A bill that would bar judges from granting bail to someone appealing a conviction of a sex offense against a child is moving smoothly through the Florida Legislature.
Rep. Tom Leek, R-Ormond Beach, introduced the bill after outrage last year led by Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood and others when Mark Fugler was released while he appealed his conviction and 15-year prison sentence for sex crimes involving a child.
Leek’s bill adds sex crimes against children to the list of offenses for which judges cannot grant supersedeas bonds, a bond allowing someone to remain free while appealing a conviction.
I myself have experienced South Florida’s corrupt courts. The worst of it involves no court actually reading the briefs, EVEN FROM COMPETENT defense lawyers who on paper-in a brief- have demolished with logic and clear law the government’s best arguments. This is true both on the district level to the court of appeals for the 11th circuit.
Where are out second Amendment militias when we need them? As far as RSOs are concerned we live under a 13th amendment violation. Like old Dred Scott the courts of this land view us as having no rights anyone else is bound to respect. We need some Nat Turners to come forward out there, perhaps utilizing their own Klan-type gowns and hoods to pay a little visit to the legislator would-be slaveholders Florida’s governing body.
Reading all these cases like mine where others have been screwed gives me some comfort that it was not just me or my lawyer but the judges who in fact had a preconceived judgement of what we did and that we are all monster and NONE of us could possibly be innocent of even one of the trumped up charges they add onto our cases.
Seems our lawyers plead our cases with solid case law and all the judge hears is “Blah blah, BLAH BLAH BLAH”.
When the prosecutor speaks all the judge hears is Johnny Cash singing “I’m stuck in Folsom prison, got these Folsom prison blues”.
As noted in FAC’s “2020 Legislation link,” the house bill is HB 333 and the senate bill is SB 510.
So in other words, guilty until proven otherwise. Also very hard to defend yourself from jail even with a good lawyer. The best defense is out in society proving you can work, stay out of trouble and have unlimited access to your lawyer at least by phone.
Over the years I have seen so many people with all sorts of crimes get proven innocent after rotting away in prison for most of their lives.
And regardless of innocent or guilty, without some sort of support system when released, many former inmates either take their own lives ( see movie ShawShank redemption ) or do something to get sent back on purpose.
Someone getting released after 20 years, the World has changed so much that it cannot be recognized. And then they have to fight for another decade to try and get compensation for those false convictions.
Link to bill:
Here is a link to the Bill, I will be sending a media campaign today, would appreciate anyone’s input, especially a Press Release ; targeted to Lawmakers – Leg, Senate, Bar Assn’s and law schools.
Time is of the essence.
https://www.myfloridahouse.gov/Sections/Bills/billsdetail.aspx?BillId=66895
This is for supersedeas bonds, so in order to be eligible for one you’d have to first be CONVICTED of a crime and then appeal that conviction. You couldn’t get one if you signed a plea because your plea included a clause refusing appeal.
So what’s really happening is Leek is masturbating his constituents by pretending to pass a law that punishes sex offenders, when the reality is he wrote a law that removes a judges discretionary power to grant bond post conviction to a bunch of people who, let’s face it, aren’t typically pushing our cases to trial to begin with.
Likely anyone commenting here was never eligible for a supersedeas bond at any time and if you walked out your front door and started throwing rocks you’d be more likely to hit the President than you would anyone else who was granted a supersedeas bond.
I cannot express the disgust and amazement for the stupidity, ignorance and hate the Florida Ledge has for anything concerning sex and the law. What the F…… is wrong with these people? Even Texas, where I am, has a better view on this than them. And Texas is one of the worst!! I call upon all registrants!! Leave this backward, corrupt country as fast as possible before it is too late!! I am!
Good luck finding some country that will take you.
Anyone they do that to they should have to pay out big time for no conviction.
So now, they’re also going to deny bail to the innocent individuals who are being trapped in sex sting operations where law enforcement pretends to be catching “child predators” on adult sites?
The problem is that there are still too many dishonest and corrupt people working in our legal system who are abusing their power, creating fake crimes, for self serving purposes, and forcing wrongful convictions (for the wrong reasons). If everybody working in our legal system was honest and had honest intentions and interest in doing the right things for the right reasons, this would be fine, but we’re not there.
The problem is that they don’t want to deal with the real issue. We first have to deal with the very real issue of having dishonest and corrupt people working in our legal system. That needs to be addressed first, before any laws like this are considered. We first need laws in place that protect everybody from from dishonest and corrupt individuals who choose to abuse their power. Their needs to be a system in place to identify these individuals, and there needs to be set consequences for these bad behaviors from people who hold so much power over everybody else.
This is for bond pending appeals
It is, I believe, the same basic thing.
Bail is a universal human right.
To suspend bail requires a finding of a public safety risk (compelling government interest).
Any public safety risk, in the case of sex offenses, is much lower than recidivism for most crimes for which bail (appellate or pre-trial) is usually granted.
So no finding of public safety risk (compelling government interest) can be shown in the (usual) case of sex offenses.
Suspending bail without a compelling government interest is very illegal!
A government cannot suspend the right to bail simply because they find a crime to be abhorrent. They must prove that there is a legitimate issue (such as safety of the community) at stake.
They cannot. (Except on a case-by-case basis).
I’m not sure they understand what the purpose of bail is.
How can it be legal to deny basic human rights to a small subset of citizens?
Like the right to bail?
How is its legal to single out people and deny them common and universal rights? (Just because you don’t like them)
Leek said in a phone interview. “I can’t think of a more violent crime than sex offenses against children.”
Murder strikes me as a more violent crime then sex offense. Dead is a lot worse isn’t it ?
Exactly, what if the child was you know, dead? Murdered? Sounds far worse than even some sex crime IMO.
It is funny you say that because when I was locked up, the murderers were who a lot of the inmates looked up to. They thought of them as Heroes and role models for some odd reason.
Like they had committed the ultimate act and lived to tell about it and were some sort of bad ass right of passage.