To United States Department of Justice:
My name is Mary Katherine Day-Petrano. By this writing I am making a disability discrimination and retaliation complaint against the Florida Supreme Court and each of its justices for violating my civil rights under Title II of the ADA and 42 U.S.C. Sec. 12203(a) and (b).
The Florida Supreme Court is located at 500 South Duvall Street, Tallahassee, FL 32399-1927, (850) 488-0125.
My address is 11502 SE US Hwy. 301, Hawthorne, FL 32640.
I have been diagnosed with Autism by my doctor Michael W. Hoffmann, MD and the University of South Florida in April 2009. He also diagnosed me with a significant traumatic brain injury from a January 2008 car accident. I also have temporal lobe epilepsy diagnosis, hearing impairment and vision impairments diagnoses, and numerous other diagnosed physical and neurological disabilities.
I have received accommodations for my disabilities under Title II of the ADA since at least May 1996 by numerous other public entities and courts in the states of California and Florida other than the Florida Supreme Court.
At a May 14, 2014 hearing before Tampa, FL United States Bankruptcy Judge Catherine McEwen, the Judge recognized my blindness when she asked (on court record) the bankruptcy trustee what he does for blind people to give them access to paper print documents.
Following that hearing, a United States Trustee sent from Atlanta, Georgia Region 21 office, spoke with my lawyer at another hearing in the Us Bankruptcy Court and offered to assist with getting the appointment of a guardian ad litem for me. I was placed in the University of South Florida's "Emerging Consciousness" program for "minimally conscious" patients in April 2008 following my 2008 car accident.
Also, anyone who is even remotely aware of Autism would know that individuals with Autism cannot be thrown out on the streets or left unsupervised, because to do so causes wanderings and high risk of death.
My lawyer made a request for Title II ADA reasonable accommodations for me (1.) to access my Florida Bar admission, (2.) to be able to testify as a witness for him in Bar proceedings brought against him in retaliation for his representing myself and other clients to exercise their ADA rights, and (3.) for a doctor examination the Florida Supreme Court ordered him to attend so I would not be left with Autism unsupervised, since we could not get a nurse.
The Florida Supreme Court and its justices individually, REFUSED to provide any of the Title II ADA reasonable accommodations requested. And they did so by REFUSING to accept or review the appx. 2000 pages of medical and disability documentation my lawyer provided to them by filing them, because the Florida Supreme Court and Florida state court system has NO methods to receive the disability documentation necessary to understand the disability. They punished and browbeat my lawyer for my Autism and blindness, and willfully refused to understand I have been in a “minimally conscious” incompetency program.
Most of all, the Florida Supreme Court and those it supervises and licenses, fail to understand that reasonable accommodations, reasonable modifications, and auxiliary aids and services are being used in many contexts to remove incompetency (e.g. immigration courts), and that ADA accommodations are not “courtesies” but mandates, and that people like me with Autism, traumatic brain injury, and other severe disabilities cannot navigate any court process at all without these Title II ADA accommodations that are our civil right.
Instead, the Florida Supreme Court intentionally retaliated by punishing my lawyer, REFUSING to receive the disability documentation required by Title II of the ADA, REFUSING to provide any reasonable accommodations, and issuing an Order to Show Cause against him to take away his law license, deprive me of my lawyer, and send the message to all the lawyers in the state of Florida they are NOT to enforce Title II of the ADA in this state. I am aware that at least three lawyers who tried to help me access the disability accommodations I require were retaliated against their Bar licenses for having tried to help me exercise my ADA rights. This is no accident, but instead is an intentional pattern and practice of retaliation intended to oppress Florida’s severely disabled population and chill disabled people like me from Court access through extreme harsh punitive measures simply for having tried to exercise the Title II ADA rights the Florida Supreme Court does not seem to understand and to which they (unlike other courts) are extremely hostile.
I have been told in response to making ADA accommodations requests by lawyers approved of by the Florida Supreme Court, that “that sounds bizarre” and “I never heard of that before.” They say these things in refusing my ADA accommodations because they have NO CLUE what Title II of the ADA is and what their obligations are under it.
The Florida Supreme Court is REFUSING to allow me to be a witness for my lawyer, REFUSING to allow me access to file or defend any court case in the Florida state courts, and REFUSING me any access at all to try out for my Bar admission. The Florida Supreme Court has repeatedly instructed its Clerk to tell me ‘its too bad if you can’t see and lose your case because you can’t see.’
All of this violates Tennessee v. Lane, 541 U.S. 509 (2004), Title II of the ADA, and 42 USC Sec. 12203(a) and (b). I have associational right to complain about the discrimination and retaliation against my lawyer, as well as myself, because without him, I cannot get ANY lawyer in the state of Florida trained in Autism who will raise my Title II ADA claims in the hostile environment the Florida Supreme Court continues to maintain.
The retaliation by the Florida Supreme Court came closely after (1.) the US Department of Justice issued a right to sue letter against The Florida Bar and a Florida state court in my favor, and (2.) my lawyer filed a Title II ADA case in the Orlando Division US District Court seeking the remedy of requiring the Florida Courts and all state judges and lawyers to be trained in their obligations under Title II of the ADA.
I keep repeatedly being physically injured, subjected to extreme mental abuse, and other unsafe conditions as a direct result of the discrimination and retaliation against me and my lawyer by the Florida Supreme Court and its justices individually.
The entire disabled population in the state of Florida is harmed by this flagrant intentional pattern and practice of unlawful discrimination and retaliation by the Florida Supreme Court and its justices, individually. They do not seem to understand one single thing about Autism or blindness or epilepsy, and have conveyed the message that they REFUSE to.
I cannot even get access to bring a case for restraining order against neighbors who have been shooting at me, to enforce contract rights for my business, or to file or defend any case in the Florida state courts including my Olmstead v. L.C. community living rights, much less access to my Florida Bar admission, due to the intentional REFUSAL of the Florida Supreme Court to (1.) train themselves in their obligations under Title II of the ADA, (2.) train all judges and lawyers in the state, (3.) and provide the reasonable accommodations I require, my doctors reported I need, and I have received by all sorts of other state and federal courts (other than the Florida Supreme Court) and agencies and businesses since at least 1996.
I am asking the United States Department of Justice to intervene and enforce Title II of the ADA and 42 U.S.C. Sec. 12203 fully and strongly against the Florida Supreme Court, state judges, and lawyers, and the state court system. This is a wholesale Autism apartheid the Florida Supreme Court maintains in the state of Florida as bad as that formerly maintained in Soweto, South Africa. We who have Autism and blindness have NO access rights ANYWHERE in the state of Florida.
This is being caused by the Florida Supreme Court’s willful refusal to comply with Title II of the ADA. If they refuse to comply, no one else in the state of Florida will do so, either.
Respectfully,
Mary Katherine Day-Petrano
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