FAC Statement in opposition to Senate Bill 234
Following is the text of FAC’s letter to senators concerning SB234. If you would like to write to your senator urging them to oppose this Bill, we encourage you to do so. You can find their contact information here: https://www.flsenate.gov/Senators/#Senators
February 10, 2021
Senate Judiciary Committee
404 South Monroe Street
Tallahassee, FL 32399-1100
RE: OPPOSITION TO CS/SB 234: REGISTRATION OF SEXUAL
PREDATORS AND SEXUAL OFFENDERS
Dear Senators:
I am President of the Florida Action Committee (FAC), a 2000+ member non-profit organization that advocates for public safety and laws based on empirical research. Our focus is on the Florida Sex Offender Registry.
I am writing to express my organization’s strong opposition to the above-referenced Bill, which will come before your committee for consideration on February 15, 2021.
While there are many items we find objectionable in this Bill, I will limit the focus of this letter to one item which is so illogical that it will yield absurd results – that is the proposal to define the word “day” to include “partial days”.
Currently, persons required to register must register their “Permanent Residence,” “Temporary Residence,” and “Transient Residence” within 48 hours. These are places where the individual “abides”, “lodges”, “resides”, “lives”, “remains”, or “is located” for three (3) or more “days”, either consecutively (Permanent Residence) or in the aggregate (Temporary Residence/Transient Residence) during a calendar year.
Previously, persons on the registry were unsure whether a “day” meant the full period between 12:00AM and 11:59PM or one full 24-hour period. CS/SB 234 proposes to define “day” as any part of a day. “A day includes any part of a calendar day.” (lines 119-120, 131-132, 141-142). Accordingly, a “day” can comprise of a period of one hour or even one minute, as these periods of time are “part of a calendar day”.
Under this proposed definition, any location an individual remains physically present for any duration four (4) or more times* during a year could constitute a “residence”. Therefore, the Sheriff’s office where an individual “is located” for an hour four times a year to complete registration would be registrable. If a person “remains” or “is located” at the same barbershop for a haircut, restaurant for a meal, store to buy groceries, neighbor’s home to watch a sports game, 4 days in the aggregate during a year, these places would all be registrable.
The fourth visit to any of these locations would require a trip to the Sheriff’s office (and/or DHSMV, as applicable under the statute) to register. Failure to do so results in a third-degree felony. If the registration office is not open within 48 hours of the fourth visit (for example, as in the case of this coming weekend which includes Presidents Day) and the person cannot register, it will result in a third-degree felony (or the inability of the person to visit the location). It would also add the location to the sex offender registry map even though the registrant might only be present there for one hour every three months.
Under no definition is a “day” an hour, a minute or “any part of a calendar day”. This Bill’s proposal to define it as such is absurd and unjust.
I implore you to oppose CS/SB 234.
Sincerely,
Gail Colletta, President
Florida Action Committee, Inc.
- The Bill provides that the first “day” does not count.
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My question always is, “What does this accomplish that will make anyone safer”, which is why registration laws are allowed to exist in the first place. Just like residency restrictions based on no facts or studies, this is just another turn of the screw that has no empirical evidence to show it will make one bit of difference.
This is impossible to believe. If passed, I say the idea to make people register any and all visited places for any purpose will end in just one big red dot. These poor people don’t even understand their own propossed bills. The Sheriffs Office will be overwhelmed for sure and I believe it would be impossible to enforce.
Lest we forget, FDLE gave us Florida’s legal definition of “day” back in November of 2018 in their motion to dismiss:
The Meaning of “Day”
Plaintiffs’ first vagueness challenges alleges it is unclear whether the word “day” within §775.21(1)(n) and § 943.0435(1)(f) means a “full 24-hour day or a specific date.” (D.E. 1 at ¶ 38.)
They ask whether a hotel arrival at 11:50 p.m. on May 1 would mean that May 1 is the first day, or that the first day ends 24 hours after the arrival. (Id.)
This hypothetical shows that Plaintiffs are not actually raising any question as to the meaning of the word “day,” but as to how Florida law generally computes the time in which an action must be done. That computational question is not governed by the word “day,” or by § 943.0435 at all.
In any event, a statute’s words are not vague if they can be ascertained through “judicial decisions, common laws, dictionaries, and the words themselves because they possess a common and generally accepted meaning.” United States v. Eckhardt, 466 F.3d 938, 944 (11th Cir. 2006) (quoting United States v. Bowker, 372 F.3d 365, 381 (6th Cir. 2004)); United States v. Panfil, 338 F.3d 1299, 1301 (11th Cir. 2003) (statutory terms not vague where they have “plain and ordinary meanings”).
Despite Plaintiffs’ allegation that the word “day” is vague, a “day” has a common and generally accepted meaning. “The general rule is that when the word ‘day’ is used it means calendar day which includes the entire day from midnight to midnight.” State v. Sheets, 338 N.W. 2d 886, 887 (Iowa 1983). See also Burgo v. Gen. Dynamics Corp., 122 F.3d 140, 143 (2d Cir. 1997) (“A day is the period of time during which the earth makes on revolution on its axis, the average length of this interval being 24 hours.”) (citing Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary 294 (10th ed. 1997)); S. Tr. Ins. Co. v. First Fed. Sav. & Loan Ass’n of Summerville, 310 S.E. 2d 712, 713 (Ga. Ct. App. 1983) (when not
qualified, the word “day” means calendar day “consisting of 24 hours from midnight to midnight”).
