Divemedic

Why I Remain Opposed to the Death Penalty

I am in favor of the death penalty in theory, but after seeing the innocence project and the Duke Lacrosse case, I am of the opinion that our legal system is too corrupt to ensure that we are not executing the innocent. I first made this post 13 years ago:

Maurice Patterson was convicted of murder in 2002 for a fight where the victim was stabbed 14 times. Three people witnessed the fight, fleetingly and in the dark, and a fourth witness claimed to have seen a man with blood on his hand hiding from the police. All four witnesses identified Maurice Patterson in a live lineup weeks after the attack,
but they only testified regarding these identifications after being threatened with Contempt of Court.

A bloody knife was found near the scene and sent to Orchid Cellmark for DNA testing. Test results excluded Patterson, indicating a mixture of the victim’s profile and an unknown profile. Comparison to the State CODIS DNA database revealed that the unknown profile belonged to a drug addict with a history of violence. Though the State Police Forensic Science Center had been notified that the sample included the victim’s blood, this information was never directly communicated to the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office. Prosecutors continued with the case against Patterson despite the exculpatory results.

Robert Wilcoxson and Kenneth Kagonyera served almost 10 years in North Carolina prisons for a murder they didn’t commit before a three-judge panel overturned their convictions on September 22, 2011, based on DNA evidence proving innocence.

In this case, a man was killed during a home invasion, and police managed to secure confessions from the two defendants. Three bandanas and two pairs of gloves were located on the side of the road near the Bowman residence and were collected by deputies as evidence in the case. The bandanas and gloves found near the crime scene
were submitted for pre-trial DNA testing. Results excluded all six co-defendants, however this information was never turned over to Kagonyera or Wilcoxson’s attorneys.

There was the Duke Lacrosse case, where a woman accused a Lacrosse team of gang rape. Dennis Nifong, the state prosecutor, had DNA test results in his possession that showed the team was innocent. He didn’t disclose the existence of this evidence to the defense team.

Sure, we have DNA and such, but when the system is so corrupt that exculpatory evidence is “lost” or buried, we are executing the innocent. Knowingly allowing a flawed and corrupt system to kill people makes our entire society guilty of murder. I just can’t support giving the government the power to decide who lives and who dies. Even if the law were to be changed to punish crooked prosecutors, it will never be used. For that reason, I just can’t get behind the death penalty.

By Divemedic, ago

Coddling Criminals

This critter killed his grandparents.

He shot the grandmother first. When the grandfather ran next door for help, this asshole followed and fired six times through the neighbors’ door, killing his grandfather and critically injuring a 25 year old granddaughter of the neighbors.

He was charged with two counts of 2nd Degree Murder, one count of Attempted 2nd Degree Murder, and Shooting into an Occupied Residence.

The judge says he can get up to life in prison. Florida has a 10-20-life law, which says using a firearm in the commission of a felony gets you a MINIMUM sentence of 10 years, firing the gun a minimum of 20, and killing someone gets you life. This asshat should be looking at a minimum of three life sentences. They should also tack on an attempted manslaughter charge againt him for each person who was in the house when he fired into it.

Additionally, I can see 2nd Degree Murder for the grandmother, but chasing the grandfather down and shooting him through a door is definitely premeditation.

In all, I count 5 life sentences plus another 100 years. I’m sick of courts coddling these assholes while others sat in a DC jail for years without charges, after the cops invited them into the building.

By Divemedic, ago

More Fat

In yet another example of tax funds that can be cut from the budget, people who want to upgrade their homes at taxpayer expense are angry that the state isn’t taking your money and giving it to them.

That’s $280 million per year that is stolen from one set of homeowners and given to another. A married couple with two kids who make more than $27 per hour, can’t receive your money.

That budget money is $30 taken from each household in Florida. Just one program. How many more can be cut?

By Divemedic, ago

Fire Departments

I promised a post on fire departments, and here it is. Fire departments are a necessary government service, and no, they aren’t socialism. Some people wrongly believe that anything the government does is socialism, and they are retards for thinking that.

Whether or not it is worth having a fire department, what kind (volunteer or career), and how much service it will offer is something that is largely dependent on the particulars of each community.

It costs a bit over $2 million per year, per fire station to maintain a career fire department. There need to be enough stations so that all houses are within 5 miles or less of a fire station. A small city of 100,000 people that is about 20 square miles in size will cost you about $10 million a year. For that price, you will get a fire department with an ISO rating of 1, and this will save big money on fire insurance for commercial and industrial structures. A town this size will have 100 or so residential and 3 or 4 commercial/industrial fires per year.

A volunteer department covering 100 homes and a population of 500 or so will cost about $50,000 a year. If they have one or two fires a year, it’s worth it.

The average total fire loss in the US for a fire is about $85,000. (Direct losses about $25,000, the rest indirect losses) If your community is small enough that it only has 1 fire a year on average, it doesn’t make sense to have an expensive paid department.

