Ethics Not Required of Florida's State Attorneys

The Florida Supreme Court has ruled that Florida's State Attorneys do not have to abide by the code of ethics governing all Florida attorneys because they are Constitutional Officers and their license is a condition of their employment. In fact, I filed a bar complaint for malicious prosecution before my trial for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon on December 5, 2007, and the Florida Bar dismissed the complaint and referred me to the Florida Ethics Commission. Obviously, the Ethics Commission has no jurisdiction to discipline, so this was the old bureacratic dodge. The practical effect of the Florida Supreme Court's decision is that State Attorney's can commit the most atrocious ethical violations, such as coaching witnesses into committing perjury, deliberately prosecuting people they know to be innocent, and so on, without the slighest fear of disciplinary action while they hold office.



The Florida Supreme Court's decision is essentially that ethics is not required of Constitutional Officers, and I would like to believe that Florida deserves exactly the opposite--State Attorneys who abide by the highest level of ethics in government. I write here for the obvious reason that this decision should be part of the Innocence Projects criminal justice reform package.



I write also to state that I am a victim of Florida's unethical prosecution of me in State of Florida v. Joseph Garwood. The case is a bit convoluted and I'll start simply by describing the ethics violations which occurred in my case. At the scene, the police tasered me and went on to describe the events falsely in a fabricated police report. They then committed perjury at my trial. They coached a witness at the scene, Paul Mekeel, to confirm their version of events regarding the tasering. Paul Mekeel also committed perjury at my trial. I believe he was further coached by the prosecutor, Assistant State Attorney Lorena Vollrath-Bueno, because their are glaring inconsistencies between his police report, deposition and in court testimony. Finally, the government committed witness coersion by forcing Karissa Smith, my ex-wife, when she did not want to prosecute or appear, and admitted in a pre-trial deposition that she lied in the police report. She gave a new version of events that was perjury and was completely inconsistent with her police report and her pre-trial deposition, in which she competely exonerated me. That's a lot of crime committed against me by the government of the state of Florida, and a show case of why we need deep reform in Florida's criminal justice system.



Okay, here is the dirt. Karissa Smith filed a false criminal report against me on June 26, 2005, after we broke up the day before. She stated in the report that I came at her out of the back yard with a pair of hedge clippers screaming that I was going to rip her head off. We then went into the house from off of the porch and she stated that I hit her in the back of the head. Then she stated that I chased her to the front door screaming that I would kill her if she did not get out of the house. Hell hath no fury like a scorned woman indeed!



She later called the prosecutor and stated that nothing happened and she did not want to prosecute. She asked the prosecutor, Owen Kohler, how he could prosecute when she said nothing happened, and he replied that he could convict based on the 911 tape alone. In other words, he didn't care the slightest about obtaining justice, just in obtaining convictions. Worse still, Karissa wrote a long letter to the prosecutor indicating that she had emotional issues, that she exaggerated everything, and that she did not want to prosecute. The case was still not dismissed. Finally, her pre-trial deposition was taken in Fort Lauderdale by defense attorney Richard Greenberg, and she admitted that she lied in the police report, that I did not snip or point the hedgeclippers at her, that I did not hit her in the head, that I did not chase her or threaten her by stating that I would kill her or rip her head off. In other words, the police report was a complete fabrication made for revenge for a break up. I hurt her, so she wanted to hurt me, and believe me it really worked, because the case was STILL NOT DISMISSED!



I entered into a PTI agreement in which all charges would be dismissed if I completed all requirements of the PTI agreement. I was furious but reluctantly entered into the pre-trial agreement. Legal fees to reach that point were $8000.00. Eventually, I violated the agreement because it is difficult to obtain employment as a lawyer when a criminal background check reveals pending felony prosecution. I went bankrupt, my house was foreclosed upon, and I could not pay monthly m0nitoring fees of $52.00 or weekly Batter's Intervention class fees. I alse fell behind on my 280 hour public service requirment. The prosecution was reopened in about May 2007, and I was Baker Acted and I was released from the mental hospital on my 40th birthday!



The prosecution went forward and went forward. I was set for trial and that state announced a nolle prosequi as to all charges, because they did not have Karissa Smith in Tallahassee, and had not tried to find her all Summer and into the Fall in the hopes that I would plea to a withhold of adjudication as to aggravated assault. The charged were re-filed and I turned myself in to the Leon County jail. I was patted down, punched in the balls, then strip searched. I had to turn and cough as if I would hold a weapon in a body cavity. I held all day long even though the paper work was completed. The jailer actually said we want to violate you as much as possible.

