St. Johns County is going KOMANDO.
SJC Commission hired a putative "Interim County Attorney," RICHARD CHRISTIAN KOMANDO, calling him and his law firm SJC's "General Counsel."
No application.
No search.
No résumé.
$15,000 a month salary.
4-1 vote.
Vice Chair ROY ALYRE ALAIMO, JR. made the suggestion in the wake of the secretive departure of County Attorney DAVID MIGUT, said to be with two (2) days' notice.
ALAIMO is the former Chair of the St. Johns County Republican Executive Committee.
ALAIMO's indecent proposal was illegal. Political patronage? It's illegal. The Supreme Court has repeatedly said so. Such improper, illegal, unseemly political patronage hiring decisions are a pattern and practice of St. Johns County Board of County Commissioners, as in the illegal hiring of HUNTER SINCLAIR CONRAD as County Administrator. These haughty hiring decisions have a chilling effect on public participation in our County government. Such overbearing hiring decisions are not only illegal, but they show contempt for democratic values in our republic. These questions are beneath the dignity of a free people -- utterly unAmerican. See O'Hare Truck Service v. City of Northlake, 518 U.S. 712 (1996); Rutan v. Republican Party of Illinois, 497 U.S. 1050 (1990).
Thomas Jefferson helped [write] the Tennessee Constitution, which since 1796 has stated that "government being instituted for the common benefit, the doctrine of nonresistance against arbitrary power and oppression is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind."
Political patronage and race and sex discrimination by relying on word-of-mouth recruitment, hiring a Commissioner's friend and Republican, failing to ask for applications or even consider any of six County Attorney office lawyers?
Shallow discussion. De minimis, or de micromis?
One-party Dull Republican government at its worst in Flori-DUH?
Business as Usual in corrupt St. Johns County amidst one-party Republican maladministration?
RICHARD CHRISTIAN KOMANDO is a 2021 Governor DeSANTIS appointee to the St. Johns River State College District Board of Trustees. He is now Chairman.
Bigoted ROY ALYRE ALAIMO, JR., who was never elected to any public office, but duked into the job by his ex-boss, Governor RONALD DION DeSANTS. He in turn duked KOMANDO into then job of "Interim County Attorney."
RICHARD CHRISTIAN KOMANDO is the Chair of the Board of Trustees of St. Johns River State College. KOMANDO is a longtime friend of Commissioner ALAIMO, who has repeatedly admitted this fact in his whiny sales pitch. Seems to be the only reason Commissioners were given for hiring KOMANDO.
KOMANDO is a criminal defense lawyer. Given the pervasive nature of criminaloid behavior by developers in St. Johns County, perhaps their cat's paws believed having an in-house criminal defense lawyer was helpful, at $15,000/month.
There were no client lists disclosed.
There were no conflicts checks documents disclosed.
KOMANDO ruled on his own case. That dawg won't hunt.
Conflicts of interest must be scrupulously guarded against. See, e.g., United States v. Mississippi Valley Generating Co., 364 U.S. 520, 548 (1961)("the 'Dixon-Yates' case," involving TVA rivals' conflicts of interest in a proposed Memphis coal-fired powerplant), citing Matthew 6:24 -- "no [person] can serve two masters," holding that laws and rules preventing conflicts of interest are aimed "not only at dishonor but at conduct that tempts dishonor." All conflict of interest laws are based upon Matthew 6:24 ("A man cannot serve two masters"), which the unanimous Supreme Court decision by Chief Justice Earl Warren deemed to be both a "moral principle" and a "maxim which is especially pertinent if one of the masters happens to be economic self-interest."
James Madison wrote in The Federalist No. 10: "No [person] is allowed to be a judge in [his/her] own cause, because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity. With equal, nay with greater reason, a body of men are unfit to be both judges and parties at the same time . . . ."
The Supreme Court held in In re Murchison, 349 U.S. 133, 136 (1955) (Black, J.), "[O]ur system of law has always endeavored to prevent even the probability of unfairness. To this end no man can be a judge in his own case and no man is permitted to try cases where he has an interest in the outcome." See also TWA v. Civil Aeronautics Board, 102 U.S. App. D.C. 391, 392, 254 F.2d 90, 91 (1958). Spencer v. Lapsley, 20 How. 264, 266 (1858); Publius Syrus, Moral Sayings 51 (D. Lyman transl. 1856) ("No one should be judge in his own cause."); Blaise Pascal, Thoughts, Letters and Opuscules 182 (Wight transl. 1859) ("It is not permitted to the most equitable of men to be a judge in his own cause.")
As William Blackstone wrote, "[I]t is unreasonable that any man should determine his own quarrel," 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 91 citing Dr. Bonham's Case, 8 Rep. 114a (C.P. 1610); see also City of London v. Wood, 12 Mod. 669, 687 (1701)(Lord Holt)(invalidating fine for refusal to serve as sheriff recovered by the city in its own court of Mayor and Aldermen). See also Aetna Life Ins. Co. v. Lavoie, 475 U.S. 813 (1986)(overruling case where Chief Justice of Alabama Supreme Court wrongfully sat in judgment of case that would set precedent for his own pending case); Ward v. Village of Monroeville, 409 U.S. 57 (1972); Gibson v. Berryhill, 411 U.S. 564 (1973); Withrow v. Larkin, 421 U.S. 35 (1975); Cinderella Career and Finishing Schools, Inc. v. FTC, 425 F.2d 583 (D.C. Cir. 1970); American Cyanamid Co. v. FTC, 363 F.2d 757 (6th Cir. 1966); SCA Services, Inc. v. Morgan, 557 F.2d 110 (7th Cir.1977).
The County Commission created a conflict of interest on its delegating the conflicts check to the man it's paying $15,000 a month, without its own conflicts check and without a background investigation. Commission and KOMANDO are perpetrating is the sort of sordid conflict of interest that Anglo-American courts have been protecting us against for some 414 years. since at least 1610. Dr. Bonham's case, supra; Tumey v. Ohio, 273 U.S. 510, 522-24 (1927) (Taft, C.J.). See also Laird v. Tatum, 409 U.S. 824, 828 (1972) (Rehnquist, J.), holding that it is well-settled that a government official is disqualified from ruling on a case "if [s]he either signs a pleading or brief" or "if he actively participated in any case.
Worse, there was no disclosure of the identity of RICHARD KOMANDO's law partners, who include a former Republican state senator, ROB BRADLEY, who left office in 2020 (four years ago), but whose website says he's still a State Senator. ROB BRADLEY is chair of the St. Johns River Water Management District, of which County Commissioner Isaac Henry Dean was longtime Executive Director.
KOMANDO'S law firm managing partner ROB BRADLEY's wife, JENNIFER ELAINE BRADLEY, was elected to BOB BRADLEY's former Senate seat after his term ended. She's a lawyer and business manager with the law firm.
Our County Commission is run by developers (which two Commissioners deny).
This stinks on ice, my friends.
Racist, sexist, misogynist St. Johns County was called "the most lawless" place in America by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
RICHARD CHRISTIAN KOMANDO's hiring by SJC typifies the genre of one party rule. Developers rule. These people will "say and do anything," as the late photojournalist James David Pleasant put it.
Does KOMANDO's hiring represent discrimination against qualified attorneys currently working for St. Johns County, including Assistant County Attorney Christine Valleire?
What do y'all reckon?
They're all big fans of the neo fascist police state. They make money off of misery.
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