CALL TO ACTION – ACT NOW
Dear Members and Advocates,
Below is a Press Release from FAC on Amendment 4. We need your help to get this information to as many media and community groups as possible. Please copy and paste the text into an email and send to your local media reporters, community leaders, organizations, and friends. You can also click here to download a pdf version of the press release.
With Unity Comes Change
Florida Action Committee
Press Release from the Florida Action Committee (FAC)
For Immediate Release
September 20, 2018
Contact: Gail Colletta
561.305.4959
Florida’s Ballot Measure Reinforces Discrimination
LAKE MONROE, FLORIDA – September 20, 2018
This November, Floridians will vote on a proposal to amend the state constitution. Amendment 4 is bittersweet.
If passed, many Florida residents—who have paid the price for their wrongdoing–will have their right to vote restored. Florida law bars those with felonies from voting and a large number of people, many of color, have been disenfranchised – about 1.5 million.
At the same time, Amendment 4 will bring injustice. Some individuals with felonies are NOT included, those with murder or sex offense convictions. Amendment 4 campaigners say they are “committed to ending the disenfranchisement and discrimination against people with convictions”, yet Amendment 4 would enshrine discrimination into our state constitution.
What is the concern with allowing these individuals, who have also completed their sentences, to vote? Are they concerned that they will commit lewd sexual acts at polling places? If so, Florida offers ‘vote-by-mail’ ballots. The truth is; there is no public safety concern, or any legitimate justification for this exclusion at all… except discrimination.
Amendment 4 would add a measure to the Florida Constitution that ratifies the type of discrimination that existed against women in the 1920’s and racial minorities in the sixties. It might seem like a step towards restoring rights to those disenfranchised, but it’s a huge step backwards in civil rights.
Florida Action Committee stands for the restoration of voting rights for all those with felony convictions who have completed their sentences. We urge people to vote their conscience in November.
Florida Action Committee (FAC), founded in 2006, is a state-wide consortium of concerned citizens and professionals whose purpose is to promote the prevention of sexual abuse while preserving the safety and dignity of all citizens through carefully structured laws targeting the truly violent, forced, and/or dangerous predatory acts of sex. FAC believes that many aspects of the current approach to sex offenders seriously undermine justice and actually increase the threat of sexual assault against others, particularly children. FAC opposes a publicized registry of sex offenders and seeks to bring an end to the humiliation of people who have already paid for their crimes. FAC asserts that only by supporting justice for all people—offenders and victims alike can a truly safe society be built and secured for all Americans.
For more information, contact: Gail Colletta – 561.305.4959
Florida Action Committee, Inc.
P.O. Box 470932
Lake Monroe, FL 32747-0932
floridaactioncommittee.org
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What are we doing for us S.O.s who were entrapped and then the state placed labels on us and for many destroyed their lives. We pose no threat to anyone and in fact there never was a victim in our cases. The Cops basically lure, entice and solicit to get most of us. Is there any one working to fix this problem for the future to give us relief after our time is up.
Wanted to share this, interesting regarding SO / PO classifications:
Bill Cosby’s sentencing hearing Monday will begin with testimony about his sex offender evaluation and, presumably, a fierce debate over whether the 81-year-old actor should be branded a sexually violent predator.
The stakes are high given the lifetime counseling, community alerts and public shaming the designation would trigger. And it could become evidence in the defamation lawsuits filed against Cosby by accusers who say he branded them liars when he denied molesting them.
Defense lawyers say the state’s latest sex-reporting law, despite several revisions, remains unconstitutional.
“It’s the modern-day version of a scarlet letter,” said lawyer Demetra Mehta, a former Philadelphia public defender, “which I think is sort of an interesting philosophical issue at this time with the #MeToo movement, but also criminal justice reform.”
Pennsylvania’s sex-offender board has examined Cosby and recommended he be deemed a predator, concluding that he has a mental defect or personality disorder that makes him prone to criminal behavior. Montgomery County Judge Steven T. O’Neill will have the final say Monday.
O’Neill has presided over the case for nearly three years, from shortly after Cosby’s December 2015 arrest to a 2017 trial that ended in a jury deadlock to the jury finding this past April that Cosby drugged and molested a woman at his suburban Philadelphia estate in 2004. He faces anything from probation to 30 years in prison on the three felony counts of aggravated indecent assault.
