Posted on 05/02/2005 5:06:09 AM PDT by Quaker
http://news.tbo.com/news/MGBE9JCVD8E.html
NEW PORT RICHEY - Some of the same protesters who stood vigil outside a Pinellas Park hospice as Terri Schiavo slipped away moved north Thursday, trying to keep her memory - and their mission - alive.
As they displayed signs outside the security gate of Heritage Springs Golf and Country Club, they wanted Pinellas- Pasco Circuit Judge George Greer to hear them loud and clear: ``Jesus Would Feed Terri,'' one sign read.
(excerpt)
Who Is Judge George (Boss) Greer? [The Terri Schiavo Case Isn't Over]
By Ken Hughes
Apr. 2, 2005
Boss Greer’s biography reads like a TV sitcom. He’s the Judge who ordered Terri Schiavo’s murder. He was born in Brooklyn N.Y. and taken to Florida at a very early age. Therefore, he qualifies as a southern redneck. He lives up to perceived redneck traditions in every respect.
George Greer attended Largo High School in Clearwater Fl., Jr. College in St. Petersburg, College at Florida State, Law School at the University of Florida, Gainesville Fl. There seems to be little information on his activities while in school. He certainly wasn’t an outstanding student. He returned to Clearwater Fl. to practice real-estate law.
Lawyers are attracted to politics as Hogs are to Truffles. Natural instinct brings them together. The Judgeship Boss Greer holds is an elective position. He wins elections by default, no one is willing to spend the money necessary to defeat him.
The execution of Terri Schiavo isn’t Boss Greer’s first such decision. Previously he failed to issue a restraining order for a woman who feared for her life. She positioned the court for help in protecting her from her estranged husband. A week after Judge Greer said she lacked evidence she was murdered by her husband. This decision prompted a study by Columbia Law School determining Judge Greer had an 89% error rate in death sentences. It was Terri Schiavo’s misfortune to end up in the court of the most incompetent Judge in Florida.
Judge [Boss] Greer’s Court decisions will be studied in law classes everywhere as closely as those of Judge Roy Bean’s are studied. We can only hope the Florida judicial system will be as interested. People who don’t know the law should never elect Judges. A process applying the law should be used to appoint Judges. Judges should be limited to one ten year term.
The execution of Terri Schiavo will serve to bring attention to incompetent Judges. Hopefully it brings about changes in the judicial system to curb such incompetent behavior in the future.
Terri Schiavo and all the other Terri Schiavo’s deserve to be allowed due process, she and they should be given ever opportunity the law allows, if the law doesn’t allow it change the law. Life should be dominant over laws. This is a clear case of judges protecting judges. This judge, Boss Greer wasn’t following the law he was making laws from the bench. His rulings are a clear violation of his authority.
This case isn’t over, it’s over for Terri. It will go on until there are laws forcing judges to follow the law.
http://www.useless-knowledge.com/1234/apr/article014.html
Makes you wanna puke doesn't it?
Ironic, isn't it, that these scumbags would fete Terri's murderer with food and drink, something they denied her in order to kill her. I had no doubt there would be those who would raise a glass in honor of the killers and dance on Terri's grave once they killed her. That prophecy has come true.
"This award I will treasure," he said, holding up the engraved clock. "I will display this clock very prominently in my chambers."
Yep. There were death camp Kommandants who kept lampshades made with the skin of their victims, too, "prominently displayed" in various places. Of course, justice has a way, and when their Judgment time came, those trophies didn't help them.
Then again, history tends to repeat itself. What was the one euthanasia center, Hademar, where the staff had a celebratory party when they gassed their 10,000th victim? Greer and his fellow partiers are just a little ahead of the curve, that's all. They probably know that killing Terri Schiavo sets an important precedent to state-sanctioned murder of innocent citizens, but while she's the first, she probably won't be the last, as long as these bloodthirsty swine are in power.
Greer will display his clock in his chambers as a reminder for the excellent job he did in executing an innocent disabled woman.
Judge in Schiavo Case Receives 'Special Justice Award'
Jeff Johnson, Senior Staff Writer
(CNSNews.com) - The Florida judge who ordered Terri Schiavo's feeding tube removed three times before she eventually died was being honored Thursday night by the West Pasco Bar Association in New Port Richey for his "professionalism and integrity," according to a member of the group.
Pinellas-Pasco, County Circuit Court Judge George Greer was at the center of the Schiavo controversy up until the moment of the 41-year-old Florida woman's court-ordered death. He angered disability rights advocates with the final ruling to remove Terri's feeding tube, because, unlike previous orders, that one also prohibited anyone from offering Terri nutrition or hydration by mouth.
