Common COREY

Last week, in a cover story that almost certainly will be a collector’s item, I discussed the stories you’ll be looking out for in 2017. The pension reform debate, the shakiness of our legislative delegations and the HRO process were the three that word count allowed.

However, even as the ink dried on that print run, another story popped off last week that is worth mentioning.

Angela Corey is still on the public payroll.

People in the Fourth Judicial Circuit — specifically, the kinds of people who vote in August GOP primaries — thought they were getting rid of Corey just because she got thrashed by Melissa Nelson.

Wrong! You can’t simply get rid of Corey with a vote.

Corey will move from the state attorney’s office to the Clay County Sheriff’s Office, pausing to open Christmas presents and light New Year’s Eve fireworks along the way. She’s going to serve the new Clay sheriff, Darryl Daniels, as legal advisor.

This move was discussed by the insiders for weeks; Daniels never saw fit to confirm it when I called the Clay Sheriff’s Office, though, preferring instead to send out a press release that was so amateurishly written, I had to read it twice to make sure it wasn’t magnetic poetry.

Our editor, Claire Goforth, excerpted the best quotations from the press release sent out last week by Team Daniels.

“Corey will train the staff on a variety of issues such as constitutional law as well as proper execution of legal search warrants, arrest warrants and probable cause,” asserted the release, which offered a Daniels quote, which has one relevant section I have boldfaced for emphasis.

“Ms. Corey is the subject matter expert when it comes to the application of the law and conveying that to law enforcement. I do not want innocent people treated like criminals and have their freedoms removed by someone misapplying the law. I have hired the most tenured person with the expertise to provide knowledge and training to the Clay County Sheriff’s Office.”

What does it mean to have “innocent people treated like criminals,” for one thing?

An argument can be made that daily life in 21st-century America evolves with each passing technological advance toward presumption of guilt. There are no meaningful checks on surveillance, electronically or otherwise.

And freedoms? I’m old enough to remember when people weren’t felt up as a precondition to getting on a plane.

Freedoms are arbitrary. And getting more arbitrary all the time.

And Corey’s rep was never for “protecting freedom.” It was always about boosting conviction and clearance statistics.

Those with inside knowledge note, with a sense of irony, that Folio Weekly had its role in getting Corey a few more months on the public payroll.

A cover story we ran in 2016, “Strip Search,” covering a Clay sheriff candidate who may have gone to a strip club, could have helped get Daniels elected … thus securing Corey’s position (and ability to get a few more months for DROP purposes, perhaps).

Whether that cover story was a factor or not is a question to be left for the pollsters.

However, Corey’s tenure — even if it ends in April — in Green Cove Springs raises an interesting question.

How will the Clay sheriff work with new State Attorney Melissa Nelson? What happens if there is, say, an excessive force claim, or if an officer kills a suspect during a stop gone bad?

We know how those situations went with Corey in office.

Will there be pressure, whether in the press or in a sub rosa way, on Nelson to be similarly uncritical of LEOs?

Corey’s hire in Clay County is a provocative move. It speaks to the institutional power she has amassed over the years, one shown by the endorsements from every establishment Republican in Northeast Florida during her failed reelection campaign.

Were those endorsements full-throated? Some more than others.

Jacksonville Sheriff Mike Williams invested political capital by appearing in a Corey ad. Rep. John Rutherford pissed off a potential big donor, Peter Rummell, by extolling Corey at a fundraising event at Rummell’s manse.

The result: Rummell, a Nelson backer who hosted that fundraiser in the summer, didn’t give Rutherford money until October.

Mayor Lenny Curry also endorsed Corey, but didn’t exactly put his thumb on the scale. The mayor was busy selling the pension reform referendum.

And his political team was cutting Corey off at the knees, driving the narrative in the state attorney’s race, aided and abetted by a media exhausted and outraged by the way Corey treated the press throughout her time in office.

Voting Corey out was a ritual purging for many, including people who became Republicans solely to vote her out.

The bright side of all this: at least she’s not Duval’s or Nassau’s problem now.

In the immortal words of Meatloaf, two out of three ain’t bad.