Found this on the website for Tampa Bay Independent Media Center:
Judge George Greer, wrong choice to fix problems with Florida's 6th Circuit
1/6/2005 by Wesley Fager
Judge George W. Greer is challenging incumbent Chief Judge David A. Demers for top judge on Florida's Sixth Circuit. In 1992 St. Petersburg Times staff writer Jon East wrote an article about George Greer's first run for a circuit judgeship and titled it Electing judges is a farce. He noted that Greer's only credentials were his well-publicized name as a two-term county commissioner and his "healthy campaign bank account." George Greer had been a zoning lawyer before becoming a county commissioner and had raised his substantial war chest for that run from "developers, contractors, law firms and investment companies." I do not believe Judge Greer is the best choice for chief judge. The election of the chief judge for the 6th Circuit is the most important selection of a chief judge in all the Florida circuits because of the plethora of bad national press that circuit has received of late. So before stating what's wrong with Judge Greer, I should first state what's wrong with the 6th Circuit.
The skinny on Florida's royal court. In 2002 the Columbia Law School released a study finding that the 6th Circuit leads the nation with an 89% error rate of death sentences. This means that Pinellas County Florida is more likely than any other county in the land to send an innocent man to death. Former 6th Circuit Chief Justice Susan Schaeffer was part of that court before she retired. She personally sentenced so many people to their death (8) that she is known as "Ms. Death." She even wrote a handbook on how to sentence people to death which is required reading for all circuit judges in the state. In 2003 The Reader's Digest named Judge Charles W. Cope as one of the worst judges in the land after he tried to break into the motel room of a woman. Yet Chief Judge Schaeffer stood by him during his tribulations publicly declaring, "He has one of the best work ethics of all our circuit judges." The 6th Circuit's current Chief Justice David A. Demers was another Cope enabler. In 2002 former Chief Judge David Patterson committed suicide. Two years ago attorney Leonard Englander convinced 6th Circuit Judge Walt Logan to issue a gag order to silence a man from sounding off about consumer issues with a major furniture company. USA Today did that story. Next year Englander got Judge Logan to sign a gag order to keep a man from sounding off about his client Ambassador Mel Sembler--parts of that story made it to the Washington Post. Later Logan, Englander, the CEO of the furniture company and the son of Mel Sembler served together on a social committee. There's the misrepresentation by Circuit Judge John Renke III; the endorsement of the controversial Narconon™ program by some justices; and the partnership of the 6th Circuit and Operation PAR, PAR's ties to Betty Sembler, and Betty Sembler's and the 6th Circuit's ties to Straight and The Seed--two defunct juvenile drug rehab programs that closed under charges of child abuse.
Judge George Greer. With all the national attention on the 6th Circuit, the chief justice must be beyond reproach. And Judge Greer is not. By 1992 Pinellas County had 70,000 blacks but there had never been one black county commissioner. That year Sevell Brown of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference asked the U.S. Justice Department to challenge the county's system of at-large elections. One man who could help then was chief county commissioner George Greer who was also chairman of the county's Charter Commission. In that capacity he could have worked to do away with the at-large system or even to increase the number of commissioners in order to make it easier for blacks to gain a seat. But he did absolutely nothing to help blacks gain a seat. In 2000 Chief Judge Susan Schaeffer lamented that her 6th Circuit had only two black judges. There is still a racial imbalance on the circuit. Thirty-nine percent of those on death row in Florida are black and George Greer is not the man to rectify these problems. When he was a county commissioner George Greer met with the mayor and two commissioners from Largo, Florida to try to convince them to allow his clients to build more condominiums than codes allow on the golf course they owned. This was at a time when he was a county commissioner who acted on issues affecting Largo. In 1990 Greer was publicly criticized for being one of four commissioners who took a boondoggle trip to the Cayman Islands ostensibly to look at the water desalinization plants there. The trip cost taxpayers over $4,000. And who can forget The Great Cooper's Point Land Scam when Michael Kenton, a Clearwater County employee, jointly purchased with the Sembler Company a swamp in Pinellas County for $ 1 million. Kenton became a consultant for Sembler and the team almost got away with selling the property overnight to Clearwater, with the help of Kenton's lobbying, for $2.65 million. But the local press got whiff of the story. Sembler hired attorney Tim Johnson who was the campaign aid for and a good friend of county commissioner George Greer and a $1,000 donor to Greer's camapign. A majority of commissioners including Greer voted to help Clearwater buy the swamp for $ 1.95 million.
