Day 360- Betsie Gallardo

Dear Mr. President,

When I read about a woman dying in a Florida prison, refused release on humanitarian grounds and facing a slow death by starvation, I wanted to navigate away from the page, to forget the story and to write about something else tonight. But I can't. Betsie Gallardo, born HIV+ and impoverished in Haiti, was sentenced in 2008 to 5 years in prison for assaulting an officer with a deadly weapon, a charge based on the fallacious premise that she could spread HIV to a police officer by spitting on him. Gallardo had been repeatedly sexually assaulted by a police officer in Haiti and had an intense, emotional reaction to the arrival of an officer at the scene of a car accident. She had no previous criminal record. She has since been diagnosed with terminal cancer and is no longer able to digest food. The state has refused requests from her family for release on humanitarian grounds and also refused to allow them to be with her when she dies.

Mr. President there are rapists and drug dealers and no shortage of white-collar criminals who serve far less than 5 years in prison for far worse crimes. The outrageous nature of this charge, which was certainly exacerbated by Gallardo's HIV status, is compounded with the truly cruel treatment of a dying woman and her family. How is this justice? How is a system that can look so dispassionately at the suffering of a human being the best that we can do in America? I don't approve of what she did, but this sentence (especially in light of her cancer) is stark evidence of the racism and irrationality that infect our criminal justice system. How am I supposed to feel good about sending the shoplifters I catch to a system so obviously broken? How are we supposed to criticize Iran or China for human rights abuses when we allow things like this?

You might throw up your hands and say it's a state issue, but you probably have a more direct means of reaching Governor Crist than Gallardo's family. Pick up the phone and ask him to pardon her, allow her to die at home with her family and her freedom. No reasonable human being believes she deserved a death sentence, but that is exactly what her punishment has become. The entire system needs reform, and that will take time, but right now one woman deserves a different fate. Please do the right thing.

Respectfully yours,

Kelsey

If I have readers in Florida, I urge you to contact Governor Crist and the rest of the Executive Clemency Board:

Charlie Crist, Governor of Florida
(850) 488-4441
E-mail: charlie.crist@myflorida.com
http://www.flgov.com/contact_governor

Bill McCollum, Attorney General
(850) 414-3300
Click here to e-mail Mr. McCollum
www.myfloridalegal.com/contact

Charles Bronson, Commissioner Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services
(850) 488-3022
commissioner@doacs.state.fl.us
http://www.doacs.state.fl.us/

Alex Sink, Chief Financial Officer Florida Department of Financial Services
(850) 413-3100
Alex.Sink@myfloridacfo.com
http://www.myfloridacfo.com/

Day 110

Dear Mr. President,

I’m sorry about Arizona. Not any legislation that they may have passed lately, but really about the entire state. If they try to secede from union, please let them.

Tonight I'm having a heated discussion with friends about the Supreme Court's decision on animal cruelty videos. I made Hollandaise sauce for the first time, so maybe I was feeling just a bit arrogant. Anyway, I quickly realized it might be a mistake to start such a conversation in this group of people. None of us knows what to think, and the few that started out certain of their opinions are not so any longer. I only know that I don't know anything completely. I'm a big advocate of free speech; I'm also a big advocate of people not being allowed to profit from or get off on animals being tortured and killed. Maybe this is a real test of my first amendment advocacy. After all, it's easy to defend speech that you don't find objectionable. The real test is when some one's behavior crosses your personal threshold for acceptable expression.

I don't disagree with the Supreme Court about this specific law; it was overly broad and clearly problematic in several ways. I think that the cruelty toward animals practiced by many agricultural companies and even some hunters has no place in our society, but I recognize that I'm among the most extreme in these views. Still, I think there's some common ground to be found in the worst cases of violence against animals. Try as I might, articulating that in legal terms has been difficult. Could we ban the sale, distribution or possession of pornographic videos that involve live animals? Defining pornography, of course, becomes problematic.

How do you feel about this decision, Mr. President? Do you feel that the law struck down should be re-written in a way that doesn't pose a threat to the first amendment? Is this an area of expression that warrants some restriction? Or should we accept this horrifying material as the unavoidable by-product of living in a free society?

I don't think any one, even the 8 Justices who voted with the majority on this, feel good about today's decision. It is one of those haunting reminders of the frightening and even dangerous complexities of our society; our complete inability to be safe, free, and morally upright all at once, all the time.

Respectfully yours,

Kelsey