- Abe Bonowitz:
- We just want to spend a few minutes getting people’s
impressions… I’m recording this conversation. So I just want to see
what
people’s experience was just for the record and also so we can report
on it
to the movement… so…. I think SueZann and I went first and Laura was
in
there to film it, and of course the Associated Press and Miami Herald
came
in, too with us as well as Florida’s News Channel. So we had good
media
presence - we'll see what they do with it. But the amazing thing was
that
afterwards they thanked us for making today not so boring. Normally
covering these events is a boring thing for them and we’ve made the
news. So we’ll see what happens with that.
My own impressions are that I, I let SueZann take the lead and tried
to
fill in, and SueZann did a great job. While we were waiting, we
figured
out that we could shuffle the order we were in to make sure we saw
Jeb. Andrew was the sacrificial lamb so to speak, to allow us to get
together and guarantee that we saw the Governor… So that’s what
happened
and SueZann, what do you think?
- SueZann Bosler:
- You know, the first impression… I was never
expecting to… I was supposed to not cry or anything like that… but I
just
got emotional and that seemed to get his attention more than I
expected, so
I guess it worked out better but in the long run, it really…. What
caught
my eye was actually when you (Abe) were talking to him and you
said…”victims pain for political gain” is when I saw the hair stand
up on
the back of his neck and his face turned red. So that’s when I saw
him
getting a bit defensive but then….
- Abe Bonowitz:
- Jeb got into political mode?”
- SueZann Bosler:
- Yes. Then he got all flustered a little bit
there. So, I mean but we had to keep on going back and forth with
you
know…I, I slipped in something for you and you for me, but I think he
listened, I mean, after I told him what happened to me and my father,
I
mean, I, I, it’s like I was eye-locked with him for the longest time,
it
was amazing. I mean, that moment. I just felt like it was a moment
of
time that I was finally getting listened to by the Governor. My
side, as a
victim, was finally getting heard.
- Abe Bonowitz:
- Anything else to add? No. OK - We’ll come back to
you…
Bernie, who did you see?
- Bernie Welch:
- I saw Lt. Governor Brogan. And I took an obnoxiously
subtle tact here… I figured we had enough people talking directly
about the
death penalty, I actually talked about drug rehabilitation and a
program
outside of St. Augustine. Initially I was going to put it into the
context
of the Governor’s own daughter, you know, because I, I really feel
that if
people you know, any of us, you know, if we look at our own lives and
our
own family and our own vulnerabilities that may be a stepping stone
to a
little more compassionate view of people that we think are “them”
that
really aren’t “them” they’re “us.” And, anyway, Brogan was very
receptive
and positive about it, and I gave him a whole brochure on this
faith-based
program, and we actually started talking about restorative justice.
You
know that certainly is a more positive approach than the kind of
criminal
justice system we have that says, you know, beat this guy over the
head and
everything will be all right in society…so…anyway, that’s where I was
at.
- Dennis Lane:
- I talked to Lt. Governor Brogan. I thought
his
remarks were rather shallow and political. I said we are patching
the
capital punishment procedures in Florida I think we should quit
patching
and start to use a moratorium to try to develop a set of procedures
that we
can live with, to serve justice. I tried to emphasize what I think,
I
think it’s costing us a great deal in terms of people resources when
we
just disregard justice. I think the system is unfair and I told him
that. He…I talked about the moratorium which may result from the
present
Florida Supreme Court review of the case and he said, “well I agree
with
that, we shouldn’t be patching, the federal government shouldn’t be
interfering with us, they should decide we need the death penalty
once and
for all,” and of course I didn’t try to refute that because it’s not
true,
as you know, because about half of the states don’t have the death
penalty. And I said I agree with the federal government being in the
picture, but we have the power down here to decide if we want the
death
penalty, and we shouldn’t have it. And I tried to point out, you
know,
it’s unfair, it’s really unfairly applied and as O.J. Simpson’s
lawyer
said, ‘the best justice that money can buy.’ And if you’ve got the
money
and the people we’re executing don’t have the money.
- Abe Bonowitz:
- Did you feel heard?
- Dennis Lane:
- I don’t think so. I, I think he was giving
me the
political ear and I assume it just went into the ground, but, again,
he
said the right things, ‘I’m gonna communicate with the Governor very
openly what you have said, you are a very astute individual, you’re a
great
man, Dennis, you’re obviously one that’s very thoughtful....
- Abe Bonowitz:
- Laughter. It was worth coming?
- Dennis Lane:
- Yea, yea, we gotta show our presence. You
know,
I’ve been to see the young man over at Raiford twice and I gotta go
back again.
- Abe Bonowitz:
- Who do you visit at Raiford?
- Dennis Lane:
- Merrit?__Sims. And I just think, you know
maybe
I’m standing in for him a little bit here, and for the others there.
The
trip over… sure it was worth it being with Brother Welch here, who is
an
inspiration and seeing you again, Abe, which is always an
inspiration.
- Abe Bonowitz:
- Well, thank you.
Joe Brew: We started first about race and he pretty
much said
that there has been problems but he is trying to fix them and that’s
right
now with the Supreme Court calling essentially a moratorium, and then
we
went on to talk about the death penalty in general…
- Abe Bonowitz:
- Now, this is with the Governor, right?
- Joe Brew:
- Yeah, yeah, this was with Jeb. I told him
that I
was Catholic and he said he was a devout Roman Catholic as well and I
asked
him, like what he thought about the Bishops call for a moratorium and
the
Pope’s call for a moratorium, and he said that’s just one place where
he
disagrees with the church and he feels that they’re wrong and I asked
him
whether…if Jesus was alive today if he thought that Jesus would
support
capital punishment and he said didn’t know and that there are
passages in
the Bible that would lead him to believe that he would support it and
there
are passages that would lead him to believe that he wouldn’t, and I
could,
I could say the passages would believe him not to support the death
penalty
like, you know, like the stone passage with the lady and the eye for
an eye
thing and just all that stuff and then I asked him if he could state
any
examples of passages that would lead him to support the death penalty
and
he said he couldn’t think of any of the parables right off hand but
there
were if you actually studied the Bible. But I think he needs a
little more
studying himself. Right then, he kind of stood up and he was like,
all
right, it’s been long enough.