But Alan Scott Miller, a member of the West Pasco Bar Association, told the Tampa Tribune that Greer's "professionalism and integrity was punctuated by the way he handled the Schiavo case.
"He's getting this award for all of his contributions on the bench, not just the Schiavo case," Miller told the newspaper. "It's like a lifetime achievement award for an actor."
Supporters of Terri's family argue that at least two of Greer's decisions in the case bring into question the very objectivity and professionalism for which Greer will be honored.
As Cybercast News Service previously reported, Greer dismissed testimony by one of the witnesses who cast doubt on Michael Schiavo's claim that his wife would not want to receive life-prolonging medical intervention. Diane Meyer, one of Terri's life-long friends, told Greer that Terri had expressed her disagreement with the decision of Karen Ann Quinlan's parents to remove their comatose daughter from life support in a highly publicized "right-to-die" case in the 1970s and 1980s.
"There was an incident when I told a poor joke about Karen Ann Quinlan. I remember distinctly because Terri never lost her temper with me. This time she did," Meyer testified in 2002. "She told me that she did not approve of what was going on or what happened in the Karen Ann Quinlan case."
Meyer told the court that the conversation had taken place, "in the summer of 1982."
Greer ruled that, because Meyer spoke of the conversation in the present tense, she must have been mistaken about the date. He surmised that the comments must have been made in the mid-1970s, when Terri would have been only 11 or 12 years old.
"The first quote involved a bad joke and used the verb 'is.' The second quote involved the response from Terri Schiavo, which used the word 'are,'" Greer wrote in his decision. "The court is mystified as to how these present tense verbs would have been used some six years after the death of Karen Ann Quinlan."
Greer subsequently ruled that the statement that she "would not want to be kept alive artificially" - which Terri allegedly made in the presence of her husband, brother-in-law and brother-in-law's wife - was Terri's only "adult comment" on the matter.
But the judge based his decision on the assumption that Quinlan died shortly after being taken off the respirator. In fact, after Quinlan's parents removed the respirator in 1976, the woman began breathing on her own, and did not die until June 11, 1985.
An attorney for Terri's family filed a motion with the court asking Greer to reverse himself because the error gave improper credibility to the claim that Terri had expressed a wish not to be kept alive "artificially." Greer refused.
Pamela Hennessy, spokesperson for the Terri Schindler-Schiavo Foundation, told bCybercast News Service that it is difficult to express her feelings about the thought of Greer being honored for such decisions.
"I just find it so very disheartening that a professional bar would overlook the law in order to make nice with a local judge," she said.
In response to the pending award, Fr. Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, reiterated his accusation that Greer is "a murderer.
"Terri was not dying until she stopped receiving food and water. Once deprived of that sustenance, she died," Pavone said in a statement. "It does not require any legal or medical expertise to recognize that as murder.
"Nobody who has lost the basic capability to understand that should be honored," Pavone concluded.
However, Joan Nelson Hook, president of the West Pasco Bar Association, told the Tampa Tribune that she did not "think anyone could ever say [Greer's] decisions were unlawful.
"They were very thoughtful. His decisions were meticulous," she told the newspaper.
Greer has defended his decisions in the Schiavo case as within the scope of Florida law.
A small group of pro-life advocates was planning to demonstrate outside the 6 p.m. ceremony honoring Greer in New Port Richey, Fla.
http://www.cnsnews.com//ViewNation.asp?Page=\Nation\archive\200505\NAT20050505b.html
Bump
Yes. And all the demons of hell were applauding and raising their glasses in salute, as well...
Judge Greer, Judge Greer, Mighty Executioneer, What makes you tick?
Do you really have it in for the disabled and sick?
Are you truly a killer at heart or just not that smart?
Judge Greer, Judge Greer, Mighty Executioneer,
What is it with you? History will give you your due.
No one who looks at the record will say you were fair.
You went out of your way to deny Terri care.
Judge Greer, Judge Greer, Mighty Executioneer,
Was it your divorce?
Maybe you torture women as a matter of course.
The poor woman who asked you for an injunction wasted her breath.
A few days later her husband stabbed her to death.
Judge Greer, Judge Greer, Mighty Executioneer,
Is this all because you’re blind?
Cruelty and hatred pouring out because people haven’t been kind?
Perhaps there’s more love for a diminished Terri than there ever was for you, scary.
Judge Greer, Judge Greer, Mighty Executioneer,
Are you simply corrupt?
Surely you, Michael and George have supped.
People in America wonder what you have to gain.
Power, position and a bag of cash for all your pain?
