Recording of Oral Argument in Ex Post Facto Plus I
The recording of the oral argument that took place this past Friday before a panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in the Ex Post Facto Plus lawsuit (Does v. Swearingen) on appeal from the Southern District of Florida is now available. You can listen to the recording below.
Once you have listened to the argument, please share your opinion in the comments below.
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I’m tired of this, I want to challenge this now! Never thought that Rosa Parks and the registry had so much in common!
The continued enforcement, nullifies the statue of limitations.
I want to live like everyone else. It’s been 20 plus yrs. Time for injunctive relief.
Same. 20+ years on the Registry is too long. 😩
I felt like we made a strong argument and how the judges were questioning the states validity and giving multiple hypotheticals seems to work in our favor.
GREAT job Todd Scher! It helped that he was blessed with a clear-thinking panel. Who would’ve expected the panel to bring up ROSA PARKS!
I would also like to thank the FDLE for sending an attorney who seemed to have difficulty overcoming the panel’s skepticism of FDLE’s arguments.
When I first heard that the claim was barred by a statute of limitations I questioned Brown v Board of Education, how could they have ever have successfully challenged laws years after their enactment. These incredible judges, I think all but one saw the issue from the very beginning. They even helped Todd steer the argument where it needed to go. One even brought of Rosa Parks being barred from her claim because the statutes had been on the books for years.
Plaintiffs are not challenging the original registration, they are challenging the prospective enforcement of the law. And from what comments and questions I heard from the judges, that is likely how I hope their ruling will be.
Out load, I found myself screaming “You get it!” during most of these judges comments!
Listening to these oral arguments is disturbing. Hearing justices and lawyers debating very abstract and substantively meaningless aspects of the law and the claims against it makes me believe that the justice system has lost all connection with reality. They are likened to Pharisees worrying about straining out gnats (arguing over statute of limitations, etc.) when they’re content to swallow a camel (allowing laws to exist that openly oppress fellow citizens).
The merits of the claims in the case should be obvious to all. The fact that it apparently isn’t is perhaps the greatest tragedy in all of this.
Our attorney did an awesome job. I have never heard an oral argument where the judges were more clearly on one side than the other. I loved that one of the judges made several hypotheticals posed at the State of Florida to show how ridiculous their arguments were. I would not be surprised if we have a strong opinion from the 11th Circuit that strengthens our case(s) below.
If initial registration was in July of 2017, and if statute of limitations were to apply for the 3-day rule, when would it run out?
TO: W
Isn’t it funny that NONE of us (As far as I know) were told by the sentencing judge, “You have “X” amount of years to challenge your registry application”. Guess they will use the old “Ignorance of the law is no excuse”? What a cop out. Sad really. No wonder so many people do years in prison for something they didn’t do, no one wants to listen, even sometimes their own attorney.
For me and many others, there simply was no registry when we were sentence so even a judge telling us that wouldn’t have help since we had already been sentenced, and the judge wouldn’t have known. THAT should have been the lawyers defense. How can we challenge something that didn’t exist at time of sentencing and was retroactively/forcibly applied.
Amen to that! Was forced into a plea bargain for a crime that did not exist and then forced into a longer life of rules and regulations for a crime that still didn’t exist. 1989, there was no such thing. Yet, the world watches and waits (literally) for you to step out of bounds just so they can hit speed dial and have you locked up. Why are we so defenseless?