The Romeo and Juliet provision for removal is completely unrelated to the 25-year removal provision and applies in a very narrow range of cases. In order to be eligible to petition the circuit court for removal from the requirement to register, at least 25 years must have passed from the end of all sanctions imposed in the case (including probation, if any), and the petitioner must not have been arrested for any misdemeanor or felony offenses since release. In addition, the petitioner must not have been convicted of any of an enumerated list of offenses (including kidnapping, human trafficking, sexual battery, and certain lewd and lascivious offenses under F.S. 800.04, among others), and the removal must not conflict with federal law (basically, the petitioner’s independent duty to register under Federal SORNA must have expired).

If all of these requirements have been met, then the petitioner may seek removal in the circuit court where the original offense was adjudicated (for a Florida offense) or in the circuit court where the petitioner resides (for an out-of-state offense). A copy of the petition must be served on the state attorney of the circuit. The court may grant or deny relief if the court determines that the petitioner is no longer a threat to public safety. This is just a summary of the statute. For full details, please consult the statute itself: F.S. 943.0435, near the end.

I may be wrong, but I thought that the 25 years period to petition removal was only for the Romeo and Juliet designations.

And I think it should NOT be called a “registry” since it is not a registration done by choice, it is a forced sentence. Specifically for those whose conviction are from prior to 1993.

A moving story, big J. Thank you. This is what they need to hear.

Then they can not prove nor disprove you received the correspondence.

I received one of those letters from FDLE more than 15 years ago, and only once. It was sent via regular mail. I don’t think they’d be willing to pay the additional expense to send them certified in the future.

Kyle M is right. We now have a partial win.

One down, two to go.

It would have to come certified for them to hold you responsible for the mail in my opinion. As you said mail gets lost all the time. So I think in order for you to get dinged on this you would have had to sign something stating you got it and then not reply.

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Lost for words…

So if I am reading correctly, the legislators have now struck the language from the bill that would not have provided an offender to petition the court for removal after 25 years.