Judge Greer, Judge Greer, Mighty Executioneer,
Are you too proud to admit you made a mistake?
Afraid the whole world will realize you’re a fake?
The drums are beating now - skewer, remove, impeach.
You didn’t think people would get the facts and beseech.
Judge Greer, Judge Greer, Mighty Executioneer,
Are you in euthanasia’s black grip?
After all your careful planning and effort, if you
can’t put Terri to death, is it a gyp?
Four times you were asked to step down,
Committed to Terri’s death you held your ground.
Judge Greer, Judge Greer, Mighty Executioner?
Are you too dedicated to the law?
That one makes the world guffaw.
Informed people know you ignored law left and right.
Allowing conflicts of interest, sketchy evidence,
substandard care, you forced the Schindlers to put up a fight.
Judge Greer, Judge Greer, Mighty Executioneer What makes you tick?
Do you really have it in for the disabled and sick?
Are you truly a killer at heart or just not that smart?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1372475/posts
Freeper News
May 5, 2005
Heritage Springs Country Club
New Port Richey, Florida
TERRI SCHIAVO AFTERMATH POMPOSITY
It was difficult to locate the Heritage Springs Country Club but I got there. The protest turned out okay considering the rain stopped, there were guards blocking one of the entrances and we were in a construction area and could have been arrested for felony trespass but left when warned. WE FOLLOW THE LAWS.
Meanwhile, the criminal felon F.S. 825.102 (Judge Greer) thanked the fools (who prop him up - they are his life support) for not allowing "his friends outside" in. They didn't speak Terri's name, they only spoke inside of following guidelines. That was no guideline, Terri was an innocent woman.
That was per Tampa Tribune today's edition... But, they were fair and balanced and put quotes in re: "Greer being a murderer and by awarding him they were all spitting on Terri's grave."
Bay News 9 announced in a promo with Terri Schiavo's name on the screen that they were developing news about an award for Judge Greer but not everyone is happy about it. THEY SPIKED IT. It must have been too powerful for them or someone told them to kill the story. Different day, same old S#%T.
Local Fox 13 Affiliate did a more than fair piece on the Special Justice Award. They showed the protesters, interviewed a freeper and picked a soundbite that stressed "the killing of a human being", then for counterpoint, they showed Greer crony Denis de Vlaming from inside his office who said something like: I feel so sorry for him and by law, he can't even speak about it.
Poor baby, what a horrible ordeal it is when one sets in motion to take someone's life, to destroy a political party and to do this repeatedly without redress. AND I PAY HIS SALARY AND WILL PAY HIS PENSION. Poor, pitiful pawn.
It was a success because the IDIOT mentioned us inside.
floriduh voter
By the way, on the cutting room floor with Bay News 9's wreckage; my comment that I was praying for the Schindlers yesterday National Prayer Day.
FV
bttt
Award for judge in Schiavo case criticized
Thu May 5, 2005 10:30 PM ET
By Robert Green
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (Reuters) - The Florida judge who presided over the politically and emotionally charged Terri Schiavo case received a special award from a local legal association on Thursday, prompting more controversy.
Judge George Greer received the West Pasco Bar Association's Special Justice Award for his integrity and professionalism, according to the attorney in charge of the event, Alan Miller. He said the award was intended to honor Greer for his entire career, not just the Schiavo case.
"I liken this to a lifetime achievement award for an actor," Miller said. "He's an excellent judge. He followed the law."
Greer ordered Schiavo's feeding tube removed on March 18 at her husband Michael's request and over the objections of her parents, Robert and Mary Schindler. Schiavo died on March 31 at a hospice in Pinellas Park, near St. Petersburg.
She had been in what doctors said was a persistent vegetative state since suffering a heart attack in 1990 and her husband said she would not have wanted to remain alive in her condition.
President Bush, his brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, and Vatican officials urged that Schiavo be kept alive and the U.S. Congress passed an emergency law requiring federal courts to review Greer's decision. But a federal judge in Tampa, an Atlanta federal appeals court and the U.S. Supreme Court all refused to overrule him.
Greer, a 63-year old Republican, was first elected as a judge in 1992 and was re-elected three times, including twice after he first ruled in 2000 that Schiavo's feeding tube could be removed.
Miller said his office had received telephone calls from people around the country upset about the award to Greer.
Among those condemning the award was Father Frank Pavone, director of Priests for Life, who called Greer "a murderer" and said no court had moral authority to take innocent life.
"Terri was not dying until she stopped receiving food and water ... It does not require any legal or medical expertise to recognize that as murder. Nobody who has lost the basic capability to understand that should be honored," said Pavone, who spent several days at the hospice before Schiavo's death.
