Church Presents Live Nativity Scene
December 21, 2013
The Friendship Freewill Baptist Church celebrated the season with a live Nativity scene on Highway 31 east of Flomaton near the Country Pine Furniture Store.Courtesy photos for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Major Coleman
December 21, 2013
Mr. Major Coleman, 77, passed away on Thursday, December 19, 2013, in Atmore.
Mr. Coleman was a native of Evergreen, Alabama and has resided in Atmore for the past 53 years. Mr. Coleman was a very loving, devoted, caring husband and provider for 56 years and also a loving and devoted father, grandfather and great-grandfather who will be remembered and cherished forever. Mr. Coleman was retired from Swift Lumber Company after 15 years of service. His son, Major Ren Coleman, Jr. and a daughter, Wanda Jean Coleman precede him in death.
He is survived by his wife of 56 years, Willernese Gates Coleman of Atmore; one daughter, Judy Coleman (Mike) Capello; four brothers, Cecil Coleman and Obie Coleman both of Atmore, Curtis Coleman and Don Coleman both of Atlanta; four sisters, Christine Cormier of Atmore, Nancy Helsabeck of Seattle, WA, Minnie Ruth (Willie) English of Walnut Hill and Jean (Jerry) Searcy of Atmore; two grandchildren, Stacey (Ronald) Stabler of Pensacola and Crystal (Matt) Moye of Atmore; and three great-grandchildren, Madelynn, Hunter and Abbie Grace Moye.
Funeral services will be Monday, December 23, 2013, at 2 p.m. at the Petty-Eastside Chapel with Rev. Carl Roake and Rev. Alan Chace officiating.
Burial will follow at the Canoe Freewill Cemetery.
Visitation will be held Sunday, December 22, 2013, from 6 p.m. until 9 p.m. at the Petty- Eastside Chapel Funeral Home.
Pallbearers will be Koty Crews, Daniel English, Bill English, Ricky Coleman, Tony Coleman and Adam Coleman.
Honorary pallbearers will be Jamie Coleman, Bobby Stacey, Curt Coleman, Mike Capello and Ronald Stabler.
Petty-Eastside Chapel Funeral Homes, LLC is in charge of all arrangements.
Florida Gov’t Weekly Roundup: ‘Twas The Fights Before Christmas
December 21, 2013
‘Twas the week before Christmas, when all through the Capitol
Controversies were brewing, few of them little.
The displays were placed in the lobby with care
In hopes that they could endure a legal scare.
And Weatherford in the House, and Gaetz the Senate
Faced the legal version of a strong, stern tut-tut.
PRETTY PAPER
Groups challenging the constitutionality of the state’s congressional districts must have thought they got an early Christmas gift last week when the Florida Supreme Court ordered that lawmakers would have to testify in a case against the new maps. But this week, they suggested that they also got a lump of coal.
In court filings, the groups asked for documents and testimony explaining why the Legislature might have destroyed records about the 2012 redistricting process that could be relevant to the case. That followed filings by lawyers for the House and Senate that suggested some of the papers the League of Women Voters of Florida and its allies were looking for might not be there.
“In strict compliance with these written record-retention policies, legislative records, including records related to congressional redistricting, were sometimes, and appropriately, discarded,” lawyers for the Legislature wrote. “The legislative parties are without knowledge of the facts and circumstances of particular communications.”
- The argument from lawmakers was, essentially, that any record not protected by law is subject to the rules set out each term by the House and the Senate. None of the records that the Legislature must preserve were destroyed, but some of the documents that weren’t specifically protected might have been.
Needless to say, groups opposed to the maps were not filled with Christmas cheer by the revelation.
“After all the public comments by legislators expressing their belief that litigation was inevitable, the admission that any redistricting records were destroyed should have Florida voters up in arms,” said Deirdre Macnab, president of the League of Women Voters of Florida. “Today’s disclosure is just another example of those in charge abusing their power and then hiding behind the lame excuse that they didn’t know what they were doing.”
House Speaker Will Weatherford countered by adamantly denying that his chamber had been naughty.
“Any accusation that the Florida House of Representative thwarted the law and destroyed documents is completely false,” said Weatherford, a Wesley Chapel Republican who chaired the House committee that drew the lines in 2012. “We not only complied with the letter and the spirit of the public record laws and longstanding House rules, but also went above and beyond those standards when it came to redistricting.”
