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Gag orders.
Sealed documents.
No cameras allowed in the court.
Hiding of information from the public's eyes.
How appropriate that Florida's Sixth Circuit Court Judge George W. Greer was right in the middle of attorneys for alleged pedophiles and murderers this week when he appeared as a panelist at a two-day workshop in Reno, Nevada hosted by the National Center for Courts and Media whose topic was the judiciary's blackout of public information in high profile cases.
Greer is the judicial tyrant who controlled the courtroom proceedings in Pinellas County for over seven years in the contentious and controversial Terri Schindler-Schiavo case. Her estranged husband and guardian, Michael Schiavo had petitioned Greer in 1998 for an order to kill his wife, claiming that she had no chance for recovery and that she would not want to live.
Her parents disputed that and pleaded with the courts for permission to take her home, to remove her estranged husband as her guardian, to perform new medical tests and resume the rehabilitation that Michael Schiavo had ordered stopped in 1993 shortly after he received a malpractice settlement and began living with another woman but yet refusing to divorce Terri.
Greer hid documents in the case, he sealed files concerning complaints and allegations of abuse, neglect and exploitation of Terri Schiavo, allegedly by her husband. Greer sealed the financial records in the case, refused to allow even her parents to learn how much was in Terri's trust account and allowed Michael Schiavo virtual carte blanche in the case, out of the watching and distrusting eyes of the public, allowing him to violate guardianship laws, saying that the records were sealed and unavailable to the press and public who demanded accountability of both Greer and Schiavo.
Greer was Terri Schiavo's executioner, issuing a death order to remove her feeding tube, causing an agonizing death by dehydration over 13 days while the entire world watched in horror and dismay that the United States would kill a disabled woman or any person in that manner while the court and Greer totally ruled with a blind eye to the law and justice. He defied congressional subpoenas, the Vatican, Congress and the President---the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and even U.S. Marshals, issuing an order that the sheriffs in the county had more jurisdiction than the federal government and ordered that if anyone tried to interfere in the case, the county sheriff's would arrest them, even Gov. Jeb Bush.
Greer was joined on the panel by lawyers for mass murderers and pedophiles and other judges who, like him, used their black robe to stifle and stymie judicial accountability in some of the biggest cases of the last decade including the Jeffrey Dahmer case, the Green River Killer of Seattle who pleaded guilty to killing 48 people, the Scott Peterson and Robert Blake cases.
Thomas Mesereau Jr. lead attorney for alleged pedophile Michael Jackson praised the decision by the judge in Jackson's molestation trial to issue a gag order and to seal documents in the case. He praised Judge Rodney Melville's actions which he said helped protect "the world's most popular celebrity".
But the press took strong exception to the protection position, with Associated Pres Special Correspondent Linda Deutsch saying that "the role of the press as watchdog goes out the window when documents are sealed". She said that the Jackson judge's rulings were "an insult to all news media" and interfered with the First Amendment. "The public has a right to know", she said, "The public out there is what I care about. I can't give them a proper view of what's going on without information". Mesereau said he wasn't thinking about the First Amendment but rather his client.
In the Terri Schiavo case, it was questionable that even if Greer had unsealed some of the records if the mainstream media would have even looked at them to say nothing about reporting their contents, especially if it may have been damaging to Michael Schiavo and his attorneys, pro-death attorneys George Felos, Deborah Bushnell and Hamden Baskin III, all contributors to Greer's reelection campaign and all who were paid from Terri's trust fund that Greer hid from public view---the trust fund that Michael Schiavo used to kill his wife instead of rehabilitating her.
And sometimes the guilty go free when the courts hide documents from the press and public, arguing that the defendant's right to a fair trial is more commanding that the public's right to know.
In addition to death judge Greer who defied the state and federal Constitutions, guardianship law, election and campaign finance law and multiple other state statutes to kill a handicapped woman without allowing her representation or even personally seeing her although he claimed he was acting as her guardian ad litem, the conference panelists included Judge Richard Jones who presided over the case of Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer.
Mark Geragos who represented Scott Peterson, convicted in November of killing his wife, Laci and the fetus she was carrying, already named Connor, was a panelist with Greer. Peterson has been sentenced to die.
Gerald Schwartzbach, attorney for actor Robert Blake who was acquitted of murdering his wife was on the panel with Greer as was Michael McCann, prosecutor in the case against Jeffrey Dahmer who was convicted of murdering 17 boys and men in Milwaukee.
Greer and his co-horts took shots at the media, saying that there was the "entertainment media" and legitimate news organizations which were widely apart and that the public will accept any information offered by the news-entertainment shows as fact when it is no more than sensationalized hype. They also criticized the mainstream media, saying that even they often sensationalize court cases and allow such stories as the O.J. Simpson and Michael Jackson cases to overshadow more important issues---or in other words, they would prefer that their court cases receive less publicity and that journalists would look elsewhere for their news instead at watching how they are conducting themselves and the case.
June Maxam 10-12-05
© 2005 North
Country Gazette
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