The Florida Supreme Court rejected Gov. Charlie Crist’s request for a statewide grand jury to look into corruption.

Crist’s request did not meet the “minimal requirements” necessary to determine that a grand jury is needed, the high court ruled today, by failing to specify what crimes or wrongs occurred and where they took place.

Crist last month petitioned the court to empanel a statewide grand jury to focus on public corruption in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties and the judicial circuit that includes Charlotte, Collier, Glades, Hendry and Lee counties.

The assignment – that the panel investigate public corruption from bribery to other seemingly unrelated crimes such as child pornography and drug offenses – sets forth a “monumental task” so broad as to possibly be untenable, former Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Gerald Kogan, a veteran of anti-corruption efforts in Miami-Dade County, said when Crist filed the petition.
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The state’s trial lawyer association suspended Executive Director Scott Carruthers, Deputy Executive Director Paul Jess and political director Albert Balido for their involvement in a racially-tinged flyer targeting then-candidate John Thrasher.

“We repeat FJA’s apology for our financial role in the offensive and appalling absentee mail piece,” FJA President Michael Haggard said in a press release.

Haggard asked former Florida Supreme Court Justice Gerald Kogan to investigate the mailer and released Kogan’s report today after a board of directors’ meeting in Orlando.

The mailer sent to potential absentee voters was aimed at persuading Jacksonville residents to vote against Thrasher, a Republican, in the race to replace the late Sen. Jim King. Thrasher, a former House Speaker, later won the election.

The mailer depicted Black Panthers, President Barack Obama, Al Sharpton, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and a group of blacks holding an ACORN sign and was captioned “Is this the change you want to believe in?”

Kogan’s report, slightly longer than three pages, found that the three FJA executives were the only members of the organization who had knowledge of the flyer that drew outrage from Republicans and black lawmakers.

Everyone questioned about the mailer found it “outrageous, shocking, disgusting and contradicting everything FJA represents,” Kogan wrote in his report.

The trial lawyers initially distanced themselves from the mailer then admitted that Balido had hired political consultant Bill Helmich to come up with the last-minute attack.

“Bill, did it have to be so over the top?” Balido asked when initially shown the mail piece, according to Kogan’s report.

FJA promised that an oversight committee would review all campaign materials and expenditures in the future, according to the press release. (Read about FJA’s campaign spending at a bondage bar and a trendy South Beach night club here.)

The press release did not identify the three executives by name but said that “all three staff members specifically identified in the Kogan Report for their involvement in the matter have been temporarily suspended.”

A racially-charged mail piece targeting former House Speaker John Thrasher will cost the state’s trial lawyer association more than embarassment.

The Florida Justice Association has hired former Florida Supreme Court Justice Gerald Kogan to conduct an investigation into the flier that elicited outrage from the legislature’s black caucus.

“It was the most blatant display of racism I’ve seen in 27 years,” Senate Democratic Leader Al Lawson, who is black, said at the legislature’s black caucus meeting last night.

The mailer was especially offensive to black lawmakers because they have historically sided with the trial lawyers in votes and considered them their friends, Lawson said.

“This experience really threw me for a loop,” Lawson, D-Tallahassee, said.

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Those who smoke — even in the privacy of their own homes — have been declared personae non gratae in Tax Collector Anne Gannon’s office. Citing health insurance costs, Gannon is no longer hiring anyone who admits using tobacco products in the past year. Current employees who smoke must quit or pay up to 20 percent higher premiums.

When the Florida Supreme Court upheld a similar hiring ban in 1995, then-Justice Gerald Kogan dissented, saying he feared such policies would create a “slippery slope” in which employers would have leeway to grill employees about other private, legal behaviors.

Gannon says that won’t happen in her office. Read about here it in this week’s Politics column.