Please preserve the independence and autonomy of our state court system in Monroe County.
If we are stripped of the basic constitutional right and freedom to elect the judicial administrators who rule over our lives, then chaos, confusion and disorder will follow.
Florida’s Judicial Circuit Assessment Committee is considering whether to recommend consolidating the 11th Judicial Circuit in Miami-Dade County with the 16th Judicial Circuit in the Keys (Monroe County), thereby stripping citizens of Monroe of their self-determined freedom to elect those who interpret and dictate the laws by which we live our lives. If we are gobbled up and incorporated into the much larger and far more politically powerful Miami-Dade, our self-rule as residents of the Florida Keys will be crushed and dismembered forevermore.
No longer will we have our voices heard in any meaningful way, as we go about seeking to elect those judges, state attorneys and public defenders that we believe best protect and serve us.
The chief justice of the Supreme Court, who chairs this Judicial Circuit Assessment Committee, acknowledged receipt of my letter, whereby I emphatically stressed the importance of not consolidating the 11th and 16th Judicial Circuits.
John Donnelly, Key Largo
Read our editorial: Court consolidation seems worse than ever
Read our editorial: Court consolidation clouded by political motivations
(Editor’s Note: The committee’s next online public hearing will be on Friday, Nov. 3).
Hope for peace, prosperity
It is a terrible situation. Thousands of innocent Palestinians are escaping to the south of Gaza, trying to escape the war that’s devastating their homes.
But Egypt refuses to open its border. Why? Could it be that Egypt is afraid that Hamas will infiltrate its country and bring destruction as in Gaza?
In Ukraine, surrounding countries welcome Ukrainians fleeing for safety with open arms. They are providing refugees all they need and as long as they need until Russia will cease its aggression and the refugees can return and rebuild their young, hopefully democratic country.
There is a definite dichotomy here. Egypt does not see Palestinians as an asset to its country. The Palestinians allowed Hamas to govern, knowing they were a terrorist group, whose only mission is to hate Jews and destroy Israel. Money that should have been invested to build up Gaza was only used to build up a war arsenal to use against Israel.
Ukraine, on the other hand, once winning its war with Russia, will return to rebuild a democratic state, providing resources to benefit its people and hopefully join the other NATO countries as a model to what can happen if you are committed to fight for your country. Peace and prosperity for all the people of the world: This is my hope.
Evalyn Katz, Boynton Beach
Rick Scott’s hilarious screed
Congratulations to the Sun Sentinel for publishing the hilarious screed by U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, berating President Biden for a lack of oversight (“On foreign policy, America was far better off with Trump,” Oct. 16).
Given that Scott invoked the Fifth Amendment 75 times when questioned in a deposition in 2000 about his hospital company, which defrauded the Medicare program of $1.7 billion — money stolen from American taxpayers — I assume the paper enjoyed the frivolity of Scott’s culpability or incompetence in oversight of a corrupt corporation.
James L. Wilson, Plantation
Scott is an election denier
Sen. Rick Scott is a dangerous autocrat. Just keep in mind for the next election in 2024, this un-convicted felon voted on Jan. 6, 2021, to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election — against the will of the people.
Michael Spatz, Fort Lauderdale
Too light a sentence
Regarding former state Rep. Joe Harding of Ocala, who pleaded guilty to wire fraud, money laundering, and making false statements: Why is his sentence, from U.S. District Judge Allen Winsor, for only four months?
His brother-in-law, who also was convicted of similar charges, got more than five years. Federal prosecutors should appeal this sentence.
Ron Davidson, Margate