Although the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that States cannot restrict a registered sex offender’s access to social media (Packingham v. North Carolina, 582 U.S. ___ (2017)), nothing has stopped social media companies, such as Facebook, from restricting sex offenders from their platforms. A lawsuit filed last week may change that!

Jared Taylor is the founder of the Virginia-based New Century Foundation – a white supremacist organization that was banned from Twitter because of new rules aimed at reducing abusive content. Although we don’t agree with the viewpoints of the Plaintiff, this lawsuit is certainly one in which we hope the Plaintiff prevails.

Taylor is suing California-based Twitter in California Superior Court, alleging that Twitter’s policy of banning him and his organization from their social media platform is unconstitutional and violates Twitter’s own founding principle; to “[g]ive everyone the power to create and share ideas instantly, without barriers.”

The issue in the suit is, “whether Twitter can arbitrarily and discriminatorily ban a speaker from its platform due to nothing more than the controversial nature of the speaker’s viewpoint, political beliefs, and perceived political affiliations.” The issue is very similar to Facebook’s practice of deleting the profiles of registered sex offenders and their policy of banning sex offenders (and their opinions) from it’s platform.

Facebook discriminating against sex offenders?

The suit does not question these social media platform’s rights to block hateful, offensive, abusive, obscene or speech intended to incite. It question’s it’s right to arbitrarily deprive anyone they “don’t like” to speak on it’s “town square”. For a long time we’ve considered a challenge against Facebook’s Terms of Service which ban anyone who is a “registered sex offenders” from their platform. We’ve never moved forward because, candidly, we didn’t think we had the financial resources to go up against one  of the top 10 tech companies in the US. This suit may give us some hope!

You can read the complaint below:

Taylor-v-Twitter-Complaint

The post New lawsuit may provide access to social media. appeared first on Florida Action Committee (FAC).

We have received several emails from members advising us that they have received a letter from a law firm in Texas, Estes-Hightower, PLLC stating they “received their contact information” from the state’s Public Safety Sex Offender Registry” and to contact them to see whether they are eligible for “early removal from the Sex Offender Registry”.

Be VERY cautious about these opportunists who market service to registrants.

***UPDATE – THIS FIRM IS SOLICITING A $5000 RETAINER FROM REGISTRANTS, A COPY OF THE “RETAINER AGREEMENT” WAS SHARED WITH US, THE AGREEMENT DOES NOT OFFER ANY SCOPE OF LEGAL SERVICES AND IS GOVERNED BY TEXAS LAW.

The post Warning: Texas law firm solicits registrants in Florida appeared first on Florida Action Committee (FAC).

The Florida Action Committee will be circulating the following letter to all legislators in our State concerning the “Vacation Rental” bill that would impose ridiculous requirements on both registrants and owners of vacation rental properties.

The bill is the result of “knee-jerk” legislation that is proposed without any planning or forethought. In practice, it is impossible to comply with and imposes a significant burden on individuals, with the effect of banning registrants from vacation rentals.

Proposed Law Burdens Vacation Property Owners

Letter To LaRosa re Vacation Rentals 02262018

The post FAC questions Vacation Rental Bill appeared first on Florida Action Committee (FAC).

A new bill concerning vacation rentals, HB 773, sponsored by Rep. Mike La Rosa, R-St. Cloud, is making its way through the Florida House of Representatives. (https://www.myfloridahouse.gov/Sections/Documents/loaddoc.aspx?FileName=768073.docx&DocumentType=Amendments&BillNumber=0773&Session=2018)

The bill, among other things, would require vacation rental owners to give 24-hour notice to residents who live within 1,000 feet of the properties that sex offenders will be staying at the rentals.

While it does not expressly ban sex offenders from vacation rentals in Florida, its effect would be that it would require vacation rental owners to inquire whether a prospective renter was a sex offender and then they literally have to notify every neighbor within a 1000 foot radius of their presence! Who would rent to a sex offender under those conditions?

AirBnB offenses committed by individuals not on registry

As with most of these bills, there’s not been a swath of “issues” with sex offenders swarming on vacation rentals and the only reported instances of sexual assault relating to AirBnB or similar programs have been from people not on the registry.

Not sure what the purpose of this ill-informed legislator’s bill is, aside from another piece of “feel good” toilet paper that will give the public a false sense of security.

The post Florida bill would effectively ban sex offenders from vacation rentals. appeared first on Florida Action Committee (FAC).

