At least Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood hasn’t gone as far as raiding the offices of the News-Journal and reporter Frank Fernandez’s home, the way that now-twice-disgraced police chief in Kansas did with a small county newspaper there in August, the way New Delhi police did earlier this week against an online newspaper critical of the right-wing prime minister, the way thuggish authorities do anywhere power and personality cults bulldoze accountability.
But it’s Chitwood and it’s Florida, where some sheriffs seem to be competing for Most Obnoxious Self-Promoter at the expense of public treasuries and trust–Carmine Marceno in Lee County, Wayne Ivey in Brevard, Grady Judd in Polk, Bob Johnson in Santa Rosa, and of course Chitwood. (Our own Rick Staly in Flagler is certainly media-savvy, but “fugitive bingo” and “green roof inn” signatures aside, he doesn’t go where these guys do, and there’s no selective barbed wire around his PIOs.)
We never know what Chitwood will do next. He’s won plaudits for denouncing neo-Nazis and antisemitism, though frankly that’s participation-trophy territory. Chitwood only stands out in that regard because we live in a state where even the governor seems incapable of unequivocally denouncing neo-Nazis.
And his anti-discrimination crusade loses credibility as he irresponsibly and dangerously inflames his social media base in targeted attacks against the News-Journal at a time when reporters’ safety is nothing to take lightly–the more so when a law enforcement chief who should know better is stoking the flames.
Chitwood has vilified Frank for doing nothing more than what he always does: an excellent job reporting news and detecting original angles against the grain. Some officials, the shallow and insecure ones anyway, prefer panderers. Thankfully, Frank is too socially clumsy to know pandering.
He’s a digger. He knows his job. I think he’s been at the News-Journal since 2006 (we were colleagues until 2010) and is the current reigning byline champion at that diminished crinkle, with 4,500. In this particular case he didn’t even do much digging. It was more like basic reporting. Last month a jury found Othal Wallace guilty of manslaughter in the killing of Daytona Beach Police Officer Jayson Raynor in 2021. He had been charged with first degree murder, so the verdict took the death penalty off the table, but not life in prison. Suzerain Capital Defense, the nonprofit that represents defendants facing the death penalty–and represented Wallace–posted a brief, neutral summary of the verdict on Facebook.
Chitwood posts on Facebook compulsively. He didn’t like the law firm making that one post. “They’re really bragging on Facebook about picking a jury that let a cop killer off on a lesser charge,” he posted. Frank interviewed the defense lawyer who was part of that jury’s selection, and got this quote: “Sheriff Chitwood is certainly free to disagree with the jury’s verdict, but to disparage the work of the jurors and the jurors themselves, frankly, to me, is un-American.”
She’s right, and she shouldn’t be the only one saying so. Where’s the voice of Leah Case, the chief judge for our Seventh Judicial Circuit? Justice Arthur F. Engoron in Donald Trump’s ongoing civil trial on Tuesday imposed a gag order on the former president after Trump disparaged the judge’s law clerk. It is no less repugnant for a sheriff to disparage jurors: no judge in this circuit would tolerate it if there was so much as a hint of it during a trial. But that’s what we’re dealing with here: a sheriff taking his cues, as so many public officials now do, from the kind of vulgar trolling Trump has normalized.
Chitwood has been going after Frank since early August. It wins him cheap applause from the Facebook bleachers, where media-bashing is politicos’ and candidates’ go-to fillers when they crave an attention fix but don’t have anything interesting to say. After John Dunbar, the News-Journal’s executive editor, took to his reporter’s defense in a column more bewildered than combative, Chitwood disinvited Frank and the News-Journal from his press events and said he will no longer speak with the paper’s reporters. So there!
Reporters are quick to jump on the First Amendment bandwagon when their access is denied. But this has nothing to do with the First Amendment. (If anything, it’s more about the 14th than the First). It barely has anything to do with access. Chitwood has every right not to act his age, not to grant interviews to anyone he doesn’t want to speak to, or not to answer questions at press conferences from anyone he doesn’t like. The law is on his side. So should reporters be: any reporter who thinks we’re owed anyone’s attention should seek a different career. So should any reporter who depends on anyone’s quotes or access to get the job done.
He doesn’t want to talk? His loss, not ours, and the way he so often goes, the less Chitwood chatter, the better–especially at these “pseudo-events,” to borrow the phrase the historian Daniel Boorstin applied to the contrivance of press conferences, which (from Washington to the lowliest school board) are more about massaging information than about informing. Since most reporters are lazy transcribers and suck-ups who like nothing better than to be massaged, it’s a perfect fit for them, and everyone gets a happy ending but the truth. True reporting is elsewhere, which is why I doubt Frank couldn’t care less if he is excluded from these events.
