(economic stimulus package, compliments one of my dastardly email correspondents)
Last night I attended a fund-raiser at the dastardly annual Key West NORML convention at Camille’s, as a guest of the former president of my college fraternity, who is about as normal now as he was when he was the president of my college fraternity and led, unbeknownst to him, a coup d’etat that got him elected president of our fraternity. A coup d’etat that got two other unsuspectings elected vice-president and secretary-treasurer. A coup d’etat that did not get the brothers who had expected to get elected, elected. A coup d’etat generated by the sophomore class, sprung on the entire fraternity at the election of new officers. I was a senior, one of the unsuspectings.
Camille’s was pretty smoky last night, but somehow I managed not to drift off through collateral inhalation. I told the story of a trucker I hitched a ride with once, who puffed weed non-stop for 1,300 miles. He raised his own in the woods near his rural home in north Alabama. He got busted by drug enforcement officers in a helicopter, who spotted his patch. So, after doing the legal process thing, he grew a new patch in his vegetable garden, and staked the young weed plants down so they ran on the ground like his squash and cucumbers, and the helicopter cops thought his patch was a vegetable garden and left him alone. I also suggested that the best way to get weed legal was to promote its legalization without its taxation. Presto, the politicos would feel like they were going to be left out of a huge economic stimulus package that would turn the U.S. economy slab dab around pronto, and a compromise would be reached: legal weed in exchange for it being taxed like the truly dangerous legal drugs, booze and tobacco. I was told the Mayor of Key West had in the past kicked off the NORML conference, but as I was the only semblance of a mayor there, I pretended I was the mayor.
Also yesterday came this invitation from Helen Harrison:
Subject: Ben Harrison @ Hogs Breath
From: HH@harrison-gallery.com
To: keysmyhome@hotmail.com
Date: Fri, 4 Dec 2009 15:52:06 -0500
|
My reply: Thanks, Helen, Ben. I’m going to try to make it and just might help spread the word. We simply can’t let Key West characters and their dastardly deeds go unnoticed! Sloan
Also yesterday, from the Reverend Douglass Mellen, radiofreekeywest.com:
Sloan, don’t let the angels forget about Omar Brown! I read today’s blog and found it to be be very depressing because there is one fact that no one has considered. National political figures are controlled by a steel and fossil fuel based economy and do everything within their power to facilitate that economy because of their own personal investments in that economy. If Obama really wanted out of the middle East he wouldn’t send troops he would build solar panels and wind turbines and choke the enemy in their own vomit. Rendering fossil fuels worthless would not only resolve matters in the Middle East, it would change our relationship with Latin America. In one felled swoop we could not only be “green” but we could change the world economy. That would suck for rich people because then their investments would fail. George Bush should be tried and hanged for war crimes and remember you heard that from me, the chairperson of the National Republican party. You and I made a big difference in the way the voters reacted in the last election, so please don’t go nationally on me. You know yourself that I need your help desparately and that I rely and respect your opinions. Please take a nap this afternoon and tell me what the angels say about Omar Brown. The motive of this troubles me and you and I both know that once the motive is acertained that we will solve the problem.
Reverend Douglass
Hi there, Rev. Doug.
Alas, I write what is given to me to write. This international stuff is really gnarly, on this world and in the spirit. I have long been involved in it, and I keep getting asked to write about it periodically, I suppose because of the way I see it, thanks to the way my perspective has been altered by the angels you asked me to consult.
Oil has long been the magnet for the US (and Britain, France, other countries) to the Middle East. Hard to imagine we’d spend much effort on the region but for its oil. Doesn’t justifiy going to war there, though, any more than Islam occupying the “Holy Land” justified the Crudaders going to war there against Islam, which Islam probably never will forget: all those Christian soldiers marching as to war, totally unlike anything Jesus would even dreamed of doing.
If I had my way, I’d be sunning my buns on a sparsely used real beach somewhere in the vicinity of the windward Caribbean islands, with a damsel who is feeling frisky and a bit slanted toward the wild side. If I had my way, I’d let Key West chart its own course and bequeath it, for better or for worse, to you to minister. Hell, if I had my way, I might just blow this whole planet up, because I don’t see anything much to speak of happening that causes me to see any good reason not to blow it all up.