Any department with an ISO rating over a 4 is spending a large amount of money to defend commercial properties. Residential property and their insurance rates don’t really benefit from a department better than a 4.

So my opinion is this:

An area that is mostly rural with low density doesn’t need much in the way of a department, with the largest benefit being a reduction in insurance rates. A volunteer or part-paid system will likely do well. Still, running such a department costs money, and that will likely mean taxes to pay for at least a portion of it.

A smallish city will benefit from a more expensive department, but the largest beneficiaries will be commercial real estate. In those cases, fire fees for commercial property should be what pays for the more expensive ISO 1 through 3 department.

In many cases, it is cheaper to reimburse those who lose a home than it is to pay big money for a fire department. Paying $5 million a year to a department that puts out less than 30 fires a year is a waste of money. It would be more cost effective for that district to be self insured.

By Divemedic, ago

Wage Theft

The hospital where I work has a money issue. That is, our department was more than a thousand hours over budget on staffing. As a result, the ED director was fired last year, and the new director has been swinging the budget axe. She laid off 25 nurses as her first official act a year ago, and we have been running understaff since. They took us from 3:1 patient to nurse ratios to 4:1. They also eliminated most of the nurse assistant positions. As a result, we usually don’t get lunches on our shift, nor do we get off work on time. This results in a 12 hour shift usually stretching out to 13 or 14.

Still, our department saw more than 150,000 patients last year, so we are raking in the money. My recent visit to the emergency room was billed at over $40,000, so do the math. Even if they only collect a quarter of what they are charging, they made billions from the ED alone.

On top of all of this, they don’t let us do required trainings during our shift, we are required to do them on our days off. This training is required by our employer, and is over and above the continuing education that we do on our own to maintain licensure. They tell you that annual NIH stroke scale certification is required, and you are subject to discipline if it isn’t completed, for example. So you do it on your days off.

In the past year, more than a quarter of our nurses have left. They are desperately trying to hire replacements, but the word has gotten out, and the only nurses applying for jobs are brand new ones out of school with no experience, because they are hungry for a job that isn’t med-surg.

Admin then tells you that they will pay for a maximum of 2 hours per week of training. The only problem is that they assign far more than that. This two week pay period alone, I have done 8 hours of mandatory training on my days off: a 3 hour class on NIH stroke scale, a 3 hour class on IV insulin, and a 2 hour class on ESI triage policy.

They are only going to pay for 4 hours of it, if they keep up their policy. In the past year, they have denied paying me for about 100 hours of mandatory training. I’m tired of it. I have screen shots of emails telling me the training is mandatory, screenshots of my online time card, and emails of the policy saying they will only pay for 2 hours per week.

I am turning them in to the state department of labor. I’m going to get my money. If they take any action against me, that is illegal and I will sue their ass. I am tired of being made to work for free because they have a “budget.” Well, I have a budget, too, and I expect to be paid for my work so I can make my budget.

By Divemedic, ago

Property Taxes

As I have posted before, property taxes in Florida are easy to understand, mostly.

Ad Valorem

In Florida, the county property appraiser is an elected position that estimates what your house is worth each year, called your “market value.” If your house is your primary residence, you can take a deduction called the “homestead exemption” of $25,000 from that market value if your home has a market value of more than $50,000. If your home has a market value of over $100,000, you can take another $25,000 exemption. This second exemption doesn’t apply to school taxes. The result is called your “assessed value.” Because of the second homestead exemption, this means that your home gets two assessed values: one for property taxes, and the second assessed value for school board taxes.

Each July, the property appraiser mails out the proposed value of each property to the property owner. If you don’t think that the value is fair, you have 30 days to appeal that valuation. Most people want it to be as low as possible, because that is the value that your taxes are based on.

It seems complicated, but it really isn’t. For example, let’s say that your house has been deemed by the property appraiser’s office to have a fair market value of $125,000, and your county charges a property tax rate of ten mills, plus the school board charges of 6 mils. You would take the $125,000 market value and subtract your homestead exemption to arrive at an assessed value of $75,000 for property taxes, and $100,000 for school board taxes. The tax of ten mills would make your property taxes $750 and $600 for the school board taxes, making your total property tax bill $1350. Clear so far? Good, because it gets a bit more complicated.

Save Our Homes

Back in 1995, the voters of Florida passed an Amendment to the state Constitution that limits the annual increase in the assessed value of your homestead to the lesser of 3% or the consumer price index. Since real estate increases more than that in value each year, the longer you own your home, the less you pay in taxes. The gap between the market value and the assessed value is called your “Save Our Homes” credit.

In most cases, you want the property appraiser to set your assessed value as low as possible. The only reason you don’t, is if you are about to move to a more expensive home. The reason is called portability. If you are moving from an old house to a new one, you can take your Save Our Homes credit with you. That can mean a significant tax savings.

Other Exemptions

There are other tax exemptions.

