FAC Letter to Volusia Sheriff and Public Records Request
It was recently brought to our attention that the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office is requiring personal information from persons required to register who intended to travel. Specifically the means of travel (including copies of flight information) for domestic travel and purpose of travel for domestic and international travel.
If you are not on probation, you are not required to request permission to travel. Accordingly, your purpose for going someplace is none of the Sheriff’s office’s business. Similarly, if you travel domestically, you are not required to give your flight information or mode of travel. The registration statutes do not require it and to our knowledge there is no ordinance that requires that information to be collected.
FAC sent the following letter to Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood, to find out under what authority he is requesting this information, for what purpose it is collected and who is given access to this personal information. Separately, we sent a public information request to the records custodian for copies of these forms and what was done with them.
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I travelled as an off-probation but required to register individual recently, and was required to inform BSO (Broward Sheriff) of my dates of travel, where I would be staying, and what my flight info was. Is that required, or is Broward also asking for details not legally required.?
Osceola will not let you travel either without copies of your flight plans and addresses of where you will staying at all times, who you will be visiting, and purpose of your travel. They don’t have a separate form but demand your flight details and hotel reservations and make copies of them. They also become very upset if not giving at least one month notice or more due to no reservation times available for at least a month in advance due to understaffing.
If the above is DOMESTIC travel, then Osceola needs FAC’s letter.
If a registration office truly will ‘not let you travel’ then that sounds serious. It’s not the legal role of the sheriff to approve/deny travel.
I love FAC’s strategy of late. It’s aggressive and forcing accountability. Keep it up!
As usual, this is terrific!
Whenever I see FAC out this sort of thing in writing, I feel like someone out there is listening to my concerns.
I don’t normally have a reason to set foot in Volusia but will support us going after ANY sheriffs offices who mistakenly attempt to make their own law.
Jacob
With this particular Sheriff, change Mistakenly with “Purposely”. He knows what he is doing is stepping over the line but welcomes challenges so he can grandstand on the news. I am sure as soon as the letter hits his desk, there will be a news conference about the sick individuals who are trying to weasel out of their requirements.
I’m asked every time I register if i plan to travel out of state.
In which county?
Volusia asks that every time: do you have any travel plaans?
Guess my confusion still is that they make me register the TRAVEL time not the STAY time. I drive an entire day (no address of course) and i stay in different locations (all less than three days) but they tell me i need to register the entire time away in my home state.
My newest dillema is a trip to a us territory in the caribbean. Id fly to the island and stay two days in a hotel a two night cruise to nowhere and two days with family and one last day in a different hotel and fly back. I dont see the need to register as theres no single stay that would trigger. The answer was its out of state. After i had to remind them its not i ternational. They referred me to my probation officer: I do t have one as ive not been on any supervision for over 20 years. Also am told i need to call the number and email when i return from any registered trip. They really toss that word WARRANT around alot.
So my assessment of my circumstance seems like none of the legs initiate a trigger. So no need to report!
Please don’t forget about your independent duty to register under Federal SORNA (presuming that in your case it has not expired). If you are going to be absent from your permanent residence for more than 7 days, you still have to report that to your local registration office or you’ll be breaking federal law, regardless of state registration requirements.
Not if the feds haven’t notified him of this obligation.
Been off of that for decades. Florida is my only thorn. Life was good and unhindered until that fateful trip. Been here ever since.
Does anyone know how to find the federal SORNA requirements? I understand the DOJ has written its own which aren’t listed in the actual statutes. I’ve asked about federal requirements when I registered, and the deputies just shrugged their shoulders.
34 U.S.C. § 20901 et seq (that means section 20901 plus the sections that come after it) is where you can find it. It’s online at a few links. Here’s one https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2018-title34/html/USCODE-2018-title34-subtitleII-chap209-subchapI.htm
Great question. The other question is how do you know what tier you fall under. I think I am tier two meaning 25 years from release of incarceration. But how do you know?
Yes I second that. I lived in Volusia for ten years after person. They ask if you have any travel plans.
Tier 1 in homestate: never published: never had a visit in my home state.