Greer received several death threats during the case and resigned from the Baptist Church he attended because of the controversy.
FV SAYS: The Congress and the Florida legislators were also getting complaint phone calls. I'm not surprised that Gov. Jeb Bush can't get his way any more at the Capital. He turned the ambulance around and everyone knows it. We don't know who told Jeb to stop the rescue but he did. Jeb can't win these days in any quarter.
Gawwlllleeeee! An award like this could give lawyers a bad name!
The country club gates should be of little concern to Greer. I hear the gates of hell are much worse.
We need lots more lawyers trained at Regent, and other Christian Law Schools to do battle with the forces of evil let loose in the land. NPR - that bastion of Liberalism, did a story today about Christian Law Schools.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4632072
FV WINS QUOTE OF THE DAY: "How do they stand erect with their cloven hooves?"
Good report on Pinellas County's efforts to have more secrecy on guardianship reports.
The Pinellas County judiciary pushes more secrecy surrounding guardianships
4/30/2004
By Francis X. Gilpin
Gulf Coast Business Review
The Pinellas County judiciary pushes more secrecy surrounding guardianships. Hillsborough County lets the sun shine in. It's not every day that those words are used to describe Hillsborough's much-investigated judiciary. But those are the exact words Robert W. Melton chose to use.
Top auditor for Pinellas County Circuit Court Clerk Karleen F. DeBlaker praised the Hillsborough judiciary at a recent hearing of a state task force on guardianships. Melton cheered the fact that all initial, annual and final reports as well as amendments filed in guardianship cases within the 13th Judicial Circuit are open to public inspection.
"A 1990 administrative order, signed by Chief Judge F. Dennis Alvarez, should be a model for the entire state", said Melton.
The 10-member panel, chaired by Pasco County Circuit Clerk Jed Pittman, held its fifth public hearing April 23 at the main campus of Stetson University's College of Law. Florida legislators created the task force last year to explore reform of the state's guardianship system.
To hear Melton tell it, additional safeguards are overdue. His office began a systematic review in 2003 of how well court-appointed professional guardians in Pinellas are handling the finances and personal affairs of their wards, who are usually mentally or physically incapable of doing so themselves. (See "Guardian Angles," GCBR, Feb. 20-26.)
Melton told the task force, "the practices I have seen in the short time I have been involved in guardianships is shocking. It is time to put an end to unscrupulous practices at the expense of our state's most vulnerable citizens."
Melton says assets of wards are being transferred into pooled trusts that operate imprudently outside the supervision of the courts. He adds that the real estate of wards is being sold below-market prices to land trusts, whose beneficial owners don't have to be disclosed.
Melton said, one way to prevent improprieties,would be to make public the initial inventories of wards' estates and the annual accountings of assets that guardians are required to file with the court. "The lack of public scrutiny breeds misdeeds and misappropriations because people who may know the truth would not have access," says Melton.
The accountings are generally sealed in most Florida jurisdictions, out of respect for the privacy of wards. Hillsborough opens up inventories and accountings. Melton says Pinellas judges not only keep those court records hidden from public view, but they are anxious to extend the cloak of secrecy to the audits that his office performs.
"When we have both guardians and judges trying to keep auditors out, we have a system ripe for corruption and fraud," Melton told the task force.
David A. Demers, chief judge of the Sixth Circuit covering Pinellas and Pasco, has state law on his side. One task force member emphasized that point to Melton.
"Let's talk about public records," said Mel Grossman, a Broward County probate judge. "You mentioned Hillsborough County. You are aware - are you not, sir - that administrative order is in complete contravention of state statute?"
When Melton didn't respond directly, Grossman repeated himself. "Do you understand that order is not in compliance with Florida statute?" Grossman asked Melton. "Florida statute provides that those records are confidential and are only available to guardians, guardians' attorneys, the court's attorneys, or other persons as determined by the court."
Alvarez, in his 1990 order, acknowledged as much. But Alvarez also noted that the statute "permits the court of jurisdiction to order otherwise." Then, Alvarez proceeded to order otherwise for all 13th Circuit guardianships. The 14-year-old order stands to this day. DeBlaker and Alvarez served together on an earlier state panel that examined guardianship law in Florida.
Her home county has historically resisted guardianship reform, says Alvarez, who now specializes in guardianship and trust law in private practice. "Pinellas has always been a problem," Alvarez says. "I don't know why."
Ron Stuart, a spokesman for Demers, told GCBR after the hearing that the chief judge simply wants DeBlaker and her auditors to follow the law.
