Posted on 10/12/2007 10:35:02 AM PDT by GatorGirl
Henry Dickens - not guilty
Charles Enfinger - not guilty
Patrick Garrett - not guilty
Raymond Hauck - not guilty
Charles Helms Jr. - not guilty
Henry McFadden Jr. - not guilty
Kristin Schmidt - not guilty
Joseph Walsh II - not guilty
Before the verdict was read, Judge Michael Overstreet asked the people in the courtroom to refrain from expressing emotion. Regardless, weeping came through the courtroom from family members of the drill instructors.
Don't worry, there will be a nice fat civil suit coming up.
Is this the case where some teenager(s) died at a bootcamp?
Yep—it’s a little surprising that they were acquitted, the way it was reported in the press.
They started the civil suit before the criminal trial. State and Bay County just wrote checks instead
Snip...
$5 Million Settlement in Boot Camp Death
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: May 24, 2007
TALLAHASSEE, Fla., May 23 (AP) — The family of a teenager who died after being roughed up by guards at a juvenile boot camp last year will receive $5 million under a bill signed Wednesday by Gov. Charlie Crist.
The teenager, Martin L. Anderson, 14, died in January 2006 shortly after being kneed and struck and having ammonia tablets held to his nose at the military-style facility run by the Bay County Sheriff’s Office in Panama City, Fla.
Mr. Crist and several lawmakers pushed for the settlement this spring despite the Legislature’s general distaste for claims measures.
The state has already paid Martin’s parents $200,000, the most allowed by law without legislative approval. The bill signed by Mr. Crist pays the remaining $4.8 million.
The sheriff’s office has separately settled with the Anderson family for $2.4 million. Seven guards and a nurse employed at the camp face manslaughter charges.
I heard that the defense attorney totally destroyed the prosecutor’s medical witness, making him look inept to the jury.
Thanks for the info—I had heard about the max. award from the state, but our RINO governor decided to fork out more, even though Florida is in special session right now to deal with our budget crisis and no crime was committed.
Lovely!
Not surprising, given there was a battle over the exact cause of death — and given that the trial was in Bay County, not exactly a place full of wild-eyed liberals. I’d never seen a chick in a Confederate flag bikini until I went to Panama City Beach . . . .
Governor Crist already granted the parents a 3 million dollar settlement before the trial even started.
Very strange. I bet Crist got a nice percentage.
Oh yeah—and Mama’s already screaming about the black/white thing.
Sad that we’re still focusing on that!
This is the biggest bunch of BS that I have seen in a long time. But here in Florida the LAW can kill you or do anything they want and nothing will be done.
It would seem to me that the jury was afraid to find the guilty guilty because of what they thought might happen to them.
I agree and think that Gov. Crist and others did let the race baiters panic them into forking out millions before the facts of the incident were decided. I think the M.E.; Siebert I think his name is, deserves an apology. He was exactly right from the beginning. The other guy who did a "video" autopsy was a joke.
I don’t know. I’m always wary of these types of cases—the initial autopsy found no culpability on the part of the boot camp personnel. No one is saying “boot camp” isn’t hard but these kids are pretty nasty ones—it’s just not a few days in Juvie—it’s usually a last resort before prison.
Then, at the behest of the family, the body was exhumed and voila! Monetary claims and criminal charges—oh, and all the juvie boot camps in Florida have been shut down.
Bad things happen sometimes but I’m not going to say that law enforcement is never punished for real misdeeds.
The Fox news radio channel here keeps harping on the “shoved ammonia capsules in his face” like that killed him.
I think they were trying to revive him with those!
I’m sorry the young man died, but I hate the race-baiting ramifications of cases like these. If it had been a white kid and black guards I wonder what would have happened. I hope that one day we can get past race completely.
aromatic ammonia spirit
a hydroalcoholic solution containing approximately 2% ammonia, 4% ammonium carbonate, and the aromatics lemon oil, lavender oil, and myristica oil. Used mainly by inhalation to produce reflex stimulation in people who have fainted or are at risk of syncope.
Synonym(s): sal volatile, smelling salts
I will repeat the same comments and questions I posted on another thread regarding this case:
...the State of Florida settled over 5 mil in taxpayer dollars worth of liability to the family prior to the resolution of specific criminal charges,indicating somebody on the government payroll was guilty of something, in this young boy’s death.
Why did the State essentially admit liability, if nobody did anything wrong?
Was it prosecutorial misconduct?
Did the guards get away with murder or merely negligent homicide? If they didn’t do anything wrong, why would the State of Florida accept liability for the child’s death?
This does not make any sense to me, as a parent.
The “government” accepts liability for the death of this child, but nobody in the employ of the government is actually ever identified as the person or persons guilty of causing the childs death?
The State closed the entire program down, prior to the trial of the individuals who were tried for the death of this child.
Why have the criminal trial at all, since the State of Florida had already assumed liability for the wrongfull death?
No, I don’t see that the child’s parents can ever find any justice under the law, here.
Got a dead body,whose death was videotaped.
The State tries to pay the parents off, shuts down the entire boot camp program, but no individual(s) anywhere did anything wrong...it just...happened.
If it had been my child, I wouldn’t consider the “case” closed.
If it had been yours, would you?
Gonna be hard to find a sympathetic jury, when the criminal case fell apart and the Florida legislature passed a bill giving the family $5,000,000.
Never heard about that, I bet. And the family never mentions it.
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