Accessing documents is a different story. Florida’s Sunshine law guarantees that access in most cases, to reporters like everyone else (we’re not special). That’s not at issue here, though more serious legal problems could emerge if the sheriff continues to single out the News-Journal from email blasts, denying records, blocking access across the agency, allowing some media in but not the News-Journal at crime scenes or in other newsworthy places with restricted access. Then it’s a form of content discrimination, which current law forbids.
But gone are the days when the late Tippen Davidson’s late News-Journal could sic attorney Jon Kaney on anyone challenging the paper’s reporting mission. Chitwood knows it. Everyone knows it. That’s why it’s so easy, and so unaccountably reckless for so many, to treat media like scum now, especially when media more often than not take it lying down (the News-Journal couldn’t afford Kaney even then; it can afford legal advocacy much less now.)
Frank is responding the best way: with more reporting, and with his editor at his back. It’s not enough. Frank, Dunbar and the News-Journal shouldn’t be left dangling at the mercy of Chitwood’s churlish populism. If that’s the kind of games Chitwood plays, it’s every news organization’s responsibility, television stations especially, to shun Chitwood’s “events” in turn, in solidarity with the News-Journal, until he drops the bombast. Public officials need reporters way, way more than we need them to do our job. When public officials are disrespectful, let’s act accordingly and deny them our time and respect in return.
Most of the local mic-slingers may not have those kinds of principles. They have their own Facebook beasts to feed and sometimes have trouble knowing solidarity from Gdansk, which explains the pitiful state of contemporary media. But appeasement doesn’t work, and acting as if Chitwood’s prancing doesn’t affect other news organizations–or, more critically, the fabric of an open, accountable community–makes those organizations complicit in their own and their community’s dissection, if and when Chitwood denies them his favoritism.
No need to wait. Volusia media should politely, firmly, collectively deny him theirs.
Pierre Tristam is FlaglerLive’s editor. A version of this piece airs on WNZF.
ASF says
I guess Chitwood’s Freedom of Speech rights don’t count.
As far as Neo-Nazis go…I think Chitwood, himself, has been targeted and threatened by that particular group himself quite a bit lately. And he’s taken them on rather boldly.
Just a thought says
What freedom of speech right did Chitwood lose? A reporter quoted a lawyer and Chitwood to exception to the reporter. Not the person who was quoted. Then he stopped inviting the newspaper to press conferences because the paper defended the reporter. All this drama was over one single quote.
ASF says
Chitwood is entitled to his opinions, just like everybody else. Attacks from journalists who don’t happoen to like his politics and, on the basis of them, feel free target him but whine about what victims they are when he exercises the same Free Speech rights that they take full advantage of seem hypocritical to me.
This is where the ability to agree to disagree comes into play.
Pierre Tristam says
As always, the ever-disingenuous ASF unleashes her armies of straw men to mischaracterize and deflect. Let me know when we whiny journalists are able to abuse our authority and tax dollars to play favorites with access to publicly funded venues and events, or how a whiny oped compares to an elected official inflaming his mob against a reporter who does not do his work with flack jackets and firearms and platoons of supporting guns, other than—though the comparison doesn’t stick, this not being a tax-supported venue—occasionally banning the likes of you from commenting here when you so copiously violate rules, which surely explains your affinity for Chitwood.
JimBob says
Post-2016 being a flaming asshole has become a positive for right wingers seeking public office. Chitwood and other carpetbaggers are filling that niche. Some folks like it “the way we did it up North.”
The dude says
I fail to see any sort of “attack” on Chitwood, at all, just a defense lawyers opinion.
Maybe Chitwood would do better to work towards getting better prosecutors rather than working to hide facts from his employers, the general public?
Rick G says
Excellent analysis of the state of journalism in Volusia, Flagler and the nation.
Pogo says
@P.T.
I agree — very well said.
The accompanying photo, of Scott, was repulsive, as he is — and then I noticed the shoulder straps of his flak vest bulging against his coat. Appropriate for life in the gunshine state.
And so it goes.
https://www.google.com/search?q=desantis+wanted+guns+banned+from+his+appearances
James says
“… flak vest bulging… ”
Well, it’s understandable.
Death by lead poisoning is indeed a growing problem among turkey vultures everywhere.
So too, I suppose amongst the human kind as well.
Amy says
Chitwood is a outstanding person. Cant say the same for the news journal ferna.
Dennis C Rathsam says
The News Journal is bias, liberal rag news paper. Not worth the money! With that said Im a Chitwood fan. He has made a career of protecting the public. He,s a man of strong convictions & morals. Keep up the good work, you always give 100% stay safe. Job well done!
Samuel L. Bronkowitz says
Chitwood is and has always been a grandstanding political opportunist and trash human being.
https://www.clickorlando.com/news/2018/07/06/fur-lined-handcuffs-too-far-volusia-sheriff-takes-on-cesspool-county-council/
Tony says
Chitwood should just do his job and stop being a thin skinned, insult talking bully. Wonder why he fears those who choose to see the truth and bans the free press from press conferences.?