Coming out of that dream, rest assured I have not only not forgotten Omar Brown’s case, I have been sweating blood over it and still am. Below is yet another draft, FYI, not for publication, of something I’ve pecked away at (on my laptop) a number of times now. Although still a draft, it is proof I’ve not forgotten Omar Brown. Maybe I need to take a flying saucer to Angel HQ to talk to them face to face. It’s been just a bit too coy for my tastes, so far, how they have used me in Omar’s case. Just a bit too coy.
Sloan
Case Notes: State vs. Omar Brown
Omar Brown’s suppression hearing on December 1 took about six hours, taking all of the morning and most of the afternoon. Omar’s Public Defender, John Rotello, had asked Judge David Audlin to rule illegal a search that led to officers allegedly finding jewelry in Omar’s home, which had been taken in a local jewelry store robbery Brown allegedly committed with an accomplice, who was represented by private counsel at the suppression hearing, asking for the same relief as Brown. If Judge Audlin grants the defendants’ motion, the likely outcome will be that all evidence gathered at Brown’s home will be thrown out as fruit of the poisonous tree (an illegal search).
Here’s a brief sketch of how it came down at the hearing. A brief sketch.
According to police officers’ testimony, a local jewelry store was robbed at gunpoint. Glass cases were smashed with a metal sounding object, jewelry was taken. Nobody was hurt physically, although the psychic trauma was great for the jewelry store employees. The robbers were described by witnesses as wearing long pants, gloves, long-sleeve turtle neck shirts pulled up to the eyes, beanies pulled down to the eyes and/or ski masks. A witness said the robbers might have been black men. One robber had a gun. One of the robbers’ general size and weight was described, which later was considered to generally match Omar Brown’s general size and weight.
About the same time as the Jewelry store robbery, a report was called into the police by Omar Brown’s former girlfriend, saying he had stolen her car.
While officers were investigating the robbery, other officers went to Brown’s residence, which was part of a duplex, to investigate the stolen car report. The entire property was contained by a wooden fence perhaps 4 feet high. The part of the property where Brown lived, off to the left side, facing from the street, was set off from the rest of the property by yet another wooden fence about 6 feet high. Both fences had gates the officers had to use to get to where Brown lived.
Brown testified that when the officers came calling, there were “No Trespassing” signs and a “Beware of Dog” sign on the outside fence. Photos and a video were shown of the property today, having these signs. Brown testified that the signs had changed some since the incident, but were essentially the same today. Brown testified that the interior gate was closed and the officers entered it to get to the door to his residence.
The officers testified that they saw no signs when they entered the property. The officers testified that the door to the interior fence was ajar and they pushed it the rest of the way open to get to Brown’s door. They testified that they found at home Brown, his current girlfriend, and a man who later would be charged as Brown’s accomplice in the robbery..
Brown testified that he told the officers that he had borrowed the car from his former girlfriend, because he wanted to take it, not his current girlfriend’s more fancy car, which would draw attention, to see relatives and friends in Miami. He said he didn’t want to draw attention because he had a suspended driver’s license, which the State Attorney had brought out in his questioning of Brown.
Three KWPD officers, as I recall, testified that Brown told them that he had stolen his former girlfriend’s car to take it to Miami to pick up a slab of cocaine. I nearly fell out of my seat. Brown had been in prison twice, he had a long rap sheet for drug dealing and other crimes and for failures to show at court hearings. I couldn’t see anyone with that history telling police officers he had just stolen a car to drive it to Miami to pick up a slab of cocaine. And I couldn’t see police officers not arresting and jailing someone who told them that. Brown had the keys to the car, as well as the car. He had stolen the keys, too? Officers testified that Brown’s former girlfriend later said she didn’t want to press charges. Brown testified that she was tripping. If he was her drug supplier, he probably would know if she was tripping.
It was during the commotion at Brown’s residence that the officers started asking themselves if Brown might have been involved in the jewelry store robbery they were hearing broadcast on the police ban. One officer saw a glove on a bench outside Brown’s front door, and a hammer under and behind the bench, that might have been used in the robbery, based on what they had heard on the police band. This led to Officer Pablo Rodriguez being assigned to prepare an application to a judge for a search warrant of Brown’s residence. During the search, a gun was found in a shed beside Brown’s residence, an officer testified.
