Posted on 10/31/2013 3:37:11 PM PDT by dontreadthis
BRISTOL — A Panhandle jury found suspended Liberty County Sheriff Nick Finch not guilty on charges that he tried to cover up his role in intervening in a gun case.
The jury took about an hour to reach its verdict Friday afternoon.
Finch was elated with the verdict and said he left a voice mail for Gov. Rick Scott, asking to be reinstated. Finch was charged with official misconduct, a felony, as well as falsifying public records.
Prosecutors insisted that Finch tried to destroy and alter records in the arrest of Floyd Eugene Parrish. Parrish was arrested in March following a traffic stop where he was discovered carrying a pistol in his pocket without a concealed weapons permit. Finch, who testified on his own behalf during the three-day long trial, said he let go Parrish go because he believed that 2nd Amendment gun rights trumped state gun laws.
But Assistant State Attorney Jack Campbell contended that Finch was lying about his reasons for letting Parrish go. He pointed out that other Liberty County sheriff's office officials were never told about a policy to not prosecute gun crimes.
"The 2nd Amendment doesn't have anything to do with this case," Campbell told jurors during his closing statement on Thursday. "It's about the truth."
Finch's case has divided this small rural county of 8,000 people located west of Tallahassee. It also gained attention among conservative media outlets and gun rights activists who have criticized prosecutors and Gov. Rick Scott for suspending Finch from office.
(Excerpt) Read more at constitutionclub.ning.com ...
How dare a lowly Sheriff deign to adhere to the Constitution???
Justice Delivered - Good News!!!
Good verdict.
I guess it’s a NONO to the NANNY.. BooHoo.. :)
OK Gov.Scott, reinstate the good Sheriff with back pay.
I don’t know about the governor’s authority, other than his ability to remove a Sheriff from office if he is facing a criminal accusation. If he is acquitted, it impresses me as very hard for one elected official to strip another elected official of his office.
Ping!
The Florida state constitution allows only the governor to remove an elected official if they are charged with official misconduct and make an interim appointment. If the charges are dropped or if the person is found not guilty, they have to petition the governor for reinstatement. Usually the reinstatement takes only a stroke of the governors pen, unless an the prosecutor appeals the not guilty verdict.
I saw this on the local news this afternoon. I have been keeping up with this since he first was removed.
I am not completely sure he did it for second amendment reasons but he was wise to use that defense. No way those Florida rednecks were going to convict him.
Huh? How can a not guilty verdict be appealed by a prosecutor? Wouldn’t that amount to double jeopardy?
Good.
Already reinstated and back on the job. Don’t know about pay.
The Democrat modus operandi is to harness the legal system for political purposes with bogus charges. Even when you win, you lose, because it takes years of legal wrangling and thousands of dollars of judicial extortion.
God bless all those Florida rednecks on the jury!
Yeah, and the taxpayers pick up the bills for all the false charges.
They may not be so kind to the prosecutor.
Not true.
Who pays the salaries for all the judges, clerks, janitors, and others who are involved on the other side of a case like this?
When you get taken for a ride by the judicial system it costs you tens or hundreds of thousands, and even if you win you don’t get any of it back.
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