Denali says
My takeaway on this article. A reporter quoted the defense attorney. We are then told that the reporter’s editor defended the reporter. Then we learn that Chitwood Tells the paper ‘no more access’ to him. We are never told what Chitwood did or said to warrant the charge that he made ‘dangerous and irresponsible attacks’ on the reporter. That comes from one, maybe two paragraphs of the 16 or so paragraphs in the article.
I will agree that our relationship these days with the fourth estate is tenuous at best. I also understand your frustration with Chitwood but to lambaste him for the majority of the article and not tell us what he said or did is not fair to your reader. Maybe I missed something.
Pogo says
@FWIW (and sheriff Mike)
It took me 10 seconds to get Chitwood’s side.
https://www.facebook.com/sheriffchitwood/
My question for Chitwood — what are you afraid of? I remember your (Chitwood) performance as chief of DBPD; you’ve, IMO, been a model LEO: leading from in front, riding bike patrol, instead of stakeouts at Krispy Kreme, just to give one example. I remember the sheriff of VC from the Thursby regime to today — not one of them would make a patch on your pants.
Sheriff Mike — you’re better than this.
Ray W. says
Hello, Pogo!
I’ve been sitting on this story for a long time.
About 25 years ago, I approached a new misdemeanor prosecutor in court to discuss a pending case on his docket. The prosecutor, while new to the practice of law, had spent 25 years as a Daytona Beach police officer, including many years as a detective, before retiring and then graduating from law school. I knew him well from my years as a prosecutor. As a defense attorney, I had defended people he had arrested. We seemed to get along well. That day was no different.
As we talked, he casually commented that my client was guilty. I immediately corrected him, stating he didn’t have the power to decide guilt or innocence. He insisted he did. I asked him to use his search engine on his legal research site when he got back to his office and type in “prosecutorial misconduct” and “I believe”, regarding comments to a jury about a belief in the guilt of any defendant.
I had other cases in other courts, so by the time I got back to my office and called him, he had already researched the issue. He was amazed to find that he could not tell a jury that he believed the defendant was guilty. As we talked further, he wondered aloud about how he had worked as a police officer so long and had never learned that he couldn’t say such things in a courtroom. The cases he had found established that it was fundamental error for a prosecutor to comment on the guilt of any defendant. He also found out that it was fundamental error for a police officer to testify to a jury under oath while that he believed the defendant was guilty. Fundamental error means that a conviction will be reversed, and the case sent back for a new trial, whenever a police officer or prosecutor expresses a personal belief to a jury that any defendant is guilty of committing a crime. I have read only one case where an appellate court upheld a conviction. That court stated that the evidence of guilt was so overwhelming that the fundamental error rule did not require reversal, where the defense attorney had not objected to the erroneous comment. In that case, the prosecutor had also described the defendant as “young Mr. Hitler” during closing argument, so the appellate court referred the prosecutor to the Florida Bar for possible sanctions.
The reasoning is simple. Our founding fathers gave the power to decide guilt to judges and juries, not to prosecutors or police officers. In their Constitutional design, no one person is ever to hold unlimited powers for an indeterminate period of time. To ensure that this limitation was honored by future generations, our founding fathers placed checks and balances on every delegation of power to any government official.
Intrigued by the episode, I began asking various law enforcement officers whether they knew the limits of the powers that had been delegated to them upon their expression of their oath of office to uphold the Constitution. I don’t know how many police officers I have asked, but the number is less than 100 over a term of about 20 years. Not one officer has ever successfully explained the limits of the power he or she wields as an officer, though two came pretty close. One said a judge limits their powers. The other said he could arrest people. The answer, of course, is absurdly simple, but it seems that officers are not taught the limits to their delegated powers, either in the academy or during their years as an officer. Though long retired, I recently had a long conversation with a sheriff’s deputy about limits to his powers. He had no idea, though he had more than 10 years of experience. Once I told him of the limits, he agreed that it made sense to him.
What is the answer? An officer possesses the power to swear in a complaint affidavit to an allegation of probable cause! Nothing more.
Here is the step-by-step process:
The most any officer can do is to swear to an allegation of probable cause in a complaint affidavit. This is a significant power, because a person can be held in custody on an allegation of probable cause.
Within 24 hours, a judge reviews the sworn affidavit and determines, at a First Appearance, the existence of probable cause. Though an officer can only allege probable cause, a judge can find probable cause. This is the first check on an officer’s power. If probable cause is lacking from the face of the complaint affidavit, the judge can order an extension of either 72 or 96 hours, depending on the day to the week or weekend. If the officer cannot cure the lack of probable cause within the allowed time, the defendant is then released from custody.
