The One
2nd February 2014, 10:36
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/florida-boys-school.jpg
This week, the remains of fifty-five bodies were found in unmarked graves on the grounds of the former Florida School for Boys, in the panhandle town of Marianna. The reformatory school, which was operated by the state of Florida, and which closed in 2011, was notorious for its mistreatment of its students. In 1968, Florida’s governor at the time, Claude Kirk, said of the school, “Somebody should have blown the whistle a long time ago.” There have long been allegations of beatings, torture, and sexual abuse there; it now appears that some students were killed. The total number of bodies buried at the school has not been determined, but the forensic anthropologist Erin Kimmerle, the leader of the exhumation effort, which has been under way since September 2013, has said that it may exceed a hundred.
Some of the children died natural deaths, but the sheer number of bodies suggests that there may have been many killings, a possibility buttressed by eyewitness accounts. Yet Florida’s prosecutors have yet to file a single criminal charge, or even open a criminal investigation. To pass over crimes of this magnitude without investigation seems the very definition of injustice.
There is no statute of limitations for murder and other crimes causing death, which means that there is no legal bar to bringing charges. In Florida, all capital cases have long had no statute of limitations, and when these crimes were allegedly committed forcible rape was punishable by death. But there are challenges to prosecuting old crimes: given how much time has passed, it may be difficult to determine who was responsible for the killings, and many of the suspects, meanwhile, have already died, including the school’s longtime superintendent, Lenox Williams, who died in 2010. Some are still alive, including Troy Tidwell, an instructor at the school, who was accused of abuse in a class-action lawsuit filed by more than two hundred former students in 2009. (Tidwell denies the accusations, and the case was dismissed after a judge ruled that the statute of limitations on the charges had run out.)
In spite of these difficulties, a prosecutor still has many options in a case like this one. Scenes of mass death, like those caused by fires at night clubs in which the exits are blocked, are often prosecuted as cases of involuntary manslaughter. If the wantonly negligent operation of the school led to many deaths, the Florida School of Boys was like a deadly fire in slow motion. In addition, some of the school’s surviving employees and managers could potentially be prosecuted for felony murder—Florida law includes special provisions for deaths that occur during the abuse of minors—or, alternatively, members of the staff could be prosecuted as members of a conspiracy. There may also be fresher claims of obstruction of justice. A law student could probably find more options, let alone a dedicated prosecutor.
The case may be challenging, but great resources have been invested in prosecuting crimes far less heinous. However, Glenn Hess, the state attorney for the district that includes Marianna, has decided not to do anything at all. In 2009, an important investigation by the Tampa Bay Times prompted the governor’s office to order a state investigation, which for the most part took the school’s side of the story. After reviewing the report, Hess declined to open a criminal investigation. In a short letter, he cited the statute of limitations for lesser crimes, and the evidence of some conflicting testimony by victims. Both reasons are poor. Again, the statute of limitations is no bar to capital crimes for which there is testimonial evidence. And, while there may be conflicting testimony with respect to the killings and torture, there is certainly no shortage of it.
Any responsible prosecutor, especially now, given the discovery of more bodies, would at a minimum impanel a grand jury and begin collecting evidence. Hess has apparently had no direct exposure to the relevant testimony; it is his job to bring evidence of crimes to a grand jury, not to rule on the merits himself, based on secondhand evidence. As a rule of thumb, in cases alleging a series of murders and the torture of children, the prosecutor has a duty to try a little harder.
Florida’s official inaction stands in stark contrast to the robust prosecutorial response to charges of child abuse at a different state-run institution, Penn State. There, the Pennsylvania Attorney General, Linda Kelly, charged the main perpetrator, Jerry Sandusky, with forty-eight counts of sexual assault, and charged three other officials with lying to grand juries and taking other efforts to cover up the crime. In Florida, despite at least fifty-five dead bodies and dozens of victim statements of abuse, the criminal system is silent.