A day is an indivisible unit; the law does not recognize fractions of a day. Lapeyre v. United States, 84 U.S. 191, 198 (1872); Maxwell v. Jacksonville Loan & Imp. Co., 34 So. 255, 264 (Fla. 1903).
A court must presume the Legislature knows the plain and ordinary meaning of the words it uses in statutes. Brooks v. Anastasia Mosquito Control Dist., 148 So. 2d 64, 66 (Fla. 1963). See also United States v. Forest Hills Garden E. Condo. Ass’n, Inc., 990 F. Supp. 2d 1344, 1347 (S.D. Fla. 2014) (courts presume “the Legislature ‘said what it meant and meant what it said’”) (quoting Rine v. Imagitas, Inc., 590 F.3d 1215, 1222 (11th Cir. 2009)). If the Legislature wanted to couch a temporary residence in terms of 24-hour blocks and not calendar days, it would have done so—as it did in numerous other parts of the statute. For example, § 943.0435(2)(a)1, (b)3 and (4)(a) all require reporting “within 48 hours,” while § 943.0435(b)2 uses both hours and days (“within 48 hours,” “every 30 days”).
https://floridaactioncommittee.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Does-v.-Swearingen-Mot-to-Dismiss.pdf
Well, apparently the legislature DOESN’T UNDERSTAND or why would they create an unlawful definition of day in SB 234?
JZ – thanks for this. You just made a smoking gun point. If the State argued that “A day is an indivisible unit; the law does not recognize fractions of a day. Lapeyre v. United States, 84 U.S. 191, 198 (1872); Maxwell v. Jacksonville Loan & Imp. Co., 34 So. 255, 264 (Fla. 1903).”
Now they are arguing that “day” can be divisible.
Should that point be raised in our communications with the legislators?
Stick to the logical arguments and the legal arguments will be added to the lawsuit.
You are very welcome. I don’t delete anything! You never know when you might need that information again. I encourage everyone to screenshot, print and/or download all information vital to them. Also, save webpages on the Wayback Machine for future use as a back up. In this digital age, information is changed and/or deleted constantly.
http://web.archive.org/
FAC, this adds another barrier to employment. My employer wouldn’t want a red dot, so there goes my job. Anyone who delivers anything or works in a service industry who may be at a residence 4 times in a year. If the person checks the map, sees the dot on their home, and sees your name… there’s goes your job and the employer would also suffer the stigma. So, in order not to be shamed, the employer will let go all offenders. This is a true nightmare on the brink of happening.
The only up side is i don’t see how the courts could not say this is punishment.
Also, it would surely legitimize all registrants in applying for disability. We would certainly be unable to work.
Please share this with your legislators.
Seems this would be ex post facto as well.
Is there that little caveat stating ‘it is your responsibility to know the laws and what you need to do?’
Reminds me of the catch-all in job descriptions where they say and whatever is needed…..
The way the law is written, it is possible to declare a time period of as little as 48 hours 2 seconds as a “day.”
Considering this is a law by Senator Lauren Book, who believes peaceful protests are “violent stalkers” and compares critics to school shooters, I’m not shocked this bill has no concept of a day.
Derek….
‘Train Wreck Barbie’ aka Barbie BIMBO Re-Defines Webster’s ‘DICK-SHONARY’
See, this kind of talk on the FAC forum helps a certain state senator garner more sympathy.
Wouldn’t it be better for us to keep pointing out her hypocritical conduct, actions, statements?
Jacob
I agree with both of you. On the one hand, she makes us all pull our hair out with her hate.
On the other hand, we have to show we are better than she is and do things the right and legal way.
BUT, at some point we may have to do like the BLM marchers and tear stuff up to get our voices heard. The registry laws keep adding on more and more that ALL seem to be applied retroactiely without consequences.
Why in God’s name does the law of rights apply to everyone but us?
Why is anyone worried about our image so much? No matter what you do, our oppressors hate every one of you just as much as they hate me because we exist.
Why are we worried about the feelings of our oppressors Senator Book doesn’t care if we’re squeaky clean, respectful, and rehabilitated. She enjoys watching us suffer and if we were all rounded up for torturous death, she would probably lead the charge.
She used to go down to the JTC camp surrounded by goons and smile at people who were forced to bag their feces and sleep in squalor under a busy bridge. Yet, people were whining that I took a commode chair to a peaceful protest to symbolize the appaling conditions she and daddy Book has forced upon South Florida Registrants have done for years.
People are mad because I called a “the C word” but seem to have no problem with her & daddy Ron calling us monsters, creeping crud, incurable, and ticking time bombs. Where were the complains when she compared me to the Parkland school shooter? Why does no one share the clip from Untouchable where Ron Book talks about how society should be WATERBOARDING Registered Persons?
All this stuff should make people spitting angry, but I don’t see anyone upset. Are we that desensitized to this or something?
I only got a brief glimpse into the life of a homeless Miami registrant, staying a couple of nights at the camp and talking with residents. But that was enough to anger me beyond belief. How can we see such injustice and yet we want to coddle and kiss up to someone who would smile at the pain she inflicts upon us?
The irony here is we reject emotions and want people to be cold and distant when approaching this issue, but does that not buy into the stereotype that we are uncaring sociopaths or something?