Florida Governor Charlie Crist, who received 50,000 emails and phone calls in the weeks before the execution of Martin Grossman, and decided to respond to their requests less than 30 minutes before the execution (in an automated response), and had refused to even meet with any Jewish leaders.
This marks the third time Crist has lost, for three different parties, in the last four years.
Crist, a career politician, was defeated by Marco Rubio in the Republican primary in 2010, then was defeated as an independent by Rubio again in the 2010 general election.
(YWN Desk – NYC)
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15 Responses
Martin Grossman is a murderer , he murdered pegy park and admitted to it, the fact that jewish groups are a bunch of liberal yo yos is not a reason for him not to get the death penalty,
Your headline is disingenuous. Charlie Crist didn’t execute anyone he just refused to stay the execution of a convicted murderer. Yes the Rabbonim encouraged us to daven for & try to persuade the Florida Governor to stay the execution of Martin Grossman but just remember he did murder a parks employee in cold blood. You really can blame Crist for ignoring our pleas.
May Hashem avenge his blood…
What is the relevance of his decision to execute the rotzeach Grossman to his loss of the election. The exit polls yesterday did not indicate that this was even a remote factor in the minds of most voters. If asked, I suspect the large percentage of voters would have said that might have been one of the few actions of his they agreed with.
YMS!
Grossman was guilty of a heinous crime, the cold-blooded murder of a young law enforcement officer. Had the officer been Jewish and the murderer been a gentile we would all have been cheering Crist for putting the murderer to death.
Your headline is misleading and very wrong. Governor Crist did not execute Martin Grossman. Martin Grossman was convicted of murdering an officer of the law by a jury of his peers. He was sentenced to death by a Judge. Grossman never claimed to be innocent and never denied the charges against him. Governor Crist did not pardon him or commute his sentence because there was no legal grounds to do so. Having 50,000 people request a pardon for Grossman just because he is Jewish is not a valid legal cause. Many criminals are put to death under the exact same circumstances as Martin Grossman.
If 50,000 people oppose the death penalty then let them vote in politicians who oppose it, as opposed to voting for the tough on crime crowd usually favored by the ultra orthodox community.
As an aside Governor Crist did accommodate the last minute requests of local Jewish community representative to allow a Rabbi to be with Martin Grossman at time of death so that he could recite viduy properly.
Payback
Martin Grossman has next to nothing to do with Charlie Crist losing. Also, the fact that Crist allowed the execution of Grossman to go forward would have been something most YWN readers would have favored had Grossman been, say, a born-again Christian rather than a semi-BT Jew. While I certainly feel bad that a Jew was executed by the State of Florida, it is unreasonable to expect a politician to take the religion of a convicted murderer into account in determining whether or not to grant clemency – and there were many other murderers who’d turned themselves around in jail and expressed sincere remorse who were also put to death.
an Israeli Yid
Imho, he is not suited to hold any office anymore. When there is a iota of doubt a person might have an argument, you let him try it. Doesn’t matter if he’s tried 50 times.
All these pious commentators decrying this article are missing the facts. The Jewish groups and Gossman’s lawyers were not asking Crist to pardon or stay the execution of a convicted murderer. Rather they wanted him not to sign off until certain mental examinations were conducted. The lawers argued that certain mental capacity requirements may not have been met by Grossman’s I.Q. , and merely requested these examinations be carried out. Crist refused. His attitude as described in the YWN article was plain contempt. As for all the comments deriding the article’s connection to elections ? Hello?! No one is saying voters had Martin Grossman on their minds!! The article’s insinuation is only that he deserved this defeat. The dumbkopfs should get this through their thick skulls.
No sheichus whatsoever. Christ lost because of his extreme left wing Liberal views. He would of been very bad for the State of Florida as Governor. Good riddance to the backstabbing Christ.
Reb Arthur Conan – there was no reason to run additional tests on Grossman. The requisite mental testing was already performed. There was nothing at all unique about Grossmans situation. The only difference between him and others on death row was the fact that he was Jewish however that is irrelevant in a court of law.
As an aside Crist is the only politician in history to lose as a Republican, Democrat and Independent.
Crist was also the governor who saved Florida from hurricanes by putting a tfila note in the kosel. http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/general/10996/florida-governor-says-prayer-at-kosel-protected-state-from-hurricanes.html