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DALLAS---What does Pinellas County Probate Court Judge George W. Greer know about the jury system?
How did the civil jury system have any impact on the Terri Schindler Schiavo case?
George Greer is on the road again, this time appearing as a speaker at next month's National Jury Summit to be hosted by the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA) on Feb. 8-9 in Las Vegas.
You remember ABOTA; that's the group that tapped Greer to serve on the "faculty" of the inaugural "Journalist Law School" at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles last June.
The Florida Chapter of ABOTA is the same group of lawyers that claims that they advocate "Justice by the People" who last year had the audacity to choose Greer along with U.S. District Court judge James Whittemore of Tampa as jurists of the year----honoring the two jurists most responsible for facilitating the death of an innocent helpless woman.
Lawyers and jurists in the state of Florida have spent the last two years rubbing the public's nose in the robes of George Greer, that short, dictatorial, bald-headed egotist who exerted his power over a disabled woman, not only ordering that her feeding tube be removed but taking the extraordinary, inhumane step of ordering that no efforts could be made of even oral hydration or nutrition. He claimed he was her guardian, looking after her best interest. He never ever once personally visited his ward. For over seven years, Pinellas County probate court judge George W. Greer rebuffed virtually every legal effort to save the life of Terri Schindler Schiavo, a vulnerable, incapacitated adult. He obstinately and arrogantly rebuked Congress, federal marshals, the Pope, the Governor and the President---because he's judicially independent you know. In many circles, it's called an abuse of power.
In the years that has followed since Greer became the Dr. Kevorkian of the black robe cult, the legal profession created awards for this individual, trying to make George Greer their martyr, their spokesman for judicial independence, judicial activism. Greer's unabashed arrogance and outright insensitivity for the disabled and litigants, last year disparaging the appeal process and constitutional right to due process, is an affront to the public, an unconscionable display of hypocritical arrogance in the eyes of many, flaunting alleged misconduct, failure to comply with Florida law, now proven and demonstrated criminal wrongdoing and lack of ethics which existed throughout the pendency of the case and firmly establishes him as an icon for judicial tyranny.
The topic of next month's National Jury Summit to be held at the Wynn Las Vegas in Las Vegas, Nev., will be saving the jury trial.
Greer has had few, if any jury trials in guardianship and estate cases, certainly not in the Schiavo case as if a jury had heard the evidence, it's likely the disabled woman would never have been sentenced to death.
According to a press release issued for the "a myriad of issues raised by the threats to the system will be addressed. "The American jury system is dying. It is dying faster in the Federal Courts than in the State Courts. It is dying faster in the civil side than in the criminal, but it is dying nonetheless," said Chief Judge William G. Young, United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
Perhaps ABOTA should take a look at the real cause----the increasing public outcry about the pervasive judicial tyranny and judicial activism, legislating from the bench, the tilting of the balance of powers unjustly towards the judiciary.
ABOTA says the presentations will deal with the civil jury system, factors causing its deterioration, the benefits of preserving the jury trial, and what changes are needed to bring about recovery. The Summit will also cover the media's reporting of jury cases.
According to the program, speakers will include:
-- The Hon. George Greer of the Pinellas County/Pasco County (Florida)
Circuit Court will address judicial independence and the civil jury
system. He will discuss how the Terri Schiavo case and other recent
events impact and damage the civil jury system in America.
-- ABC News Correspondent Manuel Medrano is the first Latino in the
history of the Supreme Court press corps. He covers the high court
and provides legal analysis for all ABC News broadcasts.
-- Jennifer Hamm, formerly of the Los Angeles Daily News, the Prague
Post and other places, now the new business editor at the L.A. Daily
Journal.
-- John T. Nockleby directs the Civil Justice Program at Loyola Law
School. He has been instrumental in jury research and in 2006 helped
Loyola launch its Journalist Law School program.
-- Paula L. Hannaford-Agor is a staff attorney and Principal Court
Research Consultant for the Research Division of the National Center
for State Courts. Her areas of expertise include jury system
management and trial procedure; access to justice for
self-represented litigants; management of complex litigation; legal
and judicial ethics and discipline; state-federal jurisdiction; and
probate and guardianship procedure.
Other speakers will include: Judge Barry Schneider, Arizona Superior Court; Judge Pendleton Gaines, Arizona Superior Court; Professor Nancy Marder, Chicago-Kent College of Law; the Hon. Mark Bennett, Chief Judge, Northern Iowa; and Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman.
According to their website, ABOTA was formed in 1957 when the jury system was under fierce attack by the press, legislators, judges and scholars.
The preservation of the civil jury trial, "Justice by the People", is the primary purpose of ABOTA, according to their website.
"Thomas Jefferson was of the opinion that the right to trial by a jury of fellow citizens was a more important safeguard of personal liberty than the right to vote", ABOTA says. "With a jury, the rights and duties of each of us will be decided by our fellow citizens, not by some bureaucrat or governmental functionary".
Terri Schiavo was denied not only her right to a trial by a jury of fellow citizens, but she was even denied her right to legal representation with Greer himself acting in the prohibited dual role of guardian ad litem and judge.
The purported purpose of ABOTA is to "foster improvement in the ethical and technical standards of practice in the field of advocacy to the end that individual litigants may receive more effective representation and the general public be benefited by more efficient administration of justice consistent with time-tested and traditional principles of litigation".
Elevating the standards of integrity, honor and courtesy in the legal profession is listed as one of the specific purposes of ABOTA as well as to establish relations and cooperate with other legal organizations and associations for the purposes of promoting the efficient administration of justice and constant improvement of the law; and to cultivate a spirit of loyalty, fellowship, and professionalism among our members; to advance the interests of the members of the Association professionally and to enable trial lawyers as a group to have an active association of standing in the community and nation through which they may learn and be heard which some assert constitutes nothing more than a "good ole boys club".
Greer's fellow lawyers and jurists have consistently been in the face of the public, supporting the judicial homicide of Terri Schiavo by heaping honor upon honor upon the death judge, despite the known ethical violations, misconduct and legal errors in the case.
The charade has to stop. No matter how many awards are bestowed upon him, no matter how many times he appears with bioethicists and Michael Schiavo, no matter how he tries to claim that there was clear and convincing evidence, George Greer will never be able to morally, ethically and legally justify the killing of an innocent woman and setting the stage for mass extermination of the elderly and disabled in America. 1-04-07
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© 2007 North
Country Gazette
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