The story of the Florida School for Boys is so painful in part because difficult and delinquent boys are so easy to forget about. They are, in our time, the least among us, the most vulnerable, and the easiest to victimize. But this is precisely why the state of Florida should put the remaining old men on trial for crimes committed so long ago: to ignore such crimes is to compound the sin. We should not confirm the principle that some among us can be raped, tortured, or killed without repercussion. These dead boys, whose lives were discarded, should not be forgotten again.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2014/01/prosecutors-are-failing-the-victims-of-floridas-notorious-reform-school.html
This week, the remains of fifty-five bodies were found in unmarked graves on the grounds of the former Florida School for Boys, in the panhandle town of Marianna. The reformatory school, which was operated by the state of Florida, and which closed in 2011, was notorious for its mistreatment of its students. In 1968, Florida’s governor at the time, Claude Kirk, said of the school, “Somebody should have blown the whistle a long time ago.” There have long been allegations of beatings, torture, and sexual abuse there; it now appears that some students were killed. The total number of bodies buried at the school has not been determined, but the forensic anthropologist Erin Kimmerle, the leader of the exhumation effort, which has been under way since September 2013, has said that it may exceed a hundred.
Some of the children died natural deaths, but the sheer number of bodies suggests that there may have been many killings, a possibility buttressed by eyewitness accounts. Yet Florida’s prosecutors have yet to file a single criminal charge, or even open a criminal investigation. To pass over crimes of this magnitude without investigation seems the very definition of injustice.
There is no statute of limitations for murder and other crimes causing death, which means that there is no legal bar to bringing charges. In Florida, all capital cases have long had no statute of limitations, and when these crimes were allegedly committed forcible rape was punishable by death. But there are challenges to prosecuting old crimes: given how much time has passed, it may be difficult to determine who was responsible for the killings, and many of the suspects, meanwhile, have already died, including the school’s longtime superintendent, Lenox Williams, who died in 2010. Some are still alive, including Troy Tidwell, an instructor at the school, who was accused of abuse in a class-action lawsuit filed by more than two hundred former students in 2009. (Tidwell denies the accusations, and the case was dismissed after a judge ruled that the statute of limitations on the charges had run out.)
In spite of these difficulties, a prosecutor still has many options in a case like this one. Scenes of mass death, like those caused by fires at night clubs in which the exits are blocked, are often prosecuted as cases of involuntary manslaughter. If the wantonly negligent operation of the school led to many deaths, the Florida School of Boys was like a deadly fire in slow motion. In addition, some of the school’s surviving employees and managers could potentially be prosecuted for felony murder—Florida law includes special provisions for deaths that occur during the abuse of minors—or, alternatively, members of the staff could be prosecuted as members of a conspiracy. There may also be fresher claims of obstruction of justice. A law student could probably find more options, let alone a dedicated prosecutor.
The case may be challenging, but great resources have been invested in prosecuting crimes far less heinous. However, Glenn Hess, the state attorney for the district that includes Marianna, has decided not to do anything at all. In 2009, an important investigation by the Tampa Bay Times prompted the governor’s office to order a state investigation, which for the most part took the school’s side of the story. After reviewing the report, Hess declined to open a criminal investigation. In a short letter, he cited the statute of limitations for lesser crimes, and the evidence of some conflicting testimony by victims. Both reasons are poor. Again, the statute of limitations is no bar to capital crimes for which there is testimonial evidence. And, while there may be conflicting testimony with respect to the killings and torture, there is certainly no shortage of it.
Any responsible prosecutor, especially now, given the discovery of more bodies, would at a minimum impanel a grand jury and begin collecting evidence. Hess has apparently had no direct exposure to the relevant testimony; it is his job to bring evidence of crimes to a grand jury, not to rule on the merits himself, based on secondhand evidence. As a rule of thumb, in cases alleging a series of murders and the torture of children, the prosecutor has a duty to try a little harder.
Florida’s official inaction stands in stark contrast to the robust prosecutorial response to charges of child abuse at a different state-run institution, Penn State. There, the Pennsylvania Attorney General, Linda Kelly, charged the main perpetrator, Jerry Sandusky, with forty-eight counts of sexual assault, and charged three other officials with lying to grand juries and taking other efforts to cover up the crime. In Florida, despite at least fifty-five dead bodies and dozens of victim statements of abuse, the criminal system is silent.
The story of the Florida School for Boys is so painful in part because difficult and delinquent boys are so easy to forget about. They are, in our time, the least among us, the most vulnerable, and the easiest to victimize. But this is precisely why the state of Florida should put the remaining old men on trial for crimes committed so long ago: to ignore such crimes is to compound the sin. We should not confirm the principle that some among us can be raped, tortured, or killed without repercussion. These dead boys, whose lives were discarded, should not be forgotten again.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2014/01/prosecutors-are-failing-the-victims-of-floridas-notorious-reform-school.html