A couple of weeks ago, a federal legal challenge was filed against Union County. The suit was brought by Florida Justice Institute (who successfully challenged a similar ordinance in Brevard) and names two Florida registrants as plaintiffs. We promised FJI we would delay the promotion of the lawsuit’s filing and redact the identities in order to better protect the brave plaintiff’s identities from retaliation.

In Lake Butler, the county seat, the lawsuit alleges that the 2,500-foot zones cover most of the town—including public roads, businesses, the post office, government offices and even the county courthouse. There are no signs telling registrants where the forbidden zones begin and end. The school-bus-stop map can even change without notice.

Simply driving through one of the exclusion zones gets you up to 60 days in jail, a $500 fine, or both.

The lawsuit argues that the ordinance violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments, the Ex Post Facto Clause, and Florida’s constitutional right to intrastate travel. It also challenges the ordinance as unconstitutionally vague.

The municipal ordinance doesn’t subject registrants to arrested for committing a new crime (unless you consider the “crime” driving while registered). They’re being threatened with arrest for driving on a public road, stopping for groceries, going to the post office — or attempting to speak to elected officials.

Just like the Putnam County municipal ordinance challenge filed earlier this year (Putnam’s ordinance makes it illegal for a registrant to live within 500 feet of another registrant), if these laws go unchallenged, every neighboring County will think it’s a great idea and certainly enact an identical law.

Much thanks to FJI for representing the plaintiffs and much thanks to the plaintiffs themselves for the courage to put themselves out there on behalf of all Florida registrants. You can read the complaint below:

Union County Complaint_Redacted

The post Lawsuit Challenges Union County’s new 2500 foot “travel through” ban. appeared first on Florida Action Committee (FAC).

The post FAC Weekly Update: The Ripple Effect of a Constitutional Challenge | September 15, 2026 | Recording 390 appeared first on Florida Action Committee (FAC).

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When the Sentence Ends but the Career Does Not Recover

What Deadliest Catch Can Teach Us About Employment After Conviction

A criminal sentence can have a defined ending. The economic consequences often do not.

The Discovery series Deadliest Catch offers an unusual case study in how criminal history, publicity, the nature of an offense, and employer discretion can affect a person’s career long after a courtroom proceeding is over.

Three men associated with the program—Josh Harris, Edgar Hansen, and Sig Hansen—have each encountered the criminal justice system. Their cases are not equivalent, and they should not be treated as if they were. The allegations, offenses, ages of the people involved, timing, and legal outcomes were significantly different.

Their professional outcomes were also very different.

Josh Harris: Building a Career, Then Losing the Platform

Viewers watched Josh Harris develop professionally over many years.

He originally appeared on Deadliest Catch aboard the F/V Cornelia Marie with his father, Captain Phil Harris. After Phil’s death in 2010, Josh continued fishing and eventually took a larger role in the family business.

Discovery’s investment in Harris eventually went well beyond simply featuring him as a crew member.

In 2020, Discovery launched Deadliest Catch: Bloodline, a spinoff centered on Harris and fellow fisherman Casey McManus. Warner Bros. Discovery’s own announcement described Harris as a Deadliest Catch captain and explained that the series would follow him as he explored fishing grounds connected to charts left by his father.

Source: Warner Bros. Discovery

That is significant from an employment perspective.

Harris had moved from deckhand to established television personality and then to the central figure in his own television program. Bloodline ultimately ran for three seasons.

Then everything changed.

In 2022, information about a criminal case involving Harris from the late 1990s received renewed public attention. Reporting indicated that the underlying conduct occurred when Harris was a teenager and involved a very young child. Harris ultimately entered pleas to lesser offenses, and the criminal case had been resolved years before his television career developed.

When the case became widely publicized in 2022, Discovery announced that Harris would no longer appear in future episodes.

“We’ve been made aware of this issue. Josh will not appear in future episodes of this series.”

Harris subsequently disappeared from Deadliest Catch, and Bloodline did not continue beyond its third season.

The important point is not whether Discovery should or should not have continued employing Harris.

Discovery is a private company. It has legitimate business interests involving audiences, advertisers, reputation, and the people it chooses to feature on television.

The important point for a discussion about reentry is the timeline.

Then the renewed visibility of an old criminal case changed his professional future.

Edgar Hansen: Losing the Camera, Not Necessarily the Occupation

Edgar Hansen provides a different example.

Edgar, the younger brother of Captain Sig Hansen, was a longtime member of the Northwestern crew and became a recognizable Deadliest Catch personality.

His criminal case occurred much later and under very different circumstances from Josh Harris’s.

In 2018, Edgar Hansen pleaded guilty to fourth-degree assault with sexual motivation involving a 16-year-old girl. CBS News reported that he received a 364-day suspended sentence, fines and fees, and requirements including evaluation, treatment, and providing a DNA sample.

Source: CBS News

Edgar subsequently disappeared from his former prominent role on Deadliest Catch.

Edgar Hansen possessed skills as a commercial fisherman, engineer, and crew member before his television appearances. Losing a featured television role would not necessarily prevent him from working aboard a fishing vessel.

But losing national television exposure is still an enormous professional consequence.

For someone whose income, reputation, and career had become intertwined with a television franchise, removal from the program represented a dramatic change.

That distinction matters outside television as well.

A person may technically remain capable of performing construction work, maintenance, transportation, food service, information technology, or another occupation while finding that individual employers will not hire them.

Being legally permitted to work and realistically being able to obtain work are not always the same thing.

Sig Hansen: A Criminal Case Without the End of a Television Career

Captain Sig Hansen provides the strongest contrast.