The case went to trial on December 5, 2007. Poor Karissa Smith was placed under subpoena by the State, flown to Tallahassee and put up in a hotel even though she did not want to prosecute. Florida's domestic violence laws allow this, which I think is a mistake because it does put a false reporter in an extremely awkward position of having to incriminate one's self in order to testify truthfully. So she chose to give the state what they wanted and gave them just enough perjury to convict without having to repeat her initial outrageous lies in the police report. She testified that I pointed the hedgeclippers at her and that she thought that she felt my hand on the back of her head. A watered down version of her lies, but still a lie and perjury.

Paul Mekeel testified that he saw me inside the house with hedge clippers in black underwear. He then saw me emerge from the side of the house and run east across several yards, out into the street, and then back out of view behind trees and shrubs. He testified that he heard the police yell, "Get Down!" repeatedly before he heard the taser. Almost all of this is lies that were coached by the police and prosecutor. I had shorts on, so he could not have seen me in "black underwear in the house." Karissa was closest to me and could confirm this perjury. Further, this was not consistent with his police report in which he indicated that I was shirtless. I believe this was coached by ASA Lorena Vollrath-Bueno in an effort at Abu Ghraib style humiliation. Make the defendant look completely ridiculous, drunk and chasing a woman with a pair of hedge clippers. Further, I never ran "several yards down," but was tasered in the side yard of my former home at 2038 Eastgate Way. This perjury was confirmed by Karissa at trial, when she indicated that she saw me then heard the taser. The ambulance picked me up right out of my old front yard, for goodness sake! Finally, this business of my running into the street had to be coached. Mekeel police report was that I ran across the yard out of sight behind shrubs and bushes. There was none of this running into the street and that is logically unlikely. I would have had to weave onto the street and then back onto the lawn, and if you're trying to out run somebody weaving would slow you down. Mekeel's testimony is simply false and coerced by the police and prosecutor.

All three officers like wise offered consistent but false and perjurious testimony. The officers testified that they went to the west side yard fence door, looked over the fence and saw me hiding in bushes. This is completely aburd. I was in a large above-ground pool sitting with my arms over the edge, not "hiding in rustling bushes." There are no bushes in the back yard of 2038 Eastgate Way, except a Nandina at the corner. I could not have been hiding there either because it is stringy and because the police testified that I ran from the shrubs to the corner, where I cornerd myself with the fence and start ripping on boards to make a hole to get out. They yelled police stop, but I was able to make a big enough hole to "crawl through like a little doggie" as ASA Lorena-Bueno stated at trial. Of course, this also is untrue and completely absurd. When the police entered the yard, they stated, "There's the hedge clippers, get him!" This is not what I expected. I had a verbal argument with Karissa and expected the police to walk out of thehouse. It seemed obvious that Karissa was going to call 911 she speed walked out the front door screaming her bloody head off. I had thrown the hedge clippers down, took my pants off and got into the above ground pool. I knew she was "getting the police to do her dirty work, oh yeah." The police charge right at me without announcing who they were. It was dark and they had flashlights, but you here stories about police brutality and they scared the hell out of me. I ran to the side yard fence which had a rotten 4"X4" post. It was a pre-fabricated panel and easily pulled away from the corner of the house. There was no pulling of boards away, which is logically impossible to complete in the five or ten seconds it would take to run over and arrest me.

I ran sever steps in the side yard before I was tasered by Officer Sapiera, I assume. Officer Sapiera lunged over to me and cuffed before Officer Harriet and Officer Azevedo arrived and read me my rights. All the Officers testified that they were in a foot chase several yards down, when I realized that they were catching up and I turned and standed off like a wrestler. In the Police Report they stated that I "aggressively lurched" at them, but this lie was dropped in the Use of Force Report and the trial testimony. Officer Sapiera said at trial he cuffed me, and it was Officer Azevedo that tased me. Why can't three officers take an unarmed man without use of taser? Because I weighed in at whopping 285 pounds, and they were smaller. It had to be officer Sapiera who tased me, because the other officers were coming from behind and I was shot in the chest. There was no foot chase, no standing off, and certainly no "aggressive lurch."

To add insult to injury, Officer Sapiera testified that I immediately blurted, "I've been drinking!" Again, this is completely false and perjurious, and by this time the officer and the prosecutor were almost laughing their way through the trial. In actuality, an officer read me my Miranda rights and I stated that I did not harm Karissa or threaten her in any way. That is in the police report, but was not admitted at trial because it was a "self-serving statement." Well, that is more than enough crimes committed against me by the state. I suppose the motivation for this malicious prosecution is that Florida doesn't only go after criminals, it goes after criminal defense attorneys!