  • Any widow/widower who owns property and is a permanent Florida resident may file for a $5,000 exemption.
  • Homeowners who are totally & permanently disabled get a $5,000 exemption.
  • The un-remarried, surviving spouse of a law enforcement officer, a correctional officer, a firefighter, an emergency medical technician, or a paramedic killed in the performance of duty gets a 100% exemption on property taxes. There is an exception to this that I will explain later.
  • Homeowners over 65 years of age who have an income less than $37,500 a year get an additional $50,000 exemption.
  • In fact, there are a dozen more exemptions that also are available, but I don’t feel like listing them all here. The point is that the tax system has become cumbersome, confusing, and unfair.

Milage Rates

The tax collector (also an elected position) charges a “millage rate” as an “ad valorem” property tax. Each “mill” is 0.1% of your home’s assessed value.

The county charges me 5 mils, the school board charges a bit over 6 mils, water control district charges half a mil; police, fire, hospital taxes, and EMS collectively charge 1.4 mils, the town charges 7.5 mils, and some other charges total up to almost 21 mils, or about 2.1%.

Fees

Some towns and counties charge fees that are part of your property taxes, but are not based on your property value. These are usually flat fees, for example each address may be taxed $150 a year for fire fees regardless of value. This is usually done so that the local taxing officials can raise taxes for social programs while blaming the increase on something palatable like the fire department. They simply take the money they were spending on fire and redirect it to whatever pet project they want to fund, then use the fire fee money to continue (or even cut) the fire department’s funding. Then they blame the fire department for the “tax increase.”

Total Taxes

After homestead exemptions, other exemptions, and Save Our Homes are all subtracted, the result is the “Taxable Value.” The milage rate is applied to that number. If you own a $300,000 house, you would be paying $5500 a year in property taxes. I pay even more than that.

Taxes aren’t just a money grab, they are a means of social engineering when you grant carve out exemptions to favored groups like the AARP, illegal immigrants, and others. They are also a grift, in that much of this money gets directed into the pockets of politicians and their friends.

and you have to pay them, or see your property confiscated and your ass in jail.

One note about the exemption for public safety that are injured in the line of duty. If you are off duty and see an auto accident, medical emergency, or fire, the pressure to do something is large. I used to stop for those sorts of things. Until the case of Shane Kelly, that is.

Firefighter Kelly stopped to assist victims of an auto accident on the Florida Turnpike in 2002. Shane was off duty. He was killed in full view of his wife when a tractor trailer slammed into the accident vehicles.  There were 2 occupants of the truck that killed Firefighter Kelly, and there was enough confusion as to which of them was driving that neither of them was ever charged.

The Federal Government ruled that Sean Kelly was acting in his capacity as a private citizen when he was killed, and since his death was not a line of duty death, his widow was not entitled to any of the benefits of the LOD status. Imagine how you would feel as an EMT, Firefighter, or other responder if you knew that helping an injured person carries the same risk of injury or death whether you are on duty or off duty, except that if you are injured, not only are you NOT paid for your time and skill, but you are not insured for that potentially career ending injury. Who will feed your family? Care for your kids?

In a meeting with my employer’s attorney, where Firefighters were attempting to get a written policy on what would be considered Line of Duty injury for off the clock employees, we were told that such decisions for off duty personnel would be made on a case by case basis by Administration AFTER the fact. I made a comment along the lines of, “So you get to decide AFTER I am injured whether or not you will pay for it. Will that decision take factors like the cost of treatment and PR benefit to you into account?” That REALLY pissed off the attorney. (I call ’em like I see ’em.)

After I learned of that case, I stopped helping out while off the clock. That policy marked the end of my stopping to help in emergencies. In fact, that policy change was a huge factor in my decision to retire.

How do I feel about fire department taxes? That is a topic for later in this week. I know what you probably THINK my feelings are, but you are probably wrong…

By Divemedic, ago

Tools To Be Used

The headline reads: “Apopka daughter asks for fair chance after parents detained, father deported.” The left uses emotion to manipulate people. It doesn’t matter if it’s a shooting, a deportation, or even attempting to quote the Bible, the left wants to use your own feelings against you.

In this case, the leftist who wrote it wants you to believe that a little girl is being deprived of her hardworking parents. The reality is different- the daughter is old enough to drink, and her parents entered the country illegally, applied for residency 20 years ago, then never showed up to their appointment. A deportation order was entered against them.

In the intervening decades, he “ran a successful business.” What they don’t mention is that the reason the business was successful is because they are illegal. The name of the business is Juarez Investments, LLC. It was operating without licenses or registration until 2021. Meaning that they likely weren’t paying taxes for nearly 20 years. If I didn’t have to pay taxes, my business could be more successful as well. They aren’t law abiding, they are tax evading freeloaders who are making the lives of people legally living here even harder in the form of lower wages and higher costs.

This pair has been flouting the law for more than 2 decades. It’s about time they are sent home to Guatemala.

By Divemedic, ago