So, the sheriff’s office is allowed and in fact supposed to ask us about known travel plans if they result in a temporary or permanent address being created. One of the items on the list of things we must register when we report quarterly or semi-annually (or monthly for transient registration) pursuant to F.S. sec. 943.0435 includes “dates of any current or known future temporary residence within the state or out of state.” That comes right before “all vehicles owned” in the statute. This does not require us to seek permission nor give them the power to compel the production of travel documents, but they are legally authorized to ask about any planned travel that results in the creation of a temporary residence.
The key term is temporary residence which defined as 3 or more days at the same address in the aggregate. If you plan on going to an overnight or two nights nothing to report.
Tear
That is the point, some on here are reporting that their registry location is telling them they have to report “Anytime” they leave the county. That is not what the statue states, but deputies seem to be arresting people and letting the courts decide.
Even if you get the charges thrown out, you not only have an additional arrest in your file, but spend untold thousands of dollars to fight the illegal arrest. And what is to keep the yahoo gung-ho deputies from doing it again because they are protected by the sheriff who thinks they are the highest power in the land directly under the Governor. Very rarely are Sheriff’s forced to step down, and if they do, they are allowed to retire with full lifetime benefits.
I hear you it’s a tough decision. You don’t want to tick them off but you don’t want them in your business either thankful where I am at the don’t ask me that question. Two years ago I had a city cop come by at Halloween and I politely asked what the statute was that governs me as I have been off paper wow since 2007. He said he would get back to me. Never did and the last two years no visits. However we don’t celebrate Halloween any way. My view Be polite. Don’t trust. Always verify.
Tear
The Cop that comes to check on me said I did not look like my photo. I asked him if I needed to check in and get a new photo every time I get a hair cut and he said “That would be helpful”. I replied “Helpful to who?” I also said if I changed my appearance 100 times a week, show me a statue that mentions anything about updating my photo other than my required registration time. (Other than new, scrars, marks or tattoos)
Does getting tagged with a marking pen count as a mark?
Next time I register I am thinking of going in drag. Could you imagine Cherokee Jacqueline Reporting for registration SIR! LOL
Seems like this should’ve been something that should’ve gone through Volusia county legal council first before they decided to create their own statutes. Maybe a big lawsuit will provide them the incentives to follow the law versus creating
There may be a reason they did not vet it with county legal counsel.
Count legal counsel would probably tell them that Sheriffs do not have the authority to create statutes. Only legislators can propose bills which, if passed favorably by both houses and approved by the Governor, become law. While a legislature can delegate rule making authority to agencies pursuant to statutes, no such power or authority is in the registration statute that we have found anywhere, nor are these rules codified anyplace, which would give someone notice, which would be a due process violation.
Imagine the FL legislature proposing to delegate registry rule making authority to sheriffs. What a call to action that would be.
Rick is right. Perhaps letters should be sent to the county legal counsel very pointedly asking them to provide FAC with the legal authority for the sheriff’s actions. Going over the sheriff’s legal head might just cause a commotion. The state’s attorney general could be asked to provide the same information.
Sounds like Florida has some sheriffs right out of those late 60’s Chrysler commercials. “You in a heap o’ trouble, boy.” Those types only understand power and don’t care about the law. Let them answer to the county and state lawyers who understand the spectre of potential lawsuits. A little heat from above might be more convincing than heat from below.
Kudos to FAC.
Ed
A few years back, I went to one of the Volusia beaches with family. Since ALL of the cars at our house have to be registered, that means if the tags are run, even our family member could be stopped.
Anyway, when we were done, I saw a Sherriff’s department business card on our windshield and none on any other cars in the lot. In ink someone had written “Call me when you get this”. I stuck it in my pocket and just told my family (So they would not get upset) that it was just someone advertising. (A lie to keep them from worrying).
Anyway, I said let’s stop for lunch closer to home (In our own county) and I/we got the heck out of Dodge. I do not know what the deputy wanted but am sure he (Had his name so know it was a he) ran our tags and wanted to question me on being in an area that is off limits to registered people. I do not know the rules there and who they apply to.
WHY do we have to live like this when many of us have done our time and are not on probation or house arrest but does for sure feel like it? This non punishment keeps growing wider and far reaching each year. How big can the bubble get before it bursts?