VIA U.P.S. No.

1Z64589FNY91890624 July 15, 2013

Mr. Eugene K. Pettis

President, The Florida Bar
Haliczer Pettis & Schwamm, P.A.
100 SE 3rd Avenue, Seventh Floor
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33394-0015

Dear Bar President Pettis:

Congratulations on your installation as 65th President of The Florida Bar June 28 at the Annual
Convention. The Florida Bar is now fully ‘integrated’ as Mr. Allen noted on the video of your
invocation, with you taking office as the first African-American Florida Bar President.

Your personal story is inspiring. I wish you success as President. Thank you for sharing your
personal struggles published in The Florida Bar Journal. Your disclosure of once having a
speech impediment hits home for me. My speech impediment is velopharyngeal inadequacy,
caused by a cleft palate, which impairment unfortunately persists despite a lifetime of treatment.

Please accept the following to commemorate your achievement, and bear witness in the present.

• Breach of Peace, Portraits of the 1961 Mississippi Freedom Riders, by Eric Etheridge, is a
historical account of the struggle for equality by African-Americans for rights denied under
the color of law. The photos and mug shots show a diverse group of Americans in that moral
fight. The reverse dust jacket shows more mug shots of those arrested while Freedom Riding.

• The Secret Life of Judges, 75 Fordham L. Rev. 2855 (2007), an essay by the Hon. Dennis
Jacobs, Chief Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Also enclosed is a copy
of my letter to Judge Jacobs, that reads in part...

Thank you for taking the time to publish The Secret Life of Judges. Your words are
refreshing, especially page 2861, paragraph 4, “I sometimes think that the problem at
bottom is really a lack of respect by lawyers for other people.”

Recently I cited The Secret Life of Judges in a supplemental brief to the Supreme Court of
the United States, copy enclosed. Unfortunately my pro se Petition No. 12-7747 for writ
of certiorari was denied February 19, 2013, but I plan to submit a petition for rehearing.

Should you revisit this topic in another writing, consider what is happening at The
Florida Bar, and perhaps other state regulatory bars in America. The “ambient bias” is
disrupted in a way that suggests infringement on the U.S. Const. art. I, § 10, clause 1,
contracts, “No State shall...grant any Title of Nobility” [Esquire]. When Florida grants a
license to practice law, it is essentially granting a title of nobility, Esquire, one that
trumps the both the state and federal judiciary.
Eugene K. Pettis, President July 15, 2013
The Florida Bar Page - 2
• A pocket edition of the Constitution of the United States, and Declaration of Independence.
Unfortunately, our supreme law has not protected all equally. Notably, the Founding Fathers
who owned human slaves as chattel property, while concurrently declaring “all men are
created equal”, denied those slaves the very rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness
promised by the Constitution. The denial of rights under color of law is still a problem today.

• A transcript of Amy Bach on the Syracuse Law YouTube Channel discussing her book
“Ordinary Injustice: How America Holds Court”. http://youtu.be/4ug8lXPExeo

AMY BACH: I wrote this book and it's about

places in America where there has been a collapse
of the adversarial system. And what I mean by that
is that the lawyers stopped checking each other in
the ways that they're supposed to. And the result
is, is that ordinary people are hurt on a daily basis.

There is this adversarial system in America

and it's the prosecutor and defense attorney and
neutral judge up above, but when it doesn't work
they're not checking each other and they all line
up together. They're all like an arrow. They're
all moving towards something, but it's not justice.
They're not doing the adversarial protections that
they're -- they're not protecting the people that
they're supposed to be protecting.

Unfortunately The Florida Bar is in crisis. The Florida Bar’s slogan - “Protecting Rights,
Pursuing Justice, Promoting Professionalism” - is undercut by The Bar’s own survey found in
the Hawkins Commission on Review of the Discipline System, completed May 2012. I urge you
to embrace Judge Jacobs’s message in The Secret Lives of Judges as you proceed.

You can build on the justice legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., which struggle is informed by
your unique experience, including an inexcusable beating at Sunland Park Elementary School.

Mr. Pettis, I challenge you to a Presidency of Excellence, and not a vacuous presidency of the
past giving predictable speeches. The success of The Florida Bar in your hands. Godspeed.

Sincerely,

Neil J. Gillespie
8092 SW 115th Loop
Ocala, Florida 34481

Cc: Eugene K. Pettis, President, The Florida Bar, 651 E. Jefferson Street, Tallahassee, FL
VIA U.P.S. No. 1Z64589FNY91897038, with enclosures.