Is Charlie Crist window dressing or cracking open the door?
Per Palm Beach Post (online), 7/31/2009:
Virgil McCranie is ecstatic. After more than a decade of marriage to his “Romeo and Juliet” sweetheart, the stigma of being branded a sex molester has finally been lifted.
The Board of Executive Clemency, comprised of Florida Cabinet members Gov. Charlie Crist, Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, Attorney General Bill McCollum and Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson, granted McCranie a full pardon this week after leaving the Panama City Beach resident in limbo after the last clemency meeting in June.
“It sat there for two hours before I opened it,” McCranie said in a telephone interview today.
McCranie, now 34, and his wife Misty, now 28, fell in love when was he was 19 and she was 14. Since then, they’ve raised four children while struggling to make ends meet.
But their story is no fairy tale.
Misty and her father pressed charges against Virgil, accusing him of raping the minor. The rape charge was dropped but he was charged with lewd and lascivious acts against a minor and was sentenced to two years of probation.
That’s when the father of four’s nightmare began, McCranie told the clemency board in June.
He was placed on the state’s sex offender web site and has been unable to hold down a job or attend his daughter’s dance recitals, he said as he and his wife pleaded with the board to grant him a pardon.
The board took his case “under consideration,” leaving the couple in limbo.
The fact that three of the four clemency board members are running for statewide office - Crist for U.S. Senate and Sink and McCollum for governor - added to the pair’s worries.
That changed when they finally opened the letter containing the governor’s executive order and a copy of the certificate of clemency.
“I hadn’t felt that good since I was 19. I felt clean,” McCranie said.
McCranie said he hasn’t been able to hold down a job because of his sex offender status. Now he won’t have to wonder “if it was me not being good enough to do something or just me getting a bad shake from what I did,” he said. “I’m happy.”
Per the AP, the couple's children had been stigmatized because his name, picture and other personal information appeared on the state’s sex offender registry. McCranie represented himself before the clemency board.
"Arresting Americans" at ten times the worlds average...has reduced our employability worldwide and nationwide considerably...what makes it even worse is that we provide a record of the offense for life....to everyone on earth....for free...you can even see our criminals on tv 24/7 in perpetuity. or syndication! this has weakened our nation considerably...if the object was to make us look like a country "chock full of criminals" then we have done a great job...To every sex offender out there has was just peeing behind 7-11 or kissing his girlfriend or swimming without a suit---I say "you are clean" just because the state trys to label you.... doesnt mean your guilty..we still love you!"