In the warrant, Officer Rodriguez, among other things, wrote under oath that he had arrested Brown in the past. During the suppression hearing, Officer Rodriguez testified that he had not actually ever arrested Omar Brown but he and seen him around plenty and had been present in the past when Brown had been arrested and he, Officer Rodriguez, had cuffed Brown. Defense counsel asked Officer Rodriguez why he had never been on an witness list for the prosecution against Brown in his prior case? (The State Attorney had stipulated Officer Rodriguez had never been on a witness list in any of Brown’s prior cases.) Officer Rodriguez testified it wasn’t uncommon not to be on the witness list? Defense counsel respectfully disagreed with Officer Rodriguez, as did I. Probably a dozen KWPD police officers testified at the suppression hearing, including Officer Rodriguez. I doubt there was a KWPD officer involved in Brown’s case who did not testify at the hearing, and it wasn’t even a trial.
Here are my problems with this case, at this juncture.
1) The officers went onto Brown’s property to question him about a car that had been reported stolen by him. It was an illegal entry onto private property, because the officers were not in hot pursuit and they did not have an arrest warrant and they did not have permission to go onto the property.
2) I don’t believe Brown volunteered to police officers that that he had stolen the car to take it to Miami to pick up a slab of cocaine.
3) Officer Rodriguez did not come across as an entirely credible witness on the search warrant application issue, but as a witness trying to cover his tracks. The warrant would never have been applied for, or issued, if the officers had not entered the property without permission.
4) Nevertheless, it looks to me like Brown probably robbed the jewelry store, so I’m wondering why the angels dragged me into this case? If Brown robbed the jewelry store, he ought to be in jail, even if the officers broke every rule in the book to put him there. This is not a legal opinion but is a spiritual opinion. The legal perspective is: if the officers screwed up the entry and search, the evidence colleted at Brown’s home is thrown out and he probably gets off, even if he is guilty.
I have found myself wondering if Brown and some KWPD Officers were in the drug business together? If so, did they have a falling out? These are not unreasonable questions, in view of the fact that I don’t believe Brown told police officers he stole a car to go to Miami to pick up a slab of cocaine — unless he was in bed with those officers already.
I hope Chief of Police Donnie Lee, who attended the suppression hearing, will be motivated by this case to get the KWPD straightened out. I think Chief Lee’s heart is in the right place, but the resistance he will get from the Police Benevolent Union and from within his own ranks might turn out to be pretty stiff. It is no big secret that law enforcement officers, even good ones, tend to protect their own, right or wrong. That’s what Internal Affairs is for. That’s also what a Citizens Review Board is for. And that’s what judges are for.
As for Brown’s Public Defender, John Rotello, in my opinion he did an excellent job at the suppression hearing, as did the other defendant’s lawyer.
I felt Assistant State Attorney Manny Madruga did an excellent job presenting the State’s side.
I felt Judge Audlin did an excellent job presiding over the motion-to-suppress hearing.
Let me say again. State Attorney Dennis Ward did not bring this case against Omar Brown. His predecessor, State Attorney Mark Kohl, brought this case. Dennis inherited it. He has my sincere condolences.
Judge Audlin gave defense counsel and the prosecution ten days to file briefs on the law, and another five days to respond to either other’s briefs. I may file something along the lines above as an Amicus Curiae (friend of the court) brief, for Judge Audlin to consider.
Like Dennis Ward did, Judge Audlin inherited this case from a predecessor. The court proceeding summary shows many, many hearings, depositions and trials set, and many continuances agreed to by both sides. This case should have been over inside a year, but has been going on over three years. It has cost the State and taxpayers a lot of money. It needs to be over, for everybody’s sake.
Sloan Bashinsky
Omar Brown’s case is covered, to a lesser degree, in today’s Key West Citizen. I was the only “reporter” who sat through the whole hearing. It made me very glad I don’t still practice law. What a dastardly profession. Amost as dastardly as being a “reporter.” While Florida didn’t do so well against Alabama yesterday, I still think Tim Tebo is the best college football player ever. I wonder, though, if maybe he should give some thought to not usinng New Testament cites in his eye black.