Florida Action Committee  |  Weekly Update #391

The Deal You Didn’t Know You Were Making

A new article in the Virginia Law Review by Professor Talia Fisher highlights a case that should make everyone who cares about due process stop and think: Mansfield v. Williamson County. In 1992, Troy Mansfield was 25 years old when he was charged in Texas with serious sexual offenses involving a four-year-old girl. The potential sentence was ninety-nine years to life! But the prosecution offered him a deal: 120 days in county jail, ten years of probation, and sex-offender registration in exchange for pleading guilty to a lesser charge.

Mansfield took it. Why wouldn’t he? Faced with the possibility of spending the rest of his life in prison, he made what, at the time, was a very rational decision. He could go home after 120 days. He could have a future. He could have a family. He could get on with his life. It was a no-brainer! There was just one enormous problem. The prosecution had evidence that seriously undermined the accusation against him. Mansfield didn’t know that because the same rules that apply to trials don’t apply to plea negotiations. Evidence was withheld from him that he didn’t discover until 2014 – nearly 22 years after he took the plea. A court eventually vacated his conviction in 2016, but by then, the damage had already been done. For decades, Mansfield had lived with the label and consequences of a sex-offense conviction that, according to the evidence discussed in Fisher’s article, had been obtained while the prosecution withheld information favorable to him.

Mansfield was innocent, but when it comes to plea deals for a sexual offense there’s another factor that applies regardless of guilt or innocence. The article cites estimates that guilty pleas account for 97% of felony convictions in the nation’s largest counties, with some jurisdictions resolving as many as 99% of criminal cases through pleas. When you enter a plea, you supposedly “agree” to the consequences and make an informed choice that’s in your best interest. But what happens when you don’t have the full information at the time you make that choice?

In the case of a plea that includes registration, you got saddled with all the consequences that go with it and might one day be added. Most of which are unknown to you because they don’t exist at the time you took the plea. How can you possibly agree to spend the rest of your life (here in Florida, at least) subject to every restriction the government might someday come up with? A person cannot knowingly choose a plea without knowing the future. He cannot know what new laws the Legislature will enact five, ten or 20 years later. He cannot predict that a residency restriction will someday make his family home off-limits. He cannot know that a new law will prohibit him from entering places where he once took his children, employment restrictions will change, that local governments will pile additional restrictions on top of state law, that something that was completely lawful when he took the plea will eventually become a registration violation. Nobody can bargain with consequences that don’t yet exist!

Yet decades later, we’re told “you took a plea and you agreed to this.” But did we agree to it?

This is not some minor technical problem. In a criminal justice system dominated by plea bargaining, the protections surrounding the plea itself become enormously important, as is our constitutional protection against Ex Post Facto laws! A plea bargain requires knowing what rights you are giving up. There is something deeply troubling about telling someone,  “accept three years instead of risking twenty,” and then, decades later, saying, “by the way, when you accepted that deal, you also agreed to whatever additional restrictions we decide to attach to your conviction for the rest of your life.” If those add-ons aren’t something a person can foresee, that isn’t something a person can meaningfully negotiate, and we should not be presumed to have consented to an unknowable future.

And that brings us directly to one of the reasons why FAC filed FAC v. Glass et al. We’re not asking the government to pretend our convictions never happened. We are asking a much simpler question: How far can the government go, decades later, in adding new burdens to an old conviction? A person who accepted a plea years ago could not have considered restrictions that did not exist such as the 2026 amendment to the Florida Statutes, could not have anticipated laws that had not yet been written, and could not have agreed to consequences that nobody could have described to him at the time.

FAC v. Glass challenges the modern system of ever-expanding restrictions that can turn an old conviction into a lifelong set of expanding limitations on where a person can live, work, travel and exist. At some point, the question stops being what punishment was imposed decades ago and becomes whether government can continually rewrite the consequences of that punishment long after.

We have an amazing legal team who is doing an incredible job of demonstrating to the Courts how these restrictions are punitive and we have an amazing member-base who have stepped up and provided declarations of how their local ordinances have had a punitive impact on them. We’ve collected more than 250 declarations in just one weekend. Some of you have pointed out that the laws of other jurisdictions (not just where they live, but across Florida) are also harming them. They may live in one county but have an elderly parent in another jurisdiction who they can’t care for or visit because they are prohibited from establishing a “temporary residence” because of that Jurisdiction’s ordinance. Or, that they are only living where they are living because they have been banned from living in their chosen county or city. For those who pointed that out, thank you. You’re absolutely right and those are perfect examples. For that reason, we’ve added a second declaration here: https://floridaactioncommittee.org/declaration-form-v2/ . If you’ve already submitted a declaration for your county of residence, now you’re able to submit a second declaration for the county or city you are barred from staying in, working in, or visiting. More than 50 jurisdictions are being sued, so there’s plenty of ground to cover.

So much appreciation for the outpouring of support for our lawsuits and our organization. We are making this happen and all of you are playing a critical role in that!

Sincerely,

The Florida Action Committee

If you have already submitted a declaration for your home county or city, you may submit a second declaration identifying any other county or city named in FAC v. Glass whose restriction has prevented you from living, staying with family, caring for someone, working, traveling, or visiting there, and explain exactly how it affected you.

This update is for general informational purposes and is not legal advice. FAC is not a law firm. Please consult an attorney about your individual circumstances.