Corruption Watch: (1) Right to an attorney and (2) attorney-client privilege were VIOLATED in wrongful conviction of Hoot Crawford.
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Feb. 3, 2024 - The Judge allowed DCF to snatch a teenage girl from her attorney and parents in order for Sheriff Ford and DCF to question her without an attorney.
They asked what she and her attorney, Hoot Crawford, had talked about. Then they used that communication out of context to charge and convict him with tampering with a witness/victim.
The actual perpetrators of interfering with child custody and tampering with a victim are the very authorities who ambushed her at a voluntary interview at the Children's Advocacy Center.
Judge Kelvin Wells rigged the trial by removing Hoot's absolute defense.
He didn't want to be "put in a position" to "decide the legality of the shelter." He refused to consider all the evidence showing that the DCF agent lied to the local judge to obtain the emergency order.
Judge Wells instructed the jury to convict the attorney of a 16-year-old Marcy's Law victim as long as they believed that attorney Hoot Crawford heard the DCF agent say that she was sheltering the girl.
"He was told over and over but broke the law anyway."
That was sufficient for a conviction: On the basis of a false affidavit of a half-asleep slurring DCF agent who said Hoot struck her with his vehicle and then went on Workers Comp for five months.
Judge Wells, Sheriff Ford, and SAO Basford agree that a DCF agent's probably cause is beyond scrutiny, and attorneys must immediately submit to their invalid orders.
Hoot Crawford's defense (proving that the DCF agent lied) was a slam dunk. But he never got the chance.
All because of Judge Kelvin Wells' refusal to make a ruling on the legality of the shelter. That was his primary job as the presiding judge.
But Judge Wells turned out to be the laziest, dumbest judge in the Panhandle. Probably in the entire state. He's a carbon copy of the infamous Florida Judge Alcee Hastings. A tremendous disgrace to his craft.
Kelvin Wells is so lazy that he's asking Gov. Ron DeSantis to appoint him to a lower County judgeship because he doesn't want to work so hard as a higher Circuit Judge.
Sheriff Tommy Ford is thrilled that Judge Wells ruled that probable cause wouldn't be questioned. So is State Attorney Larry Basford, who recommended the arrest when Sheriff Ford's angry lieutenant pulled Hoot over as he was driving the girl to his law office to await a court order.
Crawford had expressed interest in running for State Attorney against Larry Basford. Soon after, they arrested him and SAO Basford offered him a deal: We'll dismiss the case if you forfeit your law license. Purely political.
This case will be appealed.
But for now, imagine how emboldened DCF is to snatch your children when Sheriff Ford's investigators tell them to. Imagine how cocksure State Attorney Larry Basford is to prosecute his political opponents.
Attorney Hoot Crawford (our very own Atticus Finch) is not even the biggest victim here. Nor is the teenage girl who was terrorized by Sheriff Ford's investigators and DCF.
The biggest casualty here is the right to an attorney. And the sanctity of attorney-client privilege.
They convicted Hoot Crawford based on his communication with his client. Sheriff Ford and top prosecutor Basford were allowed by Judge Wells to pretend that attorney-client privilege is "tampering with a witness/victim."
This is the most far-reaching danger we've seen in a state courtroom. And ironically, it's happening in Panama City. The very place where the right to an attorney was born in 1963 with the Supreme Court's 9-0 decision in Gideon v. Wainwright.
Clarence Gideon was arrested and charged with stealing $5 and a few bottles of beer from a Panama City pool hall. He represented himself and was convicted. The Florida Supreme Court denied his appeal. But the U.S. Supreme Court took it, and the rest is history.
The landmark decision led to the freedom of about 1,500 inmates. Six Thousand inmates filed for new trials, and about 2,000 got another day in court with a defense attorney.
Please help Hoot correct this massive injustice by supporting his appeal on his GoFundMe page. It'll take about $75K to file the appeal.
Feb. 2, 2024 - Transcripts of Judge Kelvin Wells VIOLATING the right to an attorney and attorney-client privilege by disregarding the legality of the DCF affidavit leading to the arrest and conviction of Hoot Crawford.
Feb. 2, 2024 - GoFundMe drive for Hoot Crawford to appeal the wrongful conviction and show how Sheriff Tommy Ford and DCF
1. TAKES CHILDREN with false affidavits
2. Interrogates them without a lawyer
3. Violates attorney-client privilege
4. Defies Marcy’s Law
The most flippant and brazen judge I’ve ever seen, the bum Kelvin Wells, denied Hoot’s absolute defense. The jury could not hear about DCF’s false affidavit in order to obtain an emergency court order.
The same slurring half-asleep DCF agent who falsely accused Hoot of striking her with his vehicle, lied to the judge about Hoot. Then she went on Workers Comp for around five months.
The bum Judge Wells told the jury that as long as Hoot heard this DCF agent say that she was sheltering the child, then he was guilty.
Hoot is standing for our right to an attorney when dirty cops and lying DCF agents conspire to take your kids and throw you in jail.
