Notes For Monday, February 10, 2003

BUSH DOESN'T GET IT. In the St. Pete Times today, this about Florida's death penalty: "In the days after Rudolph Holton was exonerated of murder and released from Florida's death row after 16 years, Gov. Jeb Bush wondered aloud how it could take that long for evidence of Holton's innocence to surface? Easy. The state puts its energy and resources into speeding along the execution of death row inmates, not in finding those who were put there by mistake."

"For proponents of capital punishment, like our governor, cases like Holton's should be cause for serious reflection. If the state is truly committed to continuing to use the death penalty, then no expense should be spared to ensure that only the guilty are executed. Yet Bush, in his latest budget, is proposing to slash funding for death row inmate post conviction representation by about $4-million."

"[T]he blunders in Holton's case could have only been uncovered through relentless effort. Holton's CCRC attorney, Linda McDermott, worked for six years -- putting in nights, weekends and holidays -- to unravel the web of lies and misinformation that put her client on death row. She discovered evidence, never turned over to the defense, that days before the murder, another man had raped, choked and threatened to kill the victim. McDermott found, through DNA testing, that a hair found in the victim's mouth was not Holton's as was implied at trial. And her investigators tracked down the jailhouse snitch who received probation rather than a life sentence after testifying against Holton. The snitch then confessed that he had made up the testimony at Holton's trial in order to save his own skin. McDermott and those like her at CCRC should be given awards and approbation, instead, they face pink slips."
6:21 AM [Go to current Florida Politics site (no popup ads)]

JOHN ELLIS ATTEPTS TO DEFEND HIS BUDGET. In an unimpressive letter to the editor of the Palm Beach Post (after all it no doubt was written by one of his flaks), Gov. Bush attempts to justify his proposed budget. In it he claims that Florida's fiscal condition is better than that of some other states because of "fiscal discipline in recent years", that is since he took office.

That of course is utter malarkey - some states might be worse off than Florida, not because of anything our Governor did, but rather because Florida does not have an income tax (and instead relies upon an regressive sales tax regime). Moreover, had John Ellis not handed out billions in tax cuts to wealthy Floridians over the years (with nothing to show in return), Florida would be in shape to weather George W's recession without cutting critical government services. 6:04 AM [Go to current Florida Politics site (no popup ads)]