Wes Fager
ed, www.theStraights.com
eMail: wes@wesfager.com
http://tampaindymedia.org/bin/site/templates/default.asp?area_2=imc/open%20newswire/2005/Jan/34445.3671875.dat
This article on electing judges in Pinellas County appeared in the St. Petersburg Times on Aug 16, 1992.
Electing Judges is a Farce
by Jon East
George Greer shows us this year why electing trial judges has become something of a farce. Greer, chairman of the Pinellas County Commission, decided he was tired of county politics and ready to fulfill his lifelong ambition to be a judge. So he set his sights on an open seat, opened a healthy campaign bank account, and got ready to do battle.
Greer, a two-term county commissioner with a well-publicized name, didn't have to bother. He was elected without opposition to a job he has never held. "I was told . . . that it wasn't that others were afraid to run against me but that they thought I would make a good judge," says Greer, who in a few months will be sworn in as a Pinellas-Pasco circuit judge. "I'd like to think there is that respect in the legal community for me."
Greer is a development lawyer with strong legal experience, and he may indeed become a fine judge. That he so easily converted his political capital as county commissioner into an uncontested circuit judgeship, though, may not speak to his judicial qualifications at all. The point is not that Greer is unworthy to be judge, but that the electoral process that put him there without an election is becoming an increasingly bad joke on the judicial system and the public. Greer himself complains about the elections process: "It's brutal."
In Florida, Supreme Court justices and appellate judges are appointed through a merit selection system, but the local judges who preside over trials get their jobs through popular election. They raise money from lawyers whose cases they one day will hear, and then they publish campaign brochures that call themselves "distinguished" and "experienced" and "reasoned" and, of course, "tough but fair." They tout bar memberships, as if those indicated special merit. They may tell voters they are a member of a bar trial committee, though they may never have tried a jury case. They may list certification to practice at certain court levels, as if that were somehow unique.
On the campaign trail, judicial candidates are forced to fight for time and exposure with senators, representatives, county commissioners, sheriffs. At civic clubs and neighborhood forums, judicial candidates usually speak last, if at all, and their message to the few voters who remain is usually limited to three minutes or less.
"It's terribly frustrating," says Nelly Khouzam, a highly respected lawyer who is trying to win a circuit judge job in Pinellas-Pasco. "I know the people out there really don't know who the candidates are. I tell them to please ask other lawyers, ask people who know."
The truth is that voters often don't take Khouzam's advice. They pick a recognizable name, or the first one on the ballot. It is why a Dade County lawyer won a circuit judge race three years ago after spending $500,000 for a media campaign, and why a Hillsborough County lawyer who was barely five years out of law school was able to win a circuit seat after flying a banner over Tampa Stadium.
Worse, once the judges are elected, they serve what amounts to a life term. Those who argue that merit retention elections for appointed judges amount to a meaningless rubber stamp ought to take a close look at the reality of popular election. Lawyers simply won't risk challenging a sitting judge, even a bad judge; the risks of losing are too high. The result is that this year, in the Pinellas-Pasco circuit and Hillsborough circuit, not one single incumbent judge was challenged. Not one. Is that accountability?
In merit selection, a nominating panel of lawyers and non-lawyers screens applications for each judicial position. The panel looks at qualifications, trial experience and reputation, and it interviews each lawyer to determine fitness for the job. It then sends a list of three qualified candidates to the governor, who is empowered to pick one. After appointment, each judge stands every six years for merit retention. In that retention election, voters are asked whether to keep or get rid of the judge, forcing all judges to periodically face voters.
The merit selection process is far from perfect, but election after election it continues to look better. Ask some of the candidates themselves. Marsha Glisson, Pinellas circuit, Group 3: "I feel fairly regularly that it is a demeaning process." Glenn Woodworth, Group 20: "When I first started this process, I thought (judicial) elections were important. I'm having second thoughts now. . . . This is a horrible process." Khouzam, Group 23: "It's a crazy process, and I'm convinced, having gone through this, that election is not the way."
In two weeks, voters will be asked to elect eight new judges in the Tampa Bay area, yet many will have never seen or heard a single candidate. How can we pretend this is good for the judicial system?
Jon East is an editorial writer for the Times.
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/sptimes/54264861.html?MAC=752022d425c8f006009facfd6a34a6de&did=54264861&FMT=FT&FMTS=FT&date=Aug+16%2C+1992&author=Jon+East&printformat=&desc=Electing+judges+is+a+farce