"Absurd" was the reaction of Pinellas circuit judge George W. Greer who hears probate cases, to Melton's proposal for more openness in guardianships.
"Splash the wards' Social Security numbers all over the public record so we have more identity theft," Greer told GCBR after the hearing. "I'm at a loss to see what that would accomplish."
As for auditing guardianships, Melton told the task force that his office is getting stonewalled.
"In Pinellas County, attempts are being made to limit the clerk's audit authority," Melton said. "This ranges from guardians that refuse to submit to an audit unless a court order is received, to judges that question the authority of the clerk to use professional auditing staff to conduct the audits."
Grossman asked Melton several times if a Pinellas judge had ever prevented clerk's auditors from examining the entire record of a guardianship case. "Again, I don't want to get into confidential communications," Melton replied. "But it would be fair to say the court has."
Guardians are rebuffing Pinellas auditors who seek financial and other records of wards, says Melton. He indicated that DeBlaker is in delicate negotiations with Demers over whether court orders compelling guardians to produce the records will be forthcoming. "I can say that the judges are disinclined to let professional auditors get involved in audits for professional guardianships," Melton told Grossman.
"But you don't want to give any more details to this task force?" Grossman asked.
A representative of the financial services industry serving on the task force praised the trust arrangements that Melton found problematic. Randy Pople, president and chief executive of Capital City Trust Co. in Tallahassee, says busy probate judges haven't objected to turning over control of a ward's assets to a trustee. "I would really think that would be something that would be welcome in an overburdened system," Pople told Melton.
Pooled trusts are promoted as a legal method for wards to maintain Medicaid eligibility in nursing homes.
Largo professional guardian Patricia F. Johnson, whose care of wards has been questioned by Melton, also stood up for the status quo. "I'm really proud of our probate system," Johnson told the task force. Johnson passionately defended her profession. "I have gone through places kicking rats out of the way," she told the task force. "I have gone through houses where the tub has been used as a toilet, for year after year after year. I've gone to places you won't go to." She allowed that the system needs tweaking. "We desperately, desperately, desperately need an office of public guardian in Pinellas County," said Johnson, who has worked for a similar office at the state level.
Between 40% and 60% of her current 20 to 30 cases were opened for indigent wards, Johnson estimates. She admitted that she has handled as many as 50 guardianships in the past.
DeBlaker had urged the task force to recommend that lawmakers limit the number of wards assigned to a single guardian.
"It is inconceivable that one professional guardian, even assuming they have hired staff to assist them, could possibly provide each and every one of those 50 wards the level of attention that they would need," DeBlaker stated in her prepared remarks. "This is an area ripe for fraud and where most fraud abuse has in fact occurred."
Greer says he sees more potential for financial abuse by immediate family members who create guardianships or gain power-of-attorney status than by professional guardians.
"We have to be careful in how we're banging on these professional guardians," says Greer, who referred to Melton during a GCBR interview as DeBlaker's "hit man."
Johnson told the task force that professional guardians aren't getting rich.
"Any one of you who think we're making a bunch of money - we have no retirement, we have no sick days, we have no holidays, we have no vacation days," Johnson said. "I'm 58 years old. I've done this for 18 years. Social Security keeps saying, 'Oh, no, a couple more years before you can draw that pension check.' I'm going to need a guardian before I qualify for Social Security."
The audience in Stetson's Great Hall, which included a few guardians, chuckled at Johnson's testimony. Some then applauded. Other guardians sought more technical changes than the sweeping reforms advocated by DeBlaker and Melton.
When it sounded like there was more right than wrong with Florida's guardianship system, Eileen M. Nave came to the microphone. Nave, a paralegal at the Tampa law firm of Fowler White Boggs Banker PA, recounted her personal nightmare of trying to wrest control of her mother's affairs from a guardian, the guardian's lawyer and probate judges in Seminole County.
Nave assembled and passed out a stack of legal documents that offer a sampling of what she says she is up against. The court refuses to inquire about $500,000 that Nave says went missing after another family member took her mother to Las Vegas without Nave's permission.
The guardian billed the estate of Nave's mother at a rate of $75 an hour for a single telephone call lasting longer than 10 hours. Nave says a judge approved the bill and nobody questioned the payment until she did.
Nave wants her nursing-homebound mother moved to Pinellas to be closer to her. But Nave says the guardian is fighting the request with contradictory medical opinions about the elderly woman's suitability for travel.
"There is nobody guarding the guardians," Nave told the task force. "Unfortunately, the courts don't want to hear anything."
http://www.hannity.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-317.html
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