Cutting Through The Crap

Remember the two folks who were arrested while they were handing out Gideon Bibles near a school in Monroe County? The Gideon folks believed they had a right under the First Amendment to pass out bibles on the bike path where they apparently were. Well, they had a court hearing recently, and the judge threw out the case.

The State Attorney said the defendants were trespassing. "This was never a free speech case," . . . he said. "It was a trespass case."

Yeah, right! No one believed that for a Key West minute; including the judge. Of course this was a First Amendment case. Who was the prosecutor trying to kid?

This was also a case of an over zealous prosecutor who apparently didn't have a case or forgot to bring it to the Courthouse. The case never should have been brought in the first place. Once it was, however, the prosecutor should have accepted the plea deal offered by the defense attorney. It's likely that emotion and ego got in the way. And then there was face-saving to be done.

So Judge Payne cleverly cut through the crap and did the right thing.