The complaint affidavit is then forwarded to a prosecutor for review and a possible charging decision. This is a second check on an officer’s power. If a prosecutor decides that a criminal charge is warranted, he or she swears to an allegation of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, a standard higher than that of probable cause. If not, the allegation of probable cause is dropped.
The alleged criminal charge is then sent to a judicial docket, where a judge, in a non-jury trial, or a jury determines whether sufficient competent and reliable evidence exists to convict the defendant. This is a third check on an officer’s power.
In no constitutional scenario does a police officer or a prosecutor ever have the power to decide whether a defendant is guilty of a crime. To even say so to a jury prompts fundamental error.
Can it be argued under this Constitutional framework that to say a defendant is a scumbag is an exercise of freedom of speech? But to say a defendant is a scumbag criminal prior to a judge or jury finding that fact is a violation of an oath of office?
As an aside, one of the officers I talked to (many years ago) told me he was an instructor at the academy at Daytona Beach Community College (now DSC) and that he agreed with me that it was important for him to know the limits of his delegated powers. He said he was going to add the issue to the class curriculum, but I don’t know whether he ever did so.
Pogo says
@Ray W.
Ignorance of the law is no defense. It is true.
I do recall, from time to time, in my present dotage, a wonderful professor who encouraged me to reach for law school. In response, I opined that there already were too many lawyers. She promptly replied, “There are not now, and will never be, too many good lawyers. There will never be a shortage of lesser ones — lawyers, or anyone else.” Also, true.
Thank you for adding worth, as usual, to a conversation. Be well.
Ray W. says
Hello Pogo.
You reminded me of one of my father’s favorite stories. Just out of law school in 1952, he was talking with a well-established lawyer on the sidewalk near the old News-Journal building on Orange Avenue. Herbert Davidson walked out of the building. Spotting the established lawyer, he walked over to exchange pleasantries. The lawyer introduced my father as a “promising” young lawyer. Somewhat derisively, Mr. Davidson retorted: Just what Daytona needs. Another promising young lawyer.
A few months later, my father walked into the building and asked to speak with Mr. Davidson. When admitted into the office, he told Mr. Davidson that he intended to run for city commission on an anti-Ring agenda. If anyone else later ran on that issue, my father said he would step aside, but someone had to challenge the Ring.
The next morning, front page and above the fold, my father was introduced to readers as a promising young lawyer. My father won the race, as did four other anti-Ring candidates. The entire Ring commission was ushered out of power. That first year, the city’s budget was slashed dramatically, as cronyism and waste was ended. The city commission was lauded in a national publication as one of only 11 cities that had taken on a corrupt former administration and subsequently strengthened the city’s financial affairs (yes, I have seen the award in the scrapbook my mother kept during those years.)
My father’s campaign flyers contained a picture of a major city street that had just been repaved by a Ring-approved contractor. A few months later, a newer picture depicted the potholes and crumbling pavement from the substandard and overpriced work.
Herbert Davidson was the major force in Volusia County that ultimately undermined the power of the Ring, though the Ring dominated local and, on occasion, state politics for decades.
Pogo says
@Ray W.
I’m well acquainted with all of that history — first hand, too.
I remember that Daytona supported large “newspaper stands” (2 on Main St. — complete with poolrooms in the back, the large one on Beach St., and the last one — in Bellair Plaza). I recall a lot more than that, too.
From my POV, there is nothing to do but let the dead bury the dead — and let go of what I can’t forget.
Peace, brother.
James says
Probably cause, compliant affidavits, 72 hours?
And so what are your thoughts on the Baker Act?
Ray W. says
Thank you, James.
Tough question.
I have attended quite a few hearings on people committed under the terms of the Baker Act. Some were chronically unstable and the Baker Act was just a stopgap measure. Others presented as acutely mentally ill, but the stage was short-term, and the help offered was appropriate and needed at the time of the commitment, but the stage quickly passed. I don’t suppose any one statutory scheme can ever fully cover the wide range of events that can happen to so many different people. Since a significant number of people receive appropriate treatment and care under the Act, I can’t argue against it.
mes aJ says
Yes Ray, I guess it’s a fair assessment. Especially in light of what seems to be the truth… many people come to Florida for all the wrong reasons (not that there is a “right” one), some unfortunately with problems that always needed to be addressed, but never were…”extra baggage” they might never realized they carried.
But (hyperbole aside ) if misused it could be a powerful tool to those seeking some form of authoritarianist control.
I never thought I’d make such a comment, butI have.
Florida, I sorta knew it was a state with problems, but political instability of that sort?
No.
Land of no turn signals says says
Sounds likes the News Journal is a little butt hurt.Most of there articles are written by USA today anyhow.
James says
Eh, Facebook again.
Such is life with social media and the frailties of the human psyche.
Just an observation.