55 bodies and 0 trials at the florida school for boys
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 leader of the exhumation effort, the forensic anthropologist Erin Kimmerle, 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.
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the stories of the survivors and families are chilling
http://thewhitehouseboysonline.com/
My brother Gregory Sampson just before
going to Dozer 1965. He arrived at Dozer on
March 16th 1965 and turned 13 on the 17th
of March 1965. He came home at the end of
Oct or 1st of Nov of 1965 in a wheel chair, a
patch over his right eye, could not speak,
walk, and barely could move arms He never
recovered and died June 6th 0f 1966. I do
not know what he endured at Dozer and I
may never know. So rest in peace my dear
brother, I still love you and miss you
everyday....Jeffrey Sampson
100 bodies????!!!! That's amazingly tragic. Florida is truly a fucked up place to live. Than as well as now!
is my new hero. The State of Florida kept telling her to run along, nothing to see here, young lady, Rick Scott refused to let her do any excavations. Without her persistence, those little graves would still be hidden.
I would rant but I'll save it for now.
To those that were murdered...
Can we get Buggs to do this for real? Or give it back to Spain, or something?
