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Boot camp trial may not be a slam
dunk - MARTIN LEE ANDERSON
June 22, 2007
By Sue Carlton
On Sept. 24, some good citizens of
the Panhandle town of Panama City and surrounding Bay County will
report for jury duty in the infamous boot camp case.
Get ready, Florida.
Some people probably figure they
know how this will turn out. By now everyone's seen the disturbing
video of 14-year-old Martin Lee Anderson kneed, hit and manhandled
by guards as a nurse looks on.
We followed the outrage over his
death, the probe by specially assigned prosecutors from Hillsborough
County, the manslaughter charges. Boot camps have been abolished,
and the state has agreed to pay Anderson's family $5-million.
How will it play out in Panama
City?
They do things a little differently
up that way. Take their medical examiner, a key player early on in
the case.
The state Medical Examiners
Commission recently said Dr. Charles Siebert Jr. should be removed
from office. He plans to appeal.
Siebert originally said Anderson
died because of complications from sickle cell trait. But a
Hillsborough medical examiner said the teen suffocated after he was
forced to inhale ammonia capsules.
A review of Siebert's work found
him negligent in 39 of 698 autopsies. In one case, he noted the
presence of testes on a girl's body.
Last week, members of the
commission expressed concerns about his honesty and thoroughness. A
board member said they were sending "a clear message" to the Bay
County state attorney who was expected to name an interim medical
examiner.
Message rejected.
This week, State Attorney Steve
Meadows announced he'd be keeping Siebert for the three-month
interim stint. Forget the firing - he expressed confidence in the
doctor and said, "I will not sacrifice Charles Siebert on the altar
of political expediency or correctness." Meadows, by the way, also
chairs the search committee to nominate the permanent examiner.
Meadows also hired Guy Tunnell, Bay
County boy and former Florida Department of Law Enforcement
commissioner. Tunnell resigned last year after political fallout
that included his not-so-funny comments about the expected arrival
of "Obama bin Laden" and Jesse James (a.k.a. Jackson) at a protest
over the boot camp death.
He also took flak for sending
sympathetic messages to his old buddy, the Bay County sheriff, about
the boot camp investigation. Now he's a state attorney's office
investigator back home, where apparently folks know how to take a
joke.
Maybe it would be an insult to the
good people of rural, conservative Bay County to wonder whether
prosecutors can find a fair jury, a question usually raised by the
defense. The rules say lawyers have to try to pick a panel where the
crime occurred.
And they better hurry. The state
asked for three weeks for a trial that will include complex medical
testimony, evidence of what eight defendants did, and dozens of
witnesses to be cross-examination by eight defense lawyers. The
judge says eight days max. That's one day per defendant.
Presumably the folks who have come
to hearings in T-shirts hand-lettered with slogans supporting the
accused will be told to keep those sentiments outside, just like
those seeking conviction. The seven guards and the nurse who
surrounded Martin Lee Anderson that day deserve unbiased
consideration - nothing less, and nothing more.
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