I truly am sorry to hear that you will not get to visit your children.  There should be some way to have your visitation arrangement enforced without making you come all the way down here and pursue the matter in our local courts.  It is terrible that children are being deprived of visiting you.  Hopefully you have at least had the opportunity to talk to them on the phone.

I wish you well Tstarkey.

There really isn’t anything that can be done. I’ll continue to purchase airline tickets every time we’re entitled to visitation so my children know I was not voluntarily shut out of their lives. Actually, they know the score but I want them to have hope that things will change and for them to know I care.

Unfortunately, the problems we are facing are directly attributable to the failings of the local Court to consider the best interests of my children or follow the law, but this case isn’t out of the ordinary. I have a relative who was shut out the lives of his children for seven years due to his former wife’s refusal to take the children to the airport. There was nothing he could do. As he told me, Courts do not put mothers in jail for cutting off contact between children and their fathers but they do put those same fathers in jail for failing to paying child support, go figure. Ironically, he and his wife were later approved for and adopted a child who is very well adjusted and a wonderful little girl.

As for me going back, I’ve refused to pay the attorneys’ fees for the perpetuators of the neglect and abuse my children suffered some time ago. As a consequence, I have an arrest warrant in Florida so cannot return to the State in which I had resided since 1980. I had resided in Highlands County since 1996 but was run out on a rail for not Kowtowing to the corrupt local bar as the local Judges seem to do. People in my situation always hope that they can in some way get their cases out of the local courts and into federal court for relief but I haven’t figured out how to do that yet so there is really nothing I can do. Thanks for the concern.

The problems that I and others have with the State’s Judicial branch of government would be somewhat palatable if only there was a means provided for the removal of unsavory Judges. However, at present there is in the words of one of the Founding Fathers of our Nation, Thomas Jefferson, An “insufficiency of the means provided for their removal,” and this insufficiency has given State Judges “a freehold and irresponsibility in office.”

This year, there are 162 Florida Circuit Judgeships to be filled by “election,” 23 of these are contested, and only 5 incumbents face challengers. Sounds more like the dictatorship of the former Soviet Union than the, “Of the people, by the people, for the people,” form of government envisioned by our Founding Fathers, doesn’t it?

The statistical information provided in the most recent post is not quite accurate. I went to the Department of State website and found the following statistical data regarding Judicial elections, State Attorney elections, and Public Defender Elections in the State of Florida for 2008.

The following is a statistical breakdown of the 2008 Florida Circuit Judge elections to be held this Fall.

# of Circuit Judge Positions Up for Reelection:  272
# of Circuit Judge Positions with only Non-Incumbent Challengers:  23
# of Circuit Judge Positions with only one Non-Incumbent Candidate:  7
# of Circuit Judge Incumbents Facing Challengers:  9
# of Circuit Judge Incumbents without Opposition: 233

What this data illustrates is the stranglehold the Judicial branch of our Florida State government has on the residents of Florida. It also illustrates how across the board, members of the Florida Bar and Judiciary are colluding to deny residents a say in who holds these elected positions.

This is in a State where the Constitution of the State of Florida prescribes that Judges at this level will be selected by the People through the election process. As has been stated, there appears to be an unwritten rule that sitting Judges are not to be opposed for reelection in the State of Florida. I do wonder of those nine incumbents who are facing a contested reelection, how many were themselves originally elected to the position and how many were appointed by the Judicial Nominating Commission and the Florida Bar.

My concern is that those same individuals who are entrusted by the people to safeguard and defend the Constitution of the State of Florida are actually the ones who are undermining and otherwise violating the Constitutional right of our residents to select their Circuit and County Judges through the election process.

Similar numbers for Florida State Attorney and Florida Public Defender positions are to follow.

The following is a statistical breakdown of the 2008 Florida State Attorney elections to be held this Fall.

# of State Attorney Positions Up for Reelection:  19
# of State Attorney Positions with only Non-Incumbent Challengers:  3
# of State Attorney Positions with only one Non-Incumbent Candidate:  0
# of State Attorney Incumbents Facing Challengers:  4
# of State Attorney Incumbents without Opposition:  12

The following is a statistical breakdown of the 2008 Florida Public Defender elections to be held this Fall.

# of Public Defender Positions Up for Reelection:  20
# of Public Defender Positions with only Non-Incumbent Challengers:  2
# of Public Defender Positions with only one Non-Incumbent Candidate:  1
# of Public Defender Incumbents Facing Challengers:  4
# of Public Defender Incumbents without Opposition:  13

The following Circuit Court Judges in our area (10th Judicial Circuit) are up for reelection this year with one exception, Mr. Nathaniel White.  Being consistent with the rest of the Judicial branch of State Government here in Florida, none of these individuals are facing opposition and none of their names will actually appear on the ballot. In reality, the vast majority of Florida voters will not even know there were Circuit Judge elections held this year, and the ruling class of appointees will continue to rule without opposition.

