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From left, David A. Demers, chief judge, Sixth Circuit Court Pinellas County; Timothy A. Johnson Jr.; Pinellas County probate court judge George Greer, John Blakely, Bruce Bokor and Wally Pope. At the time the photo was taken, Johnson, Blakely, Bokor and Pope were partners in the law firm now known as Johnson, Pope, Bokor, Ruppel and Burns
The good ole boy network seems to be alive and thriving in the South---southern Florida to be exact.
The judges and the lawyers in the Pinellas County legal system are busy patting themselves on the back and giving each other awards----and benefiting handsomely from guardianships and estates.
Last week the law firm of Johnson, Pope, Bokor, Ruppel & Burns was selected as the 2006 recipient of the Law Firm Commendation Award from Chief Justice Barbara Pariente of the Florida Supreme Court.
In a glowing press release, The Florida Bar claimed that every attorney at the law firm was involved in pro bono work through civil, family and probate clinics, living will projects.
Ah, yes. Probate court in Pinellas County where judge George W. Greer issues his death warrants for the disabled and he's lauded for it by one of the principals of the Johnson, Pope law firm, F. Wallace Pope Jr., senior member.
Greer is the administrative judge for the probate division in Pinellas County where its' been estimated the court handles some 6,000 guardianships annually with about $50 million in assets. Hefty guardianship fees abound.
Oh, yeah, let's not forget that another partner in the firm, Timothy A. Johnson Jr., is Greer’s former campaign aide in Greer's 1984 campaign when he decided to become politically active and run for Pinellas County commissioner.
In 1987, Michael Keaton, Clearwater's director of environmental management, refused to buy the mangrove swamp in Pinellas County known as Coopers Point when it was offered to the city. Instead Kenton approached developer Mel Sembler and the Sembler Company to buy Cooper's Point for $1 million with Kenton himself coughing up $15,000 towards the purchase. For his "assistance" in arranging the deal, Sembler paid Kenton $50,000 and then two months later, Sembler and Kenton tried to sell Cooper's Point to the city of Clearwater for $2.6 million, $1.6 million more than Kenton could have bought the property for the city 2 1/2 months previously.
When the city wasn't interested in the "deal", Sembler then hired Johnson to lobby his former boss Greer for his influence to get Pinellas County to buy the swampland even though the county hadn't expressed any interest.
Nevertheless, by 1989 after Greer had been reelected to the county commission, Greer's former campaign aide Johnson was able to convince Greer and the other commissioners to pay $1.3 million of county tax dollars to Sembler for the swampland with the city of Clearwater paying the rest of the $2 million price tag. Greer and the commissioners essentially gave away the county tax dollars as the county received no ownership interest in the deal.
Last May, the Clearwater Bar Association, chaired by F. Wallace Pope Jr., lauded Greer for killing Terri Schindler-Schiavo, with Pope saying that Greer "stood his ground based on the law".
What law existed for Greer to give away Pinellas County tax dollars to Sembler and Johnson, Pope’s law partner?
Pope and the bar association created the George W. Greer Judicial Independence Award to "celebrate Greer’s resolve" to murder an innocent disabled woman. In a total insult to the memory of Terri Schiavo and to all the disabled and elderly in Pinellas County, in his presentation of the award to Greer, Pope lamented that "In Clearwater, we have been in the vortex of the greatest assault on judicial independence that most of us have seen in our lifetime".
Claiming that George Greer was justified in ignoring the guardianship laws, raping the state and federal Constitutions and Florida statutes which prohibit the withholding of food and water from anyone because of judicial independence is arrogance at its' worst or more descriptively, judicial tyranny.
In mid 2004, Pope had bestowed the John U. Bird award upon Greer, the Clearwater bar's highest honor a judge, lauding Greer for standing firm in his resolve to kill Terri Schiavo despite criticism. "In the teeth of all that, he has steadfastly demonstrated exactly what the John U. Bird award was created to honor: high ideals, personal character, judicial competence and service", Pope said.
How ironic is it that Pope was the lead attorney representing the Church of Scientology in the Lisa McPherson case?
McPherson died at age 36 on Dec. 5, 1995 after 17 days in the custody of the Church of Scientology. Following an investigation by the Clearwater Police Department, Pinellas-Pasco state attorney Bernie McCabe charged the church with felony charges of abuse/neglect of a disabled adult and the illegal practice of medicine based on a death certificate issued in 1996 by Pinellas County medical examiner Joan Wood who said that the blood clot that caused McPherson's death was due to "bed rest and severe dehydration" and listed the manner of death as "undetermined". She amended the death certificate after the church asked her to reconsider her conclusions, changing the manner of death to "accident" and omitting the words "bed rest and severe dehydration".
After Wood amended the death certificate, McCabe and the state dropped the criminal charges. A wrongful death suit was brought by her estate which was settled by the church in May, 2004, two weeks after Pope had presented the Bird award to Greer for Greer's handling of the Schiavo case, the judge who ultimately caused Terri Schiavo’s death by dehydration.
Pope had been hired by the Church of Scientology in 1999 to represent the church on a wide range of issues, the account being handled by Ed Armstrong, a partner in the firm and one of Clearwater’s leading real estate, land use and zoning attorneys.
Armstrong is a close friend of Greer and in 2002, Greer reportedly offered to donate one of his kidneys to Armstrong who needed a transplant. Armstrong found another donor.
Don't forget that Greer practiced real estate, land use and zoning law from 1969 to 1992, prior to his election to the his first term as circuit court judge for Pinellas-Pasco County and in fact was practicing zoning and land use law at the time he sat on the Pinellas County Commission during the Coopers Point deal.
During the height of the Schiavo case in 2004, a case that Greer had controlled since 1998, Greer's reelection campaign raised a massive $162,000 in contributions, said to be the largest amount ever raised in a judicial campaign.
More than half of those contributors were attorneys---attorneys whose practices in real estate, probate, wills and elder law stood to profit greatly from the guardianships and estates handled by probate judges such as George W. Greer.
The attorneys in the law firm of Johnson, Pope, Bokor, Ruppell and Burns led the way in contributions with nearly half of the 38 attorneys in the firm contributing to Greer, most of the contributors giving the maximum $500 donation for a total of more than $7,250 to ensure Greer's reelection.
As soon as Greer began his new six-year term in January, 2005, he announced a new fee schedule for guardianships, effective Feb. 2, 2005.
http://www.jud6.org/Probate/GreerMemoGuardianFeeChanges.pdf
One hand washes the other.
And the beat goes on in Pinellas County among the good ole boys. 2-20-06
© 2005 North
Country Gazette
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