fishing and we decided that if we ever got to this point, we'd like to be used as bait on a hook, so we could go out on that fishing experience" would Greer be likewise obligated by law to grant his wish? I now it's extreme, but there are some pretty bizarre people out there including "holocaust-was-a-good-thing" Felos.
In spite of the Republican character of the area and the GOP monopoly on county offices, party politics are far from clean. The county is rife with nepotism in elective office, with several instances of second generation politicians. The sheriff was caught DWI in another county, yet remained in office and the charges were not pursued. The county commissioners failed to push for desperately needed widening of the county's main Interstate on account of party loyalty related to NAFTA. (Rather than press for Federal and state highway money, they were told by party bosses in Austin and Washington to wait for NAFTA related funding, which never came.)
It is not as bad as Daley's Chicago or Pendergast's Kansas City, but it is far from the "Honest Abe the Rail-Splitter" image the Republicans like to project. Ronald Reagan, an extraordinarily good man, ran a clean shop. The Bushes, father and son, are independently wealthy and are the inheritors of the old Yankee characteristic of selfless public service, which is a virtue all but gone from the country. But below the top levels, Republicans are subject to the same temptations of money and power as are Democrats.
I suspect Pinellas County may be an area of GOP corruption. The business links connecting Greer to the hospice and to Felos cast doubts about the former's objectivity. Furthermore, Senator Alexander, House Republican whip, who was one of the nine RINOs who voted against legislative relief for Terri Schiavo, received a considerable portion of his re-election campaign funds from the medical industry, a party interested in improving the efficiency and profitability of medical businesses.
The Democrats are worse, no doubt. But the GOP is far from sinless relative to corruption.
bttt
"There are probably Judge Greers in every county in the United States."
You are SO right. Here in Ohio, judges are often appointed to the bench upon retirement in the middle of a term, death, or taking another office/job. Then, when election time comes up, they run unopposed. Cronyism at its best. I can't tell you how often you see judgeship after judgeship with just one name on the ballot. I never vote for them. What is the point? Isn't that what the communists did -- run just one person per office, so they get 100% of the vote?
I wonder if any enterprising civil law specialists out there think that a wrongful death lawsuit could be filed against Felo, & Schivo and maybe the corrupt judge also?
Unlike most high growth Southern and Western states, Florida has the unusual circumstance of being a retirement mecca. However, it appears local government in Florida, apart from the southeastern counties dominated by New York Jews and Cubans, is still dominated by natives or near-natives. Judge Greer has spent virtually all his life in Florida. Most of the nine RINOs who voted against legislative relief for Terri Schiavo are either native Floridians or persons who have lived in the state since childhood. For example, State Senator J.D. Alexander, a third generation Florida citrus grower, had a grandfather who served in the Florida Legislature as a Democrat. This is the sort of atmosphere that breeds "good ol' boy" politics, irrespective of party labels, or the sex, ethnicity, or religious profession of the politicians.
Professional standards are fine and necessary in professions like medicine, teaching, and so forth. However, the judiciary has used the bromide of "professional standards" as a mask for not discussing their underlying views. In Texas, judges are elected to office for set terms. Yet it is extremely difficult to find out the judicial philosophy of a judicial candidate. Some voters rely on religious affiliation. However, that is a weak reed. Although I am an evangelical Christian, I would much rather have a non-Christian on the bench who will follow the doctrine of original intent and opposes judicial activism than a Christian who believes the state and Federal constitutions are "living documents", even if that candidate is socially conservative.
The defenders of the judiciary system as it is are guilty of the fallacy of the stolen concept. The concept of "professional standards" is one such example of this fallacy, which I covered previously. The second stolen concept is that of the sanctity of the law. Since the beginning of the last century, American jurisprudence has shifted to a philosophy of legal positivism, the belief that there are no preconceptions upon which the law should be based, other than the legislator's or judge's view of the public good. The net effect of this philosophy has led to the view that, in the words of a liberal Supreme Court justice, the Constitution was what he said it was. Legal positivism stands in direct contrast to the natural law roots of the Constitution and the Biblical origins of Anglo-American common law. Yet the positivists shamelessly smuggle the concept of sanctity from Christianity and Judaism to assert that the moral relativism and secular humanism on which court decisions are based are somehow sacred and above scrutiny. Sorry, but that dog just won't hunt.
You bring up the example of the Mafia. The roots of the Mafia are in the Sicily of the 18th and 19th Centuries, when autocratic governments, run for the benefit of the aristocracy, did not enforce justice and protect the middle classes and the peasantry. That mentality was carried into this country by the Italian immigrants. Think of the example of the movie, The Godfather, Part I, where an Italian immigrant who trusted in the American system did not receive justice from the courts when his daughter was horribly disfigured by two young men when she refused to have sex with them. (In the novel, the two young men were politically well connected Irish Americans.) He thus turned to Don Vito Corleone to obtain justice. The gangster dispensed justice more effectively than did the courts. Like it or not, when people of any background believe the courts do not enforce justice, they will seek it extra-legally. That is why the American justice system needs an overhaul.
What the Schiavo case illustrates is that the judiciary is de facto the dominant part of the tripartite government on the state and Federal level. The actions of President Bush, the U.S. Congress, Governor Bush, the Florida Legislature, and the county sheriff and the local police chief indicate a fear of challenging a mere probate court judge. Not only is that undemocratic, but history proves that tyranny increases unless successfully challenged.
The judicial branch of government must be placed under greater legislative and executive oversight. Furthermore, the power of judicial review must be subject to override by the legislatures and the public via referendum. Term limits and Constitutional guidance requiring Federal judges to adhere to original intent must be placed on the books.
Either that, or expect a future day when the ambassadors from foreign nations will present their credentials to the Supreme Court, and not the White House, in recognition of where the power really lies.
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