Posted on 07/11/2002 2:24:03 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
TALLAHASSEE -- Gov. Jeb Bush on Wednesday used his appointment of Raoul Cantero III to the Florida Supreme Court to lash out at judges who stretch their legal boundaries.
"Increasingly," said Bush, posed strategically with the Supreme Court's white columns as a backdrop, "courts have seized control over policy decisions that are not theirs to make."
The courts, he said, "are not mini-legislatures or governors."
Bush's comments reflect the tension that has existed among the Supreme Court, the Republican governor and the Legislature during the past four years. Bush and lawmakers have seen the courts strike down priority efforts such as abortion and the death penalty.
Wednesday, Bush said his appointment of Cantero, the first justice he has appointed entirely on his own, "is a chance for me to make a difference in the future of the state."
It could have a long-term impact. Cantero is 41 and eligible to serve a lifelong term. An appellate lawyer from Miami, Cantero is the first Hispanic ever appointed to the state Supreme Court. He replaces retiring justice Major Harding on Sept. 1.
Five of the seven justices now sitting on the state Supreme Court were appointed by Gov. Lawton Chiles, and a sixth was appointed by Democrat Bob Graham. The seventh, Peggy Quince, was appointed jointly by Bush and Chiles.
If Bush is re-elected this fall, he will get a chance to appoint another Supreme Court justice. Justice Leander Shaw will retire in early January.
Bush said Cantero is "humble" and shares the philosophy of judicial restraint.
"I did ask questions to all the candidates about their view of the role of the judiciary," Bush said.
Cantero has never been a judge before. He is a conservative Catholic, like Bush. The governor insists that Cantero's political views were not a factor in his appointment. And Wednesday, Cantero was mum on those views.
When asked whether he opposes the death penalty, Cantero said: "I have no views."
Florida Supreme Court justices spend about half their time on death penalty cases.
Cantero's views on abortion are known: He wrote a letter to the editor of the Miami Herald in 1993 to defend anti-abortion protesters, saying: "Abortions kill children."
When asked about abortion Wednesday, Cantero said: "My personal views on any particular issue will not keep me from applying the law, whatever the law is."
Cantero is a grandson of former Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. His nomination prompted a flood of support from Cuban-Americans.
It also sparked controversy because Cantero helped defend Orlando Bosch, an anti-Castro extremist who was labeled a terrorist by the U.S. government for his purported ties to bombing raids on Cuba. Bosch was held in a Venezuelan prison for years on charges of masterminding the October 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed all 73 people on board. He was acquitted three times and said he had nothing to do with it, but he supported it.
The Justice Department had ordered Bosch deported because of his terrorist ties, but his attorneys negotiated a deal that let him stay in Miami.
Cantero appeared on a Miami radio talk show in 1989 and called Bosch a "Cuban patriot."
When asked about Bosch, Bush said: "Everybody has a right to an attorney. I have no problems that Raoul was part of the team that represented Orlando Bosch."
Cantero applied two years ago to be Bush's general counsel, but Charles Canady got the job. One of Cantero's recommendation letters then noted he was part of a volunteer group of lawyers called "Team Elian," who handled a case involving the famous Cuban refugee, Elian Gonzalez.
It's hard to predict what effect Cantero will have on the court.
"This court is not one that can be labeled ideologically," said Barry Richard, a Tallahassee lawyer who frequently handles Supreme Court cases. "I don't find this court to be particularly liberal or activist."
Bush said he was proud to appoint a Hispanic but stressed it was not his overriding principle. Instead, he said, he wanted a judge who would apply the laws fairly and "not represent any one particular view."
Cantero was among four people in line for the Supreme Court seat: Chris Altenbernd, a member of the 2nd District Court of Appeal in Tampa, Circuit Judge Kenneth Bell of Pensacola, and Judges Phil Padovano and Peter Webster of the 1st District Court of Appeal in Tallahassee.
The scene and the subject made great political theater. Those who missed it on the evening news will have second and subsequent chances in the form of Bush campaign commercials, no doubt featuring his specific reference to the recent Pledge of Allegiance ruling, which he described as a danger to "the institutions and customs that hold us together as a society."
The governor also plainly had the death penalty in mind. Just the day before, he had said he would continue to sign death warrants despite the Supreme Court's decision to stay two executions while it contemplates, as it surely should, whether Florida's death sentencing system is endangered by the U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down Arizona's. Attempting more executions while that serious issue is unresolved is, at best, a waste of time and money for no apparent purpose other than politics.
Contempt for courts cuts both ways, of course. Liberals could speak as ill of some of the Rehnquist court's decisions overturning acts of Congress and undermining the Bill of Rights. The more troubling part of it is the governor's assertion that either of the other branches of government, the executive or the legislative, has a "more legitimate" claim to govern. In the American system, each branch is equal. It bears remembering that not so long ago there were politicians, including most of Florida's, who raged that the courts had no right to interfere with racial segregation and the malapportionment of legislatures. Who today would say those courts had abused their powers?