DECK THE HALLS
Meanwhile, the fighting over what can and can’t go up in the Capitol lobby to mark the holidays raged through yet another week, with the Department of Management Services finally finding an example of what was not welcome at the parade.
It took awhile to get that far. After all, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster — more often associated with opposition to the introduction of creationism and intelligent design as science in public schools — was allowed to put up an office desk chair to hold the pseudo-church’s pseudo-deity. (Or a representation thereof, made out of shredded papers that were presumably not destroyed redistricting records.)
The supernatural spaghetti followed a “Festivus” pole of Pabst Blue Ribbon cans put up by South Florida political blogger Chaz Stevens and season signs from the Tallahassee Atheists, The American Atheists Florida Regional Directors and the Madison, Wis.-based Freedom From Religion Foundation.
All of them were a protest against a nativity scene put up by a Christian group, which drew new attention to holiday decorations at the Capitol. A large menorah has been displayed for years to mark Hanukkah without much controversy.
But Satanists — or at least those claiming to be Satanists — need not apply for space in the Capitol. DMS rejected as “grossly offensive” a display that showed an angel falling into hell.
Department administrative assistant Sherrie K. Routt late Wednesday emailed a denial to the New York-based Satanic Temple that said “the department’s position is that your proposed display is grossly offensive during the holiday season.”
Lucien Greaves, a spokesman for the temple, said in an email that his group is giving the department a short time to clarify the offensive nature of the display and to see if some compromise could be worked out before considering legal action.
“It seems unthinkable that the DMS should be presuming negative value judgments upon our very religion itself, engaging in blatant viewpoint discrimination, so we must assume that there is something tangible about the content of the display that is demonstrably astray from established community standards,” Greaves said.
This isn’t Florida first encounter with the temple, which has also been pressing Oklahoma to erect a Satanic monument outside the Oklahoma State Capitol.
Last January, the “Satanists” drew about six of the self-professed devil worshippers to the steps of the Old Capitol for what they said was an event to praise Gov. Rick Scott — but that was reported to be part of an effort to make a fake documentary.
SEXUAL PREDATOR LEGISLATION
There was nothing festive about the highest profile legislation to be filed this week: a package of bills that Senate President Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, said would make the state “scorched earth” for sexually violent predators.
The bills are expected to be a centerpiece of the 2014 session after the South Florida Sun Sentinel reported in August that nearly 600 sexual predators had been released only to be convicted of new sex offenses — including more than 460 child molestations, 121 rapes and 14 murders.
“Over the last several months, we watched in disbelief and disgust as news accounts detailed stories of sexually violent predators slipping through the cracks of our criminal justice and civil commitment system and committing unthinkable repeat offenses against Florida’s most vulnerable children,” Gaetz wrote to senators as the four bills were filed.
The bills are meant in part to strengthen the Jimmy Ryce Act — named for a 9-year-old Miami-Dade County boy who was raped and murdered in 1995 — which requires the Department of Children and Families to evaluate sex offenders before their releases from prison. Those considered most likely to attack may be screened, evaluated and confined at the Florida Civil Commitment Center in Arcadia until they aren’t considered dangers to the community.
SB 526 by Sen. Rob Bradley, a Fleming Island Republican and chairman of the Senate Civil and Criminal Justice Appropriations Subcommittee, would increase the length of sentences for certain adult-on-minor sexual offenses formerly classified as lewd and lascivious. It would ban reduced sentences for good behavior for people who commit certain sexual offenses and require courts to order community supervision after release from prison for those convicted of certain offenses.
Bradley’s bill would also require sexual predators to be under community supervision after their release from civil commitment. Currently, those offenders participate in civil commitment and community supervision simultaneously. But the bill would require them to be under community supervision after their release from civil commitment.
Other bills filed included a measure (SB 528) by Sen. Greg Evers, R-Baker, that would require registered sexual predators to report their vehicle information, Internet identifiers, palm prints, passports, professional licenses, immigration status and volunteer work at higher-education institutions; a bill (SB 522) by Sen. Denise Grimsley, R-Sebring, that would require sheriffs to refer prisoners serving sentences in county jails for civil commitment if they are registered sexual offenders or predators and have committed sexually violent offenses; and SB 524 by Sen. Eleanor Sobel, D-Hollywood, which would require that offenders be defined as sexually violent predators and be subject to civil confinement after a finding by two or more members of a multidisciplinary team.