Let’s set aside personal beliefs about the death penalty for any crime and focus solely on the conviction and punishment of Donald Smith.

I am so pleased that Donald Smith is being punished for the horrible, sick things he did to Cherish Perrywinkle! I’m also so happy that he’s being punished for the horrible things he’s done to me!

It’s because of Donald Smith that my family members’ cars are on the registry. It’s because of Donald Smith that I have to make two extra trips to the Sheriff whenever the dealership gives me a loaner. It’s because of Donald Smith that I get anxious whenever my wife carpools.

You see, in 2014, the year after Donald Smith murdered Cherish, a wave of new sex offender laws were passed that Donald Smith will never be subjected to, but that I (and my family) will be.

In 2014, in addition to the change in definition of “vehicles owned” (to include not only registrant’s cars but anyone who lives with them, anyone who visits them for 5 days, or any cars rented), we got “Internet Identifier” requirements and enhanced notification of travel, registration of passport information and professional licenses, increased frequency of reporting for transients, and a whole laundry list of other sanctions that made Florida “scorched earth” for me, but not for Donald Smith, because long after he’s dead, people who have been living model lives for decades will continue to be punished for his crime.

One man’s actions affect hundreds of registrants

My heart goes out to the family of Cherish Perrywinkle, My heart also goes out to my fellow FAC members. He has caused us all to suffer and whether it was life in prison for him or the death sentence, no punishment will be adequate to bring back what he has taken from us.

The post Jury gives death sentence to Donald Smith appeared first on Florida Action Committee (FAC).

Seriously? That would be like having Bill Belichick design the Dolphins’ game plans against the Patriots.

Watch the video: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/opinion/95047063-132.html

Scott made this absurd argument Monday in response to the Feb. 1 ruling by U.S. District Judge Mark Walker that Florida’s Jim Crow-era system for how ex-felons can regain their rights is arbitrary and thus unconstitutional. A Scott spokesman said authority for clemency rests with “officials elected by Floridians, not judges.”

Before discussing where things go from here, we must understand how things reached this point.

After just 30 minutes of public comment, the board unanimously abolished rights restoration reforms enacted under former Gov. Charlie Crist. All ex-felons would have to wait at least five years even to apply for restoration. Only two other states have such harsh requirements. Scott did not make the proposed rules available until just before the meeting.

This next part is especially important. Putnam at least asked Scott why he favored the change. The governor’s answer: “Seemed reasonable.”

That is a textbook definition of “arbitrary.” Scott and Bondi cited no threat to public safety from the former policy. They cited nothing in regard to prison overcrowding and early releases, as former Gov. Lawton Chiles did when he tightened rules on rights restoration.

Perhaps the decision was about partisan politics. All the Clemency Board members are Republicans. A disproportionate share of ex-felons are African-Americans, who tend to vote Democratic. Or perhaps it was an attempt to look “tough on crime.”

Whatever the motivation, the action went against the trend in more enlightened states of sensible criminal justice reform. Those states include Texas, where lawmakers across the political spectrum finally understood that being smart on crime matters more than just being tough.

Florida got good advice more than a decade ago. Former Gov. Jeb Bush created the Ex-Offender Task Force. Its report in late 2006 noted that roughly 90 percent of state prison inmates would be released. Of those, 25 percent would commit another crime.

“This rate of recidivism,” the report said, “is unacceptably high and unacceptably expensive. For each new crime, there is a new victim, and new costs to Florida communities. This trend must be reversed.” Among the recommendations was quicker restoration of rights, so ex-felons could find work and be part of society.

For Crist, the epiphany came when he held a March 2007 town hall meeting in Lake Worth. He had been elected the previous November. Among those at the y’all-come session was a woman who had embezzled money from a former employer.

The woman waited eight hours to tell Crist that the felony conviction prevented her from becoming a nurse. The next month, Crist and two other members of the Clemency Board approved rules under which ex-felons who had committed non-violent crimes got their rights restored without having to apply — if the Parole Commission approved. The changes also made rights restoration faster for those convicted of violent crimes.

Though Crist’s action didn’t create automatic restoration, roughly 150,000 ex-felons regained their rights during his four years. The backlog of applications was about 100,000 when Crist left office.

Things have worsened dramatically under Scott. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, only 2,000 Floridians regained their rights during the first five years of the Scott administration. The backlog is now roughly 1.5 million in the nation’s largest swing state.