Bush's polemic introduction invited the question: What commitments had the governor sought from Cantero? None, he insisted, apart from every candidate's standard and proper promise to try to follow the law rather than make it. The governor said he had asked no "litmus test" questions of anyone, as to do so "would be improper."
On one such question, of course, Cantero's position was already well known. He opposes abortion, having so expressed himself in a letter to a newspaper. He is entitled to that or any other personal view; the real question is how he will reconcile it with the Florida court's 1989 decision that abortion is protected by the Florida Constitution's right to privacy provision. Cantero said Wednesday he would not let his personal opinion on any particular issue influence his understanding of the law.
Bush was disingenuous, however, in responding to a question about Cantero's public advocacy of the anti-Castro terrorist Orlando Bosch during deportation proceedings 13 years ago. Everyone has a right to a lawyer, the governor said. True enough. But that wasn't the issue. On talk radio, far removed from any court, Cantero had defended Bosch as a "Cuban patriot." That's interesting. The U.S. government called him a terrorist. [End]
Similarly, Clinton invoked Bosch's name recently while being interviewed for Newsweek's Clinton Rehabilitation Project. Angrily describing ruckus over his fire sale on presidential pardons, Clinton sneered: "I swore I wouldn't answer questions about Marc Rich until (former president) Bush answered about Orlando Bosch."
(Note that Clinton's position is that the Rich pardon "wasn't worth the damage to my reputation" -- which was unblemished until then. Rich deserved a pardon, but if he had to do it over again, Clinton would have withheld the pardon solely to protect his own reputation.)
In the honest reporting Americans have come to expect from the mainstream media, Newsweek went on to explain that Bosch -- quote -- "blew up an airliner in 1976, killing 73, and was freed from jail in 1990 by then-President Bush under pressure from his son Jeb and Cuban exiles."
On the basis of the Newsweek account, one might think that Bosch blew up an airliner in 1976, killing 73, and was freed from jail in 1990 by then-President Bush under pressure from his son Jeb and Cuban exiles. In fact, Bosch was cleared of any connection to the airline bombing. Twice. In Venezuelan courts.
When not trying to rehabilitate Clinton, liberals wail that Venezuelan courts are human-rights violators more malignant than Ken Starr. Yet it was Venezuela's criminal justice system that produced two acquittals for Bosch -- in both civilian and military courts.
It took DNA evidence and a score of witnesses for liberals to stop shouting "allegedly" about Clinton's crimes. But an anti-Castro Cuban is deemed guilty even of the crimes of which he has been formally acquitted. Twice. In Venezuela.
Bosch's only known violent crime -- admittedly not proved with DNA evidence and a score of witnesses, but found by a jury nevertheless -- was to fire a rifle at a Polish ship docked off of Miami in 1968. No one was hurt and the ship was only slightly damaged, making it a more successful operation than John F. Kennedy's Bay of Pigs invasion. But, inexplicably, it is a crime to fire a rifle at communist freighters headed to Cuba.
For his one crime -- taking a shot at the Polish ship -- The New York Times labeled Bosch "one of the hemisphere's most notorious terrorists." (The other being Ken Starr.) Liberals so love Castro's Cuba, the last Great White Hope for a socialist paradise, they sometimes forget that being an anti-communist is not generally regarded as a terrorist act.
Bosch was paroled in 1974, but soon violated his parole by fleeing rather than testifying against a fellow anti-Castro Cuban. When Linda Tripp made a different choice about testifying against a friend, the Times didn't like that either. You can't win with these liberals.
After being held in Venezuelan jails for a decade while being (repeatedly) found innocent by Venezuelan courts, Bosch flew to Miami, turned himself in, and served three months in prison for his earlier parole violation.
But instead of releasing him, Attorney General Dick Thornburgh decided to deport Bosch in order to make room for Muslim terrorists interested in attending flight school. Surprisingly enough, the only country itching to admit Bosch was Cuba. So in 1990, when Bosch was in his 60s, the Bush Justice Department released him from a deportation holding cell with the proviso that he renounce violence and wear an electronic ankle bracelet for monitoring by federal agents.
The New York Times hysterically denounced the decision to release Bosch, claiming that Bosch was "known" for bombings. With slightly more plausibility, Bill Clinton is "known" for murdering Vince Foster. The Times also accused Bosch of being "a hero in the anti-Castro communities." If liberals hated homicidal Muslim fanatics half as much as they hate anti-communist Cubans, all of America would finally be behind the war on terrorism.
After Clinton skulked out of the White House with the silverware and pardon bribe money in his pocket, there were a dozen articles written by Clinton's most devoted media pets citing the dread case of Orlando Bosch, Terrorist. Bosch should probably be happy the Clinton Rehabilitation Project isn't calling him a stalker. [End]
Do we get score cards or do we need to bring our PDAs? :-)
I have some great land deals in Florida that might interest you.
And this is very good:
If Bush is re-elected this fall, he will get a chance to appoint another Supreme Court justice. Justice Leander Shaw will retire in early January.
I have serious doubts that Bush will have trouble getting re-elected.....very good for the people of Florida.
This I did not know.....summer, you are a wealth of information on all things Floridian, lol. Thanks for all your posts.
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