Posada Carriles trial is postponed for the last time, due to his natural death
March 2014: EXTRA! EXTRA!
Posada Carriles trial is postponed for the last time, due to his natural death
By Nelson Valdés
Luis Posada Carriles died an expected death, because doctors said his circulatory system could not continue to function after sitting in the same chair for the equivalent of 39 months. During that time, several members of the jury had to be replaced, including one who committed suicide, another who got divorced, and one who ended up homeless because the payment made to the jurors was not sufficient to cover his two mortgages.
Judge Cardone, in turn, 22 months ago had to drop the exercise class that she taught women in El Paso Community College because she had gained too much weight.
Art Jernández, meanwhile, continued to publish ads for the sale of cars, guns and any other business that would enable him to continue to earn over a thousand dollars per day. No one knows the total amount of what he earned during this trial but the estimate is much higher than $5 million.
For his part, José Pertierra decided to leave the legal profession because he has made a fortune writing from El Paso about the Southwest for Conde Nest. His books about the romantic story of Pancho Villa have become bestsellers in Mexico City, sales aided by the TV soap opera based on his unusual descriptions of a Pancho Villa as a man who was serious but very much a lover and lived to the age of 82 in Tucson, where he established a dance school that taught rancheritas.
The remaining members of the old counter-revolution in Los Angeles have mobilized from their wheelchairs because they want to bury Posada Carriles in Tombstone, Ariz., a city that – along with the state – declared its independence from the United States about five months ago.
However, from the hospital for the insane La Amistad [Behavioral Health Services Psychiatric Hospital in Maitland, Fla.], Santiago “El Guillo” Álvarez claimed that “all of us have to be waked at Caballero Funeral Home and no eng ^ & * $ ^ ^ ..” The rest was unintelligible.
The University of Miami continues to sponsor seminars in what is now called The House of Rum. Within 72 hours of Bambi’s death, UM announced a debate from a legal perspective concerning the trial, because, according to some Cuba-non-logists, it established several precedents:
1. It was the first case where the sentence was concurrent with the trial. [It is assumed that the CIA wanted Posada to die during the trial itself, before the verdict could be reached. Another typical betrayal.]
2. The number of Judge Cardone’s postponements set a world record. Lawyers have coined the expression “let’s get Cardone,” which means we need to postpone the judicial process. Also, the expression “he was Cardonated” means the defendant had a long trial and the sentence ran for the same length of time.
Outside of Miami, a debate in academic circles rages about which was the greatest contribution of Cuban-Americans to the American legal tradition: the Bambi case or the recognition by the Supreme Court that the sacrifice of roosters, chickens, pigeons and other animals for religious purposes is a right recognized in the Establishment Clause. [See U.S. Supreme Court found in favor of the Santería Church of Lukumi Babalú Ayé and against the City of Hialeah, Fla.]
Nelson Valdés is Professor Emeritus at the University of New Mexico.