The House also appeared to be on board with a push on the laws in 2014.
“If we have the strongest laws in place in the country to identify the worst of the worst, I think we can reduce the number of these offenses,” said House Criminal Justice Chairman Matt Gaetz, a Fort Walton Beach Republican who is the son of the Senate president. “And most importantly, we won’t have to go and say to the parents of a child victim that we had the person in our custody, but we let them go and they harmed again.”
STORY OF THE WEEK: A coalition of groups opposed to the state’s new congressional districts demanded answers after a legal filing by the Legislature appeared to indicate that some records from the 2012 redistricting process were destroyed.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “I think the seventh time is the charm.” Sen. Eleanor Sobel, D-Hollywood and chairwoman of the Senate Children, Families and Elder Affairs Committee, on a proposed statewide domestic-partnership registry that would give gay — and straight — couples some of the same rights as their married cohorts.
by Brandon Larrabee, The News Service of Florida
Margie Kelly Adams
December 21, 2013
Mrs. Margie Kelly Adams, 82, passed away on Friday, December 20, 2013, in Century.
Mrs. Adams was a native and life long resident of Flomaton. Mrs. Adams was a LPN at the Century Hospital; she was a loving wife, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. She attended the Flomaton Church of Christ.
Her husband of 60 years Leemond F. Kelly and a great-granddaughter, Faith White precede Mrs. Adams in death.
She is survived by her husband, Alfred Adams of Flomaton; one son, Charles William “Billy” (Anita Faye) Kelly of Flomaton; one daughter, Karen D. (Larry) White of Flomaton; six grandchildren, Angie (George) Gordon, Kelli (Ronnie) Hammond, Ben (Stacey) White, Kim (Adam) Porter, DeeDee (Russell) Holland and Lisa (Chad) Grant and 16 great-grandchildren.
Funeral services will be Monday, December 23, 2013, at 10:00 a.m. at the Flomaton Church of Christ with Minister Pete Davis and Minister Billy Lambert officiating.
Burial will follow at the Flomaton Cemetery.
Visitation will be Sunday, December 22, 2013, from 4-7 p.m. at the Petty-Eastside Chapel Funeral Home.
Pallbearers will be Logan Walston, Hayden Hammond, Pat Jarvis, Guy Waller, Speedy Nelson and Ron McDaniel. Honorary Pallbearers will be Udell Sheffield, Mike Sims, Ellis Blair, Steve Stanton and Joe Brantley.
Petty-Eastside Chapel Funeral Homes is in charge of all arrangements.
DOJ Presents Settlement In Escambia Jail Investigation
December 20, 2013
Escambia County has received an initial draft of a proposed consent agreement from the U.S. Department of Justice in the DOJ’s investigation into the Escambia County Jail.
Escambia County staff is reviewing the proposal and will begin internal discussions regarding a recommended counter proposal to the DOJ, the county said in a news release Thursday afternoon.
The draft of the proposed consent agreement will be placed on the January 2 Board of County Commissioners Agenda for discussion.
A DOJ report released in May found that conditions inside the Escambia County Jail routinely violate the constitutional rights of prisoners.
The DOJ concluded that known systemic deficiencies at the jail, mainly due to staffing shortages, continue to subject prisoners to excessive risk of assault by other prisoners and to “clearly inadequate” mental health care.
The five-year investigation also found that until recently, the jail had an informal policy and practice of designating some of its housing units as only for African-American prisoners. By segregating some of its prisoners on the basis of race, the jail not only stigmatized and discriminated against many of its African-American prisoners, it also fanned combustible racial tensions within the jail.
The report became a focal point between the county commission and Sheriff David Morgan with battles ensuing over how to respond to the report and budgeting issues with taking recommended actions. The Escambia County Commission eventually voted to take control of the jail of the sheriff and directly respond to the DOJ report.
The DOJ proposed consent degree spells out, in a 28 page document, requirements for the county to fully staff the jail, eventually hiring 100 more employees. Goals would be put in place aimed at reducing violence among prisoners, paying closer attention to mental health issues and assurance that the jail remain desegregated.
To read the complete DOJ proposed consent agreement, click here.
Obama Commutes Escambia Woman’s Life Sentence For Drugs
December 20, 2013
President Barack Obama commuted the sentences of eight federal inmates Thursday, including an Escambia County woman.