The Sentencing Project estimated that 10.4 percent of Florida’s voting-age population was disenfranchised in 2016 because of a felony conviction. That’s the highest rate in the nation. In comparison, the rate in Pennsylvania is 0.5 percent. In Ohio, it’s 0.6 percent.

On Monday, the governor’s office and the plaintiffs who brought the lawsuit are supposed to give Walker their ideas for changing the system. Scott’s office has indicated that the governor may appeal.

Meanwhile, the petition drive for a constitutional amendment that would reform rights restoration has gained enough signatures to make the November ballot. The proposal would make restoration of the right to vote automatic upon completion of sentence for all ex-felons except those convicted or murder or a sex crime. Even if voters approve, ex-felons still could have trouble obtaining licenses to hold certain jobs.

There’s no way to tell whether the proposed amendment change would affect state politics. Ex-felons still would have to register to vote and then cast ballots. The change matters, though, because the current, outdated policy harms the state. On this issue, Florida is the wrong kind of outlier.

SOURCE

The post Sun Sentinel Editorial: Gov. Rick Scott has no credibility on rights restoration appeared first on Florida Action Committee (FAC).

An Indiana man convicted of child solicitation in 2010 is taking his case to the Indiana Supreme Court. He is challenging a law passed in 2015 that makes it a felony for him to enter school property. For the first 5 years he was granted permission to enter school property to attend his son’s school activities, but in 2015, with the passage of Indiana Code section 35-42-4-14, that stopped.

Notably, that same law, which also prohibited sex offenders from attending a church that included a school was challenged and overturned recently.

The plaintiff claims the ban constitutes retroactive punishment because the restriction didn’t exist at the time of his offense.

The post Indiana registrant fights to attend son’s school activities appeared first on Florida Action Committee (FAC).

State legislators are talking about updating Missouri’s sex offender registry to be more in line with the federal system. Under State Rep. Kurt Bahr’s proposal, three tiers of offenses would be created, corresponding with how serious the crime was, the 3rd, being the most heinous.

Bahr, R-St. Charles tells Missourinet affiliate KSSZ in Columbia that the proposal would make the registry more effective.

“If we can clean the list off of those people who have minor offenses, then the list becomes more helpful because now you can say ‘If this person is on the list, then they’re likely to be more worrisome,’” Bahr says.

His legislation would offer low-level, one-time offenders an escape from being placed on the list for a lifetime. A punishment he says, that makes it difficult for people to rehabilitate.

“If they do not have a job, if they do not have housing, and if they do not have social interaction with others, if those three things aren’t met, somebody is likely to commit another crime,” says Bahr.

First and second level offenders could petition the courts to be taken off the registry after 10 and 25 years respectively. Top tier offenders would be on the registry for life, as would anyone who repeats a sexual crime while on the list.

SOURCE

The post Missouri Legislature considers updating sex offender registry appeared first on Florida Action Committee (FAC).

Last night, The Soho Forum and Reason.com held a debate on whether, “All the laws requiring those convicted of sex offenses to put their names in a registry should be abolished.”

Listeners were asked to vote BEFORE hearing the debate and then, again, AFTER hearing the debate.The results and a link to the debate are below.

As you can see, Emily Horowitz’s argument (in favor of abolishing the registry) was overwhelmingly persuasive and congratulations on the win. ***Readers, please note this is an academic debate. It is NOT a court hearing and the results of this debate will not have any impact on sex offender laws.***

Watch the video: http://reason.com/blog/2018/02/12/should-the-sex-offender-registry-be-abol

The post Overwhelming WIN for Emily Horowitz in Yesterday’s Debate on Abolishing the Sex Offender Registry appeared first on Florida Action Committee (FAC).

NY Governor Andrew Cuomo announced a plan to restrict sex offenders whose victims were under the age of 13 from living or traveling near schools as well as banning them from living in temporary or emergency shelters where families also live.

The State Courts have already overturned municipalities’ sex offender residency restrictions, finding that the decision to impose these restrictions is up to the State. Now the State seeks to impose one that would also include restricting travel within the banishment zone.

Despite evidence that these restrictions are ineffective and do more harm than good, the State of New York is considering them. We strongly urge our affiliates in NY to strongly oppose.

The post NY Governor seeks to banish sex offenders – 1000 feet from schools appeared first on Florida Action Committee (FAC).