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Raoul Cantero Writes Op-Ed Quoting Positive Comments About Raoul Cantero

Isn't it cool that as we get ready to inaugurate a new President, we get to fight about the 2000 Florida recount and the Bush years all over again?

Thank goodness I don't have to write another post about Frank Jimenez. I tell you, I was thisclose to pulling a Lew Freeman and launching myself from the top of Wachovia like a despondent Rose DeWitt Bukater hoping to escape the loveless clutches of the very dastardly Billy Zane.

No, instead this is about Raoul Cantero.

Also, it is an Op-Ed written by Raoul Cantero:

Six-and-a-half years ago, the Florida Supreme Court Judicial Nominating Commission nominated me to fill a vacancy on the Florida Supreme Court. At the time, I was a lawyer practicing at a medium-sized Miami firm. I had never been a judge. I was the only Hispanic nominated and, if appointed, would be the first justice of Hispanic descent on the court.

The St. Petersburg Times promptly wrote an editorial painting me as a right-wing ideologue. The Times used my representation of an alleged (but twice-acquitted) terrorist to claim that I was "apparent(ly) indifferent to violence that is anti-Castro in motive." The newspaper also used a letter I had written to the Miami Herald editor years earlier, to insinuate that I would grant leniency to some murderers but not others. My letter had condemned the then-recent murders of two abortion doctors. However, I explained that the vast majority of those in the antiabortion movement were decent people from all walks of life who shared a belief that abortions kill children. The Times used that letter to question whether I would affirm the death penalty for the murder of abortion providers.

Of course, the Times' accusations were not well-founded, as subsequent events proved. I will not dwell on my record as a justice. Suffice it to quote one of my colleagues, speaking at my retirement ceremony in September: "His votes on this court have never, ever reflected an agenda either personal or political" and "Justice Cantero is the essence of what we mean by judicial independence."

Cantero does say some other stuff, good stuff actually, about somebody else blah blah blah, but hey I'm trying to dwell on the positive here, ok?

Full post as published by South Florida Lawyers on December 23, 2008 (boomark / email).