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Ok all, I will try to give some details as to what took place. About 18 months ago my friend was working at a hospital here in Florida in the emergency trauma unit as a first assistant to the head surgeon. When she got off work, after about 15 hrs later, she was traveling in her car and fell asleep. She had an accident and the strawman license was taken away. No injuries and little or no damage. Wanting to remain in honor she AFV and tendered a Bill of Exchange for the ticket she received and checked and sure enough the ticket showed as being paid. In the meantime she received another ticket for "driving" without a license. She had to get to work and was using her private conveyance to do so. All total she got 4 or five tickets for driving without a license after she had already tendered discharge.
She has gone to court a total of over 12 different times in 18 months. All of the visits were pre-trial. In all of those visits she did not dishonor the court once. If the court wanted her to do something she did it while not giving jurisdiction one time. This can be done if done correctly, which she did. She was appointed a fiduciary public pretender right from the start and he became a very important allie. He was instrumental in the charges being dropped.
She was scheduled for a psych eval that she went to. The court was trying to get her to admit to being the defendant or to get a negative eval. that she was a nut case. DID NOT HAPPEN!! She was then scheduled to meet with Family and Child Services and that backfired on the court as well. The court tried every way to get jurisdiction and failed at every attempt, while Melissa stayed in honor the whole time by fulfilling every request the court had. Remember she never contracted with the court in doing so. Her responses were always that the fiduciary was representing the defendant and whatever he thought was okay with her and that she was only there for settlement and closure. Whatever she could do to settle and close the matter was what she was interested in. The whole time she took the low road and the court had to go lower. The court had no place to go at all.
As I said above, the State of Florida dropped all charges yesterday. The trial was scheduled to take place today, but since the charges were dropped there will be no trial.
I would also like to say that I did a notarial protest, per her instructions, regarding the tender of her BoE. As I said she tendered a BoE early on and she eventually got a letter that it was refused after contacting the Treasury. Mind you there was no notice of dishonor given for the BoE. In January she tendered a new BoE and that is the one I did the notarial protest on. It was never refused or returned.
Her last court visit the judge had her entire case file in front of him. Usually he would have just a small file, but not this time. The fiduciary had the notarial protest in the case file as well as the judges oath, the BoE, you name it, it was in there. He had a side bar with the State Attorney and the fiduciary and that is when he made the statement all charges were expected to be dropped. She was also told in the courtroom, in open court, by the judge, that she was in honor at all times and he (the judge) was pleased to tell her that the State wished to drop all charges. She also told the judge she thought the court was very honorable as well.
Now this matter is history. The fiduciary was actually in tears and wanted Melissa to keep in touch and that if she had any problems getting the strawman license reinstated that he would take care of it. Melissa has also been helping him with some health concerns and he wanted to make sure she would continue to do that. He told Melissa that in all his experience as a public defender he has never met anyone like her and thought it a blessing to have met and gotten to know her. I agree with what he said, as I also feel the same way. I spoke with her this morning and she in extremely pleased. It is time now to celebrate!!
P.S. One very important thing to point out and that is if the BoEs that we have been using are fraudulent or no good I do not believe the charges would have been dropped. I have always maintained when done properly the BoEs are not only lawful, but can be effectively used.
Last edited by iamfreeru2 : 08-19-2005 at 09:30 AM.
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