Charlie's trial is tomorrow

Update: Donna in Evanston and Catreona both have diaries at Kos about Charlie.

Note from Renee...I need to leave in a few minutes for my EFM class. Don't really feel like going out tonight, but I already missed last week's class. Checking comments I saw something from Charlie, so I am logging in as "guest blogger" to front page it. This is all I have the time or energy to do at the moment, so I hope that people will take it from here and post links to Charlie's post on other blogs.

Message from Charlie
Submitted by Charlie Grapski on Sat, 11/11/2006 - 11:16am.

The one question that people ask me, whether we are talking to people locally or across the nation, is how can this trial be happening. There is a great deal of disbelief that the Courts and the State Attorney would allow this case to move forward as it has if there wasn't something else that wasn't being told. Why would they allow a case to be dragged out six months and then go to trial (and this only because I forced the trial by asserting my right to a speedy trial) if there was not some wrongdoing on my part?

And they are correct. There is something missing from the picture as it is publicly viewed. And it does have to deal with an element of wrongdoing. But wrongdoing on whose part?

Last Tuesday I met with the prosecuting attorney who has been pursuing this case, Geoffrey Fleck. Everything he said to me can be confirmed, not by a recording, but by a witness - Michael Canney - who was with me at the meeting.

To understand how and why the State Attorney can continue to prosecute this case (and how a judge can allow them to do so) one only has to listen to what Fleck said at that meeting.

"The system will close in to protect itself."

This is the motivation behind the actions of the public officials involved in this matter from Clovis Watson and the City of Alachua, to Bill Cervone and the State Attorney's office, to Judge Sieg.

"The system" - one of them - has gotten itself into trouble. They stole an election and then tried to silence those who attempted to expose that fact. But rather than law enforcement and the courts seeking to right that wrong in the name of justice and the public good; we find the individuals in that system - the nexus of the political, law enforcement, and legal communities (all public officials) - acting to protect one another rather than the public.

It was on this basis that Geoffrey Fleck viewed his offer to grant me a Deferred Prosecution rather than try the case. It had nothing to do with who was right or who was wrong. It had everything to do with who had power and who did not (in their eyes).

I might be innocent of the crime alleged but the State could muster its forces sufficiently to place me into a position of vulnerability - simply because they had the power to do so. Is that the legitimate authority of their position of public trust? No. But it is a real power, Fleck wanted to stress, because no player in that system - including the Judge - would side with the player outside of that system (the citizen).

Fleck's honesty in that meeting reveals less about his character than his belief that the powers of the State when wielded sufficiently will force any citizen (actually from this viewpoint we are more accurately mere subjects) into submission. And normally, each and every day, their view is reinforced by the realities of that power differential. The normal, average individual will not stand their ground against the forces of the State - especially when they close ranks to protect one of their own.

And this is understandable. To fight "the law" is nearly impossible unless you are willing to endure substantial hardships and sacrifices. "The law," here meaning the power of authority, which is not necessarily the legitimate use of that authority and the power thereby derived. It is not the law as justice - the law that we, as citizens, enact for ourselves (through our elected representatives), to ensure that our government aims at justice and the public good. It is brute, naked power - force - clothed in the legitimacy afforded by our laws that the State is wielding in this case. But it is not legitimate power.

Fleck's stated position was accurate - the system will close ranks to protect itself and thus to protect one of its own. The reality that this system extends beyond the City limits of Alachua and into those in charge of law enforcement and the law throughout the Eighth Judicial Circuit should be a wakeup call to all Floridians not just those residing in Alachua. The legal and political system is supposed to protect the rights, the liberties, and the well-being of the public. It is not supposed to weild its power to protect itself from public accountability.

This is the law perverted, politics corrupted, and justice and the public good denied. I will continue to stand up in defense of not merely my rights but the rights of all of us, as citizens, against the abuses of power. I will not yield in this struggle regardless of the personal cost and without regard to how many, or how powerful, are the actors willing to abuse their positions of authority to protect one of their own or themselves.

The message, however, that I want to convey as widely as possible is not about my personal struggle in all of this. It is about our struggle. It is about our rights. It is about our Constitution. It is about our government.

We are being denied that form of democratic government which this nation was founded upon and people have sacrificed all to defend. When we, as citizens, allow those we entrust with positions of public authority to abuse that trust, to misuse that authority, to wield that power for their own interests - they are denying us that to which we all have a fundamental right: equal justice under the law, liberty and freedom, justice and the public good.

These are the actors who are destroying our nation. We don't have to look far - to Washington D.C. or Tallahassee - to see the roots of our national crisis. It is right here in our own back yard.

If we cannot expect the premises of democratic government and justice in our local government - where we, as citizens, potentially wield the greatest power; then we have no chance, regardless of which major party holds the majority, to realize the dreams of generations of Americans at the national level.

I am calling upon you, whoever you are, wherever you live, to begin standing up for your rights and your dignity. Expect to be treated as a citizen, and not a subject, by those you entrust with public authority. Do not allow their system to destroy our government.

There is more to this story than my particular struggle. This is a struggle for all of us to unite in - the struggle to re-establish the citizen as the highest office in our democracy.

Charlie Grapski

Alternate link for comments