Attorney Louis J. Jepeway Jr. wants to remove those stupid signs from the courtrooms in Miami Dade County. Speaking of signs, another massive LED billboard pops up just across the street from the criminal courthouse.

Anyone who's been inside a courtroom in Miami Dade county has seen those signs affixed to the wall just behind the judges head...

After seeing first hand how the criminal justice system works, one can only conclude that this is total bullshit.  From what I've seen the sign and it's definition of "truth" means different things to different people.  In the eyes of the prosecutors the sign must read...

We who labor here seek a conviction by any means necessary no matter how much excuplatory evidence we have to hide or how much coerced witness testimony and fabricated evidence we need to provide the court.

Think about that for a moment, how many criminal trials have we heard of lately where the judge decides that critical evidence which would exonerate the defendants for one reason or another isn't admissible?  Take our Plantation Cops federal mortgage fraud trial for instance, there are tons of documents that exonerate the defendants, plenty of facts regarding the people who investigated the case that expose their ulterior motives for bringing about the case, prior abusive behavior by the investigators who are accused of coercing witnesses, polygraphs and audio recordings exonerating the victims, etc yet the judge has decided that none of these things need to go before the jury.  So what happened to seeking only the truth?

Now criminal defense attorney Louis J. Jepeway Jr. is doing his best to get these signs removed from the courtrooms.  From the Herald article...

But one lawyer in a triple murder case wants the venerated sign taken down — because the truth is, jurors during a trial aren’t always allowed to see the whole truth, meaning all the evidence collected by police.

“Truthful evidence may be excluded” by a judge before trial, attorney Louis Jepeway Jr. wrote in a recently filed motion, asking Circuit Judge Nushin G. Sayfie to remove the sign. “The sign invites the jurors to speculate when they sense that there is evidence that has not been introduced.”

Mr. Jepeway's request is rather unusual, but the sign is hypocrisy at it's best.

According to Miami-Dade’s courts historian, the sign was introduced in the late 1940s by Circuit Judge George S. Holt, a philosopher of sorts who once wrote his fellow jurists should “carry this saying etched in their hearts” in their “fervent quest for justice for their fellow man.”

What a pile of shit.  Anyone whose sat through a trial or hearing watching a prosecutor lie his ass off must surely question this "fervent quest for justice for their fellow man" bullshit.  That's hardly how I felt when I heard Assistant State Attorney Bill Kostrzewski intentionally lie to the judge presiding over the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case.  Good luck Mr. Jepeway, it's only a sign but it's the first thing you see when you walk into that courtroom giving you a false hope of "justice" being served.


On another note, while visiting the criminal courthouse last week, we witnessed the finishing touches being put on another one of the new monstrous LED billboards that was just installed on the south east corner of the 12th ave and the 836 expressway, essentially just across the road from the criminal courthouse...

This one's going to work wonders for the neighborhood.  It's not going to be long before there's one of these massive signs on every corner in our wonderful city.