Sheriff Tommy Ford and State Attorney Larry Basford and the bum Judge Wells say that DCF protocol supersedes the Florida Constitution.
They say that Hoot “was told time and time again” but broke the law anyway. Hoot risked everything to protect this teenage girl, who Sheriff Ford kept kidnapping under the false color of law.
Hoot tried to protect this family from domestic terrorism of creepy psychopaths. Who else honors their craft with this much integrity and commitment?
Filing an appeal will cost him at least $75K.
Let’s do all we can do so that Hoot can right this wrong, and restore our Constitutional protections.
Read the article here.
Feb. 2, 2024 - The Appeal of Hoot Crawford, Attorney at Law (exposing the underbelly)
Feb. 1, 2024 - “Show me a hero, and I’ll write you a tragedy.” - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Judge Kelvin C. Wells ensured that Sheriff Tommy Ford could arrest a teenage victim’s lawyer and Larry Basford could successfully prosecute his upcoming rival for State Attorney.
What I saw in this courtroom was indescribable. The appeal could reveal quite an underbelly.
The dark truth is that the person who was most abused by authorities and fake child advocates is the teenage girl who lost her attorney and protector to insatiable monsters disguised with badges and faux safe spaces.
More to follow.
Jan. 30, 2024
Jan. 30, 2024 - Today Sheriff Tommy Ford sent the guy who led the seven prowlers that surrounded our home and searched our backyard for eight minutes to sit behind me during the trial of Hoot Crawford.
Sergeant Stephen Rhinehart said some woman claimed that stolen AirPods were pinging from our home.
It’s constant harassment and intimidation trying to chill our First Amendment rights to the Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press.
We press on anyway.
Jan. 29, 2024 - The Bay County Sheriff investigator who broke into our backyard over "missing AirPods" sat behind me this afternoon during the trial of Hoot Crawford.
After being harassed this morning for taking pictures and covering the trial, Sheriff Tommy Ford sent his prowler to breathe down my neck as I snapped pictures.
Mike "Caz" Cazalas also sat behind me. The former News Herald Editor is now State Attorney Larry Basford's Public Information Officer.
The whole time, I expected to be accused of some made-up crime. The intimidation is palpable.
We have begun our lawsuit against the Sheriff for surrounding our home with eight cops and violating our Fourth Amendment rights, malicious investigation, and First Amendment retaliation.
It's a terrifying time to cover news in Bay County.
Jan. 29, 2024 - They're prosecuting attorney Hoot Crawford for interfering with the custody of his 16-year-old client who was at a voluntary interview with the Department of Children and Families in 2022.
The Bay County Sheriff's Office said they were free to leave the Children's Advocacy Center after Lt. Jeremy Mathis told Hoot that he was interfering with an investigation.
Soon afterward, a DCF agent told Hoot that the girl was suddenly in state custody without a court order because of immediate danger. He told them to get a court order and come get her from his office.
Instead, they pulled them over and held them for more than an hour while they waited for a judge to sign the order. When the judge signed it, Hoot handed the girl over.
That's when the Sheriff's Office arrested him for interfering with the custody of a child.
Then the State Attorney's Office added a charge of tampering with a witness or victim. Then last week, they added another charge: Tampering with an investigation and claimed an BCSO investigator was a victim.
The Judge denied Hoot's absolute defense (the order wasn't yet in effect). Hoot is not allowed to question whether or not his client was in state custody before the Judge was even notified. The jury can't hear it.
Judge Kelvin C. Wells refused to issue a ruling over whether the girl was sheltered in state custody when Hoot took his client to his office awaiting a court order. It's established as a fact in this court simply because the DCF agent said so.
All local judges recused themselves. Judge Wells is from Walton. Hoot was arrested after expressing his interest in running against Larry Basford for State Attorney. Basford advised the BSCO on the phone to go ahead and make the arrest after Hoot handed the girl over.
The girl was taken to the CAC where DCF questioned her as well as the BCSO. She had no attorney, and they asked what she told her lawyer who was on his way to jail.
The girl didn't want to talk to anyone without her attorney present, a right guaranteed in the Florida Constitution under a provision known as Marsey's Law. The Sheriff's Office said that the girl was not entitled to bad legal representation, which they cite as a big reason for the arrest.
Hoot had promised the girl, "I'll be right by your side the whole time, darlin'."
Sheriff Tommy Ford and State Attorney Larry Basford made sure that didn't happen. And now they want to send Hoot to state prison because he'd "been told" over and over that their protocol didn't allow her to have a lawyer with her during the forensic interviews.
The trial continues tomorrow at 8:30 a.m. at the Bay County Courthouse.
More to follow ...
Jan. 28, 2024 - State Attorney Basford: Jury must not hear girl's right to lawyer was stripped despite Marcy's Law.
The motion to hide these facts from the jury takes place at the Bay County Courthouse tomorrow at 8:30 a.m.
They argue that an attorney has no standing to complain that someone else's rights were violated.