Circuit / Group Candidate Status
010 / 002 Alcott, Roger A. (NOP) *Incumbent
010 / 008 Langford, David (NOP) *Incumbent
010 / 016 McCarthy, J. Michael (NOP) *Incumbent
010 / 017 Prince, Dick (NOP) *Incumbent
010 / 018 Smith, William Bruce (NOP) *Incumbent
010 / 019 White, Nathaniel (NOP)
010 / 021 Laurent, John F. (NOP) *Incumbent
010 / 023 Estrada, Peter F. (NOP) *Incumbent
010 / 024 Carpanini, Mark F. (NOP) *Incumbent
010 / 025 Roddenbery, Neil A. (NOP) *Incumbent
010 / 026 Wright, Karla Foreman (NOP) *Incumbent

Jerry Hill is our Republican Florida State Attorney for the 10th Judicial Circuit who is running without opposition as is most of his peers in Florida. As many know he has been in office forever, usually running without real opposition, and has quite a support group.

Despite the fact that he is running unopposed, he has raised $156,456.93 for his “reelection campaign.” Quite alot of ammunition considering there is no election campaign to run! I may comment on his contributors at some point but I found one entry from the City of Sebring for $250.00. Here is the website with the information.

http://election.dos.state.fl.us/cand/CanDetail.asp?account=45323

I wonder what that is all about?

With qualifying done, this appears to be the final statistical breakdown of the 2008 Florida Circuit Judge elections to be held this Fall.

# of Circuit Judge Positions Up for Reelection:  283
# of Circuit Judge Positions with only Non-Incumbent Challengers:  23
# of Circuit Judge Positions with only one Non-Incumbent Candidate:  6
# of Circuit Judge Incumbents Facing Challengers:  13
# of Circuit Judge Incumbents without Opposition: 241

It looks like 95% of the incumbent Florida Circuit Court Judges who are up for reelection this year will be reelected without opposition during this 2008 election year. Their names will not appear on the ballot.

Highlands County residents will have one choice of two non-incumbent candidates for one Circuit Court Judge position. The rest will continue in office unopposed. It looks like the Public Defender will be unopposed. State Attorney Jerry Hill may have a weak opponent, I’m not sure, but I wouldn’t look for any help from him with the legal “professionals” as most are campaign contributors. Furthermore, the Assistant State Attorney is the Chairperson of the 10th Judicial Circuit’s Judicial Nominating Commission who selects Judicial appointees so they will not help with any improper activity by local Judges. 
I think I’ll take a break from this subject for awhile. There is alot of information contained in the preceding pages and much more can be found in the Family Court thread for anyone interested in how the legal profession and Judiciary maintains its power over residents in the State of Florida.

I am going to make a few more comments in the next few days to explain and justify the conclusions I have reached about the subject of this thread and then maybe I will be done here.

Before I draw any conclusions, I want to talk a little more about voter selection of Circuit Court Judges through the election process. Following here you will find 2006 Circuit Court election statistical information formatted as above:

# of Circuit Judge Positions Up for Reelection:  187
# of Circuit Judge Positions with only Non-Incumbent Challengers:  42
# of Circuit Judge Positions with only one Non-Incumbent Candidate:  12
# of Circuit Judge Incumbents Facing Challengers:  06
# of Circuit Judge Incumbents without Opposition: 127

In this midterm election year, 96% of incumbent Circuit Court Judges in Florida ran for reelection without opposition. In order to save some time, I will not go further back than this Mid-term election but I think it is reasonable to assume that these statistics are indicative of what has happened in prior election years. Almost all incumbent Circuit Court Judges can expect to run for reelection unopposed and maintain their positions for life or until retirement.
Next, I will discuss some of the issues that affect the outcomes of Judicial elections in Florida.

It is impossible to reach any conclusions based on raw statistical data of the type you have presented. There are too many variable and/or unknown factors. Incumbent Judges run unopposed because qualified persons choose not to run against them. Why is an irrelevant question. I have followed this thread since your first posting. Granting that the judicial system and its members, like you and me, have varying degrees of imperfections, the only thing that you have proven in this forum is that you personally hate that system in its current configurations. If you spent the same amount of time and energy purging your own imperfections as you did trying to purge the judicial system’s, you would likely be a much happier and more highly respectable and accomplished person.

well said Socrates.

Socrates - 06 May 2008 02:26 PM

It is impossible to reach any conclusions based on raw statistical data of the type you have presented. There are too many variable and/or unknown factors. Incumbent Judges run unopposed because qualified persons choose not to run against them. Why is an irrelevant question. I have followed this thread since your first posting. Granting that the judicial system and its members, like you and me, have varying degrees of imperfections, the only thing that you have proven in this forum is that you personally hate that system in its current configurations. If you spent the same amount of time and energy purging your own imperfections as you did trying to purge the judicial system’s, you would likely be a much happier and more highly respectable and accomplished person.

Socrates,
Thanks for following along and considering what has been written here. Before I get into why the facts are what they are, I first need to establish what the facts actually are. To that extent, I have decided to go further back in history to gather some more “raw statistical data,” so more is forthcoming. I think the “why” question is relevant but to be honest, I have been surprised at “what” I have found, so actually my previous views have evolved based on new information. In the next little while I’ll be providing more facts.
As far as your comment regarding respectability and accomplishment, I think like beauty, they are in the eye of the beholder. Who is more respected and accomplished, Warren Buffet or Mother Teresa, the President or the Pope, the family lawyer or the school teacher?
Thanks for considering the facts and the views expressed here, but I would more look forward to reading your insight on the issues than your uninformed or ill informed opinion of my character and need for self-improvement.