- Abe Bonowitz:
- Did he give you anything? Did you get his autograph?
- Joe Brew:
- No, no, I’d rather not have…
- Abe Bonowitz:
- Are you happy that you came?
- Joe Brew:
- I am. I think it was good… I think, I know
he’s
still a politician. He’s pretty good at faking things. But I think
at
least he heard me, you know, like whether he was paying attention or
not. The more that people talk to him, the more he has to start
paying
attention.
- Abe Bonowitz:
- Not too many 16 year olds get a chance to sit down
one on
one with the Governor. Would you recommend other people to try to do
that?
- Joe Brew:
- Yeah, definitely….
- Abe Bonowitz:
- Thank you! Andrew! The sacrificial lamb. Andrew,
you met
with Lt. Governor Brogan.
- Andrew Mason:
- Yes. Well, I brought up some other issues besides
just the
death penalty, and my approach was figuring that everybody is going
to be
confronting him with their alternative, their positions against the
death
penalty to their positions and counteracting and saying, ‘look the
reasons
for stopping the death penalty are this and this and you guys are
doing the
wrong thing,’ so I brought a kind of perspective of supporter who is
fearful that they are going to lose votes because of their support of
the
death penalty and some other issues where I oppose them, so my kind
of
approach…
- Abe Bonowitz:
- You actually pretended to be a supporter of the death
penalty?
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Read Andrew Mason's comment card to the
Governor: Click image to enlarge. |
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- Andrew Mason:
- Basically. My approach was that, you know, I went in
and
he was all friendly, you know, he’s a very slick politician, Frank
Brogan,
and he’s been doing and practicing a while I would say, he’s pretty
good. I went in and I brought up the issue of them allowing a cement
factory on the Ichnetucknee River which is gonna pollute what is the
last
clean, the most pristine river in Florida, and his responses were
emotive
and personal and trying to make connection with me and make me a part
of
it, and he said, ‘well I have a stake in our environment and we’ve
got good
people and good scientists and this administration’s got a great
record and
nobody’s perfect but we do things really good and I have friends who
go
innertubing in
the old Itch and so, we couldn’t do anything that was gonna mess up
that
river and all’, you know that kind of basic BS to kind of sidetrack
things
and so I said well what if something does go wrong, when you guys
gonna…’well you know we’re getting on things and we’re cleaning up
all
sorts of places have done horrible things but that was before us and
we
came in and we started cleaning things up.’
But what about the drilling off the coast? “Well, we didn’t allow
any
drilling. We actually fought back and we took ____ back and defended
our
state against the federal government ___do this and that.’ It
doesn’t add
up with what’s actually happening, the way he portrays it and then
when I
brought up the death penalty, I said, you know, people are, you know,
turning off to the death penalty, you know, most of us might support
it,
‘cause that’s what he said, ‘well, it seems like a lot of people
support
the death penalty, you know,’ and I said, well ‘most of us might
support
it, but you know we want it to be right and you guys are pushin’ it
when
it’s not right and it’s broken and you know to push it along like
that is
just gonna make people turn off even more and lose people who are
supporting it and I think you really need to just stop and take a
look at
it and re-examine things, you know, there have been court cases where
people have been exonerated and there have been convictions
overturned
because they are retarded and the appeals court has said you can’t
execute
people with mental retardation and you can’t execute people if their
sentence was imposed by a judge and you know, you just want to press
ahead
with that and I see Jeb on TV and it looks pretty bad and I think the
Democrats could just seize upon this and you guys will totally lose
the
election because you know, people say, oh I don’t know if I can
support
that. They’re pressin’ on with things and he said, ‘well, it’s just
hard
to know what people are gonna do.’ That was his response to that,
you
know, ‘it’s just hard to know what people are gonna do. But, I’ll
tell you
what, it’s the hardest part of Jeb’s day, it tortures him really, to
have
to sign those death warrants. And the other side, they try and play
it up
like he’s a big bad guy who wants to kill people. It’s just not like
that.” So what can you do? I just asked him for an autograph and
told him
“I’ll vote for you.”
- Abe Bonowitz:
- Laura?
- Laura:
- I asked him just to follow-up on when you guys went
and why
he wasn’t there. And he said he was in Miami and he didn’t want to
talk to
me. He said, ‘didn’t we already do this?’ And I said, no. And he
said
‘you already came in here and did this. Why are you in here again?”
and I
said, no, this is something separate. Something completely separate
so you
have to talk to me. And then we spoke
- Abe Bonowitz:
- Was anyone else in the room at that time?
- Laura:
- No there was no one else. And then he told me he
wasn’t
there but that he respects you and he respects the moratorium
walkers, and
I also asked him something that you brought up SueZann when you said
if it
was a family member would you ever sign a death warrant. I asked him
that
and he said, ‘no one’s ever asked me that before.’ So I said, “so
could
you?” And he said, well I would hope that none of my family members
would
you know cause such an atrocious crime.” “So, would you?” And he
says, ‘I
can’t answer that. I I don’t know. It’s hard enough to sign them as
is. You know, you’re asking me something no one has ever asked me.
So I
don’t know. And he said “I have to go.” And that was it. He didn’t
give
me too much time.
- Abe Bonowitz:
- Does anyone want to add anything? No? Well thank
you all
very much.
Great job!
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