In 2017, Hansen was arrested following an encounter with an Uber driver in Seattle. Contemporary reporting stated that he was accused of spitting on the driver and damaging the driver’s vehicle following a dispute.

Source: CBS News

CBS later reported that Hansen was ordered to undergo alcohol treatment and received a year of probation.

His career, however, continued.

Sig remained one of the central figures on Deadliest Catch.

Discovery subsequently created Deadliest Catch: The Viking Returns, centered heavily on Sig and his family as they pursued a king-crab fishing operation in Norway.

Discovery: The Viking Returns

The comparison continues today. Discovery’s current listings for Season 22 in 2026 continue to feature Sig Hansen and the Northwestern.

Discovery: Deadliest Catch

Three Cases — Three Different Career Outcomes

The Cases Are Not the Same

It would be misleading to imply that these men committed equivalent offenses and simply received different treatment.

They did not.

Sig Hansen’s case involved an adult Uber driver and was not a sexual offense.

Edgar Hansen’s case involved a 16-year-old and resulted in a guilty plea to assault with sexual motivation.

Josh Harris’s decades-old case involved allegations concerning a young child and conduct occurring while Harris himself was a teenager.

Those distinctions matter.

Employers may consider the nature of conduct, the responsibilities associated with a job, public reaction, and potential business consequences.

The purpose of comparing these cases is therefore not to argue that Discovery should have treated all three individuals identically.

What Happens to the Ordinary Applicant?

Josh Harris was famous. He had professional connections, a recognizable name, and years of successful television work behind him.

Most people leaving the criminal justice system have none of those advantages.

Their version of losing a television contract may be much less visible:

• A warehouse application that goes unanswered.
• A maintenance position that disappears after a background check.
• An employer searching an applicant’s name online and choosing someone else.
• A commercial-driving opportunity that becomes unavailable.
• Housing near employment that cannot be obtained.
• Occupational or residency restrictions that make stable employment harder to maintain.

There will generally be no news story when that happens.

There will be no television network issuing a statement.

There may simply be another rejection.

That is why employment deserves serious attention in discussions about people forced to register.

Stable employment provides income, structure, housing stability, family support, and connection to the community. Policies that undermine those stabilizing factors deserve careful examination, particularly when restrictions extend for decades or life.

Accountability and Rehabilitation Can Exist Together

None of this requires minimizing victims or excusing criminal behavior.

People who commit crimes should be held accountable. Victims deserve recognition, support, and justice. Public safety is a legitimate government responsibility.

But accountability and rehabilitation do not have to be opposing ideas.

A justice system should also ask what happens after punishment.

The stories of Josh Harris, Edgar Hansen, and Sig Hansen do not answer that question for us.

They demonstrate how complicated the question actually is.

One man encountered the criminal justice system and continued building a major television career. Another disappeared from his featured role following a conviction. A third built a successful career long after his original case was resolved, only to lose his television platform when that history became widely publicized decades later.

For the millions of Americans who will never appear on television, the same underlying issue plays out much more quietly every day.

The post When the Sentence Ends but the Career Does Not Recover appeared first on Florida Action Committee (FAC).

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At the time of the order, approximately 43,000 offenders were actively registered or required to be registered. As of Friday, September 11, the MSP has removed more than 20,000 offenders.

SOURCE

The post Michigan State Police Begins Removing Sex Offenders from Registry to Comply with Michigan Supreme Court Order appeared first on Florida Action Committee (FAC).

But what’s holding up the process is not legal wrangling or an outpouring of opposition from human rights groups. Louisiana doesn’t currently have anyone available to perform the surgery.

Regardless of what you think about the underlying crime, this should make everyone uncomfortable. We’ve seen where the “tougher and tougher” approach to sex offenses leads: longer sentences, lifetime registration, residency restrictions, employment restrictions — and now government-ordered bodily mutilation.

Hopefully the procedure never happens, because Louisiana is not pursuing public safety here… it is pursuing vengeance.

SOURCE

The post Louisiana: Surgical Castration May Never Happen appeared first on Florida Action Committee (FAC).

The unanimous decision says applying the 2021 law to older cases would add punishment after the fact.

The ruling does not affect people whose offenses happened on or after July 1, 2011. They remain subject to the current registration requirements.

https://mirs-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/3670-eddie%20lee%20smith%20order.pdf

The post MI: Michigan Supreme Court limits sex offender registry law to post-2011 cases appeared first on Florida Action Committee (FAC).

Dr. Ethan Marshall, an Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Houston-Downtown, is conducting a research study called CAPUT. It examines relationships between behaviors and attitudes, including questions about pornography use, among individuals with a prior sexual offense conviction. The survey takes about 20 minutes to complete online.

If you’re interested in participating, please email Dr. Marshall (MarshallE@uhd.edu) and he will send you the Qualtrics survey link.

If you have questions or just want to talk through it first, you’re always welcome to reach out to Jackie@floridaactioncommittee.org.

Thank you for considering it.

Every response is a data point that recognizes people should never be defined by a label.

Respectfully,

FAC Education, Advocacy & Prevention Committee

The post An Opportunity to Make Your Voice Count in Research appeared first on Florida Action Committee (FAC).

This is a deeply disappointing decision for registrants and for anyone who believes that courts — not administrative agencies — should have the final say in judicial proceedings. This was also the first Florida appellate decision holding that FDLE can do this. That is significant because just a few weeks ago, the Florida Supreme Court reached a completely different conclusion in a similar case, leaving us with an important conflict that needs to be resolved.

FAC has spoken with the attorney representing the petitioner in this case, and an appeal will likely be forthcoming. FAC will continue to follow this case closely and keep our members informed.

The post A disappointing decision in a Florida removal case, but one that may not be the last word appeared first on Florida Action Committee (FAC).