SEEKING ANSWERS ON FWC
Twenty four years in court seeking adequate due process. Article 4 Sec 9 Florida Constitution assured me adequate due process when I voted in November 1998, for creating the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission.
The third sentence in Article 4 Sec 9 F.C. states: “The commission shall establish procedures to ensure adequate due process in the exercise of its regulatory and executive functions.” The only authority transferred to the F.M.C. was regulatory and executive powers. (This means that they are STATUTORY!) We want what we voted for. For the first eight years we received great final orders in court to have them sealed by the 1st D.C.A. stating we have not “exhausted our administrative remedy or doctrine of primary jurisdiction!”
Finally 2005 a joint net study with fishermen and F.W.C. findings were produced that violated the policy and standards in 370.025 F.S. The study produced that the F.W.C. rules created a 98% by catch to a 2% catch rate of marketable fish. We took this to court when the commission refused to stop the 98% unnecessary killing.
Judge Janet Farris charged us with a new finding that no one could question the wisdom of the FWC and we did not have due process. We began to here that they had constitutional rule making authority and no one could question it. Judge Farris stated the legislature, the governor, courts or citizens could question them.
We appealed Judge Farris order to the 1st District Court of Appeal under a three-judge panel. Two judges upheld Judge Farris’ order, with one, Chief Judge Browning Jr. dissenting with, “If agencies are not required to justify their alleged rational basis at an evidentiary hearing when that basis is refuted, as here, this court is preparing a fertile field for the growth of imperious agencies, with all of the mischief it entails.”
And now we could understand the first eight years with no due process we did not ever have a chance to prevail! They were imperious! We were denied constitutional due process.
2006 began a state court process to gain back our constitutional due process, but the Florida Supreme Court stopped our appeal with one word, “DENIED”! Now, we can go to the federal courts. Our goal is to seek two answers: are we guaranteed constitutional due process? Can the state of Florida create imperious agencies/commissions? Does this violate the U.S. Constitution?
The Wakulla Sun newspaper will be your source of information if editor/publisher William Snowden allows us over the next weeks.
Its going to be a learning experience! This is a small taste of things to come, constitutional rule-making authority for the FWC published only one time in history in 1999 and removed in 2007 and is not in print today.
We challenge anyone to show us from 1942 to the present day, where the constitution gave the Game and Fish or FWC constitutional rule-making authority.
Ronald F. Crum Panacea
This is the first letter in a series of letters about FWC. Use the folowing links to navigate to the other letters. MORE QUESTIONS ABOUT FWC (Published January 19, 2023), NO DUE PROCESS UNDER FWC (Published January 26, 2023), MORE ON FWC DUE-PROCESS ISSUE (Published February 2, 2023), SEEKING DUE PROCESS FROM FWC (Published February 23, 2023), CAPITOL PROTEST SET OVER DUE PROCESS (Published March 16, 2023) and SEEKING DUE PROCESS AT FWC (Published April 13, 2023)