Stephanie Yvette George of Pensacola received a life sentence in 1997 for conspiracy to possess cocaine base with intent to distribute. Her prison sentence was commuted by the president to expire on April 17, 2014.
Her former boyfriend’s half-kilogram of crack cocaine was hidden in a box in her attic, according to a New York Times report.
“Even though you have been involved in drugs and drug dealing,” Judge Vinson told George, according to the New York Times. “Your role has basically been as a girlfriend and bag holder and money holder but not actively involved in the drug dealing, so certainly in my judgment it does not warrant a life sentence.”
Due to mandatory federal sentencing guidelines in effect at the time, Vinson was forced to sentence George, now 43, to life in prison.
“This law began to right a decades-old injustice, but for thousands of inmates, it came too late. If they had been sentenced under the current law, many of them would have already served their time and paid their debt to society. Instead, because of a disparity in the law that is now recognized as unjust, they remain in prison, separated from their families and their communities, at a cost of millions of taxpayer dollars each year,” Obama said. “Commuting the sentences of these eight Americans is an important step toward restoring fundamental ideals of justice and fairness.”
Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act in 2010, narrowing the disparity between penalties for crack and powder cocaine offenses.
Body Of Missing Woman Found In Wrecked Vehicle
December 20, 2013
The body of an Atmore woman missing for just over three weeks was found inside her wrecked car Thursday.
The Escambia County (AL) Sheriff’s Office said 42-year old Marcie Brewton Morgan last spoke to a family member on December 3 and was believed to be in the Saraland, AL, area at the time. A “ping” from her cell phone was recorded later that day by a cell phone tower in Canoe, AL, area, east of Atmore.
Thursday, authorities and volunteers from Florida and Alabama joined with the KlaasKids Foundation, a search and rescue organization from Pensacola, in a methodical search centered in a five mile radius of that cell phone tower.
The search located Morgan’s 2001 Lincoln Town car in a ditch estimated to be 20-feet deep adjacent to Jerkins Loop Road, less than two miles from her home. After the car was removed from the ditch, authorities said a body positively identified as Morgan was found inside.
Authorities said Morgan appeared to be traveling at a high rate of speed when she ran into the ditch.
The investigation into Morgan’s death is continuing by the Escambia County (AL) Sheriff’s Office and Alabama State Troopers.
Flomaton Man Charged With Sexual Abuse Of 5-Year Old Boy
December 20, 2013
A Flomaton man has been charged with performing sexual acts on a 5-year old boy.
Casey Reed Kyle, 26, was arrested by the Flomaton Police Department on one felony count of first degree sodomy on a child under 12 years old. He was booked into the Escambia County Detention Center in Brewton.
The Flomaton Police Department was notified of the alleged abuse by the child’s parents. When questioned by police, Kyle admitted performing the sexual acts, according to Flomaton Police Chief Byran Davis. He said authorities are continuing their investigation to determine if there might be any other victims in the case.
Anyone with information about the case or any other information about Kyle is asked to contact the Flomaton Police Department at (251) 296-5811 or their nearest law enforcement agency.
Schools: Christmas Break Begins
December 20, 2013
For all Escambia County public schools, Friday marked the last day of school until next year.
Christmas break began Friday. Students will return to school on January 7, 2014.
Teachers will return to the classrooms a day earlier, on January 6, for a work day. The next school holiday will be Monday, January 20 for Martin Luther King Day.
Murder Trial Postponed For Molino Mom Claiming Self Defense
December 20, 2013
A Molino woman that claimed she shot her husband in self defense appeared in court Thursday.
The second degree murder trial of 43-year old Rebecca A. Rogers was set to begin January 6, but Thursday Circuit Judge Ross Goodman approved a defense request to delay her jury trial until early March.
Rogers has entered a not guilty plea to the charges against her. She remains free on a $300,000 bond posted in late September.
She allegedly shot her husband, 42-year old Jason Lee Rogers, in the head last August at the couple’s home in the in the 3400 block of Highway 29 near Mathison Road. He died about two days later.
The shooting was domestic violence related, according to the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office. Rebecca Rogers called 911 to say that her husband choked her and she shot him, according to an arrest report. Deputies arrived to find Rebecca Rogers standing outside the home. They found Jason Rogers lying unconscious in the back bedroom of the home on his stomach with what appeared to be a gunshot to his head. According to the report, he also suffered two other gunshot wounds to the back.
The couple had four daughters together.