It’s unclear if the judge, in weighing the predator label, will consider the dozens of other Cosby accusers who have gone public or his deposition in the trial victim’s 2006 lawsuit, when Cosby acknowledged getting quaaludes to give women before sex; described sex acts as the “penile entrance” to an “orifice” and “digital penetration”; and said he often gave young women alcohol but didn’t drink or take drugs himself because he liked to stay in control.
Defense lawyers fighting the predator label note that sexual offender registration laws are in flux in Pennsylvania and elsewhere.
Numerous courts, including the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, have found the laws so vague as to be unconstitutional. Courts have also debated whether the programs unfairly amount to extra punishment, especially for people convicted of misdemeanors. Cosby has added one of the state’s top appellate lawyers, Peter Goldberger, to his defense team.
“This is going to probably be a very important case for sex-offender law when it’s up on appeal,” Mehta said. “It’s an area of law that is just sort of unsettled right now. . There’s a lot up on appeal, but there’s not a lot decided.”
Pennsylvania alone now has 2,200 people classified as sexually violent predators, of the more than 20,000 people on its Megan’s Law list of sex offenders. The Megan’s Law group has their names, pictures and towns listed online, but they’re not subject to the same monthly counseling mandates as the “predator” group, and authorities don’t actively warn communities of their nearby presence.
The stigma may not be as paralyzing for a man like Cosby — in his 80s, living in a gated house and presumably not looking for work or going to the local gym. However, it’s one more stain on his reputation.
Defense motions note that the sex offender board’s recommendation followed an evaluation by just a single board member, and that the evidence needs only to meet a “clear and convincing” standard.
That violates Cosby’s “right to reputation without confrontation, without trial by jury and without proof beyond a reasonable doubt,” defense lawyer Joseph Green Jr. argued in a July court filing.
Legal experts believe a “predator” classification would be a legal finding that Cosby accusers could use in their defamation suits, including one involving seven women plaintiffs that’s pending in Massachusetts.
“That may (also) be about legacy protection, about what the obituary says, what the Wikipedia page says,” said Daniel Filler, dean of Drexel University’s Kline College of Law. “You can bet, especially in crowd-sourced things, everything’s going to begin with ‘he’s a sexually violent predator.’ It’s like a slogan. He has a tag now.”
Subject of interest : Lauren Crook is using her perpetual victim status to push amendment 6 amoung other things a crime victims rights bill I don’t see any specifics on what those rights would be but I get the feeling they would heavily distract from the rights of a accused person or the rights of someone who has served their time. I am encouraging anyone I know to vote No on 6 simply based on the fact that she can’t be trusted.
Our call to action should be against Amendment 6 as well. Don’t trust a Crook.
See the new discussion on 6:
https://floridaactioncommittee.org/marsys-law-ballot-initiative-amendment-6-returns-bundled-after-previously-being-struck-from-the-ballot/
Have to say that I love the use of “Lauren Crook”. I think everyone should use it always. Branding is important. That brand is accurate and needs to be stuck to her for life. And obviously, her father is the criminal Ron Crook.
No matter two years probation cometed in 2002 yet ill mever be allowed to vote again
Listen to the audio clip, the ACLU rep supports Amendment 4, as it is written. Very disappointing.
http://www.wlrn.org/post/aclu-florida-explains-its-stand-constitutional-amendments-four-six-and-11
I hope you publish my post.
I was out supporting passage of Amendment Four even though registered citizens are excluded. I supported it because I knew there was no chance for passage if we were included. I would rather see thousands of those excluded be restored to voting to help us elect politicians who are more progressive and likely to help our causes than to continue as we are heading.
I also feel that if Four is passed, we may have a better chance of adding our registered citizens in the future if the law already exists for everyone else. The discrimination would be more obvious then.
You should never bend your principles to allow one class of people to have rights and deny another’s, at any cost. You either believe in something or you don’t… I am very proud of HRDC’s stance of rejecting amendment 4
see their post below:
https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/publications/hrdc-fact-sheet-florida-amendment-4-voting-rights/
I agree 100%. It is very wrong and damaging to just allow one or a few classes of people to be harmed in order to help some others. Everyone needs to say that we aren’t helping anyone unless we are helping everyone.