Florida | Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion - Part 41
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Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on April 27, 2016 20 Comments
Florida might be a tax friendly state, but it's not very privacy friendly -- at least not for the kiddos. Orange County (home to Orlando) schools recently re-upped a partnership with SnapTrends, a software that monitors student social media activity. Karen Turner writes at the Washington Post:
SnapTrends collects data from public posts on students' social media accounts by scanning for keywords that signify cases of cyberbullying, suicide threats, or criminal activity. School security staff then comb through flagged posts and alert police when they see fit. Research suggests that 23 percent of children and teens have been cyberbullied. Studies connecting social media and suicide have not shown definitive results, but there has been research that suggests that cyberbullying leads to suicide ideation more than traditional bullying.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 08, 2016 22 Comments
Some woman screamed at Florida Governor Rick Scott the other day, including calling him an a-hole, in a video that went viral. Language Warning
The Gov just released his response:
After a viral video of a woman cursing him out in a coffee shop went viral this week, Florida Governor Rick Scott decided to unleash his own retaliatory clip on the world — and his very vocal critic. The video, titled “Latte Liberal Gets an Earful,” begins with a brief replay of the verbal barrage Scott encountered.

Posted by Sarah Rumpf on April 01, 2016 9 Comments
The Republican Party of Florida (RPOF) is having a little fun at Hillary Clinton's expense this April Fools' Day, posting several news releases highlighting her problems with the investigations into her email server and unfavorable polling. In a mock press release obtained by Legal Insurrection, RPOF shared several fake news articles. One announced that Clinton had won an Academy Award "for her portrayal of an honest candidate," including a quote from DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Shultz praising Clinton's "ability to pretend she hasn’t changed her position on a range of key issues, and dedication to sticking to her talking points regarding her secret email server and Wall Street speeches." Other articles included one claiming that former President Bill Clinton would be endorsing Bernie Sanders instead of his wife "due to Hillary’s lack of transparency with voters" and another purporting to have a video showing Clinton actually "wiping her server clean" by physically wiping her Blackberry with a small cloth.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on March 26, 2016 11 Comments
With demand down and red states limiting the amount of taxpayer monies going to fund abortion, abortion clinics are closing across the country.  Friday, Florida became another state to cut abortion funding when Governor Rick Scott signed into law a bill that would cut state funding to clinics that perform abortion. The Orlando Sentinel reports:
Planned Parenthood and other health clinics that provide abortions in Florida will go without taxpayer funds and face increased regulations for the procedure, under a bill signed Friday by Gov. Rick Scott. . . . . The law, which takes effect July 1, requires doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital, requires annual licensure inspections for clinics and bans the purchase, sell or transfer of fetal remains. The law upgrades the failure to properly dispose of fetal tissue from a second-degree misdemeanor to a first-degree misdemeanor.

Posted by Sarah Rumpf on March 11, 2016 9 Comments
On Thursday, Florida Governor Rick Scott signed a bill that would cut off state funding to abortion provider Planned Parenthood and increases the safety requirements for abortion clinics. The bill was cheered  by pro-life activists across the country and also brings added importance to a case pending before the United States Supreme Court. The bill, HB 1411, contains provisions similar to those in the Texas abortion law currently being challenged before the Supreme Court, requiring abortion doctors to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals and requiring abortion clinics to meet the same standards as ambulatory surgical centers. The Florida law also mandates annual inspections for abortion clinics, including a review of at least 50 percent of their records, in order to have their licenses renewed.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on February 08, 2016 24 Comments
When will Florida Man ever learn? Apparently, never. In Pensacola, Florida, suspect, Jarell Blackmon used a fake pistol to rob a food mart. He cleaned out the cash register and made off with ten cartons of cigarettes before the cashier used a real gun to shoot him. The Pensacola News Journal reported:
A Pensacola man robbed a Beacon food mart store early this morning using a fake pistol. According to a press release from the Pensacola Police Department, the suspect, Jarell Blackmon, 24, entered the store at 1101 W. Cervantes Street at 2:25 a.m., wearing camouflage, at hat and a bandana over his face. The clerk said he told the suspect to remove the bandana, but he refused. Blackmon then came behind the counter and pulled out a pistol which the cashier assumed to be real.

Posted by Andrew Branca on November 20, 2015 9 Comments
NOTE: This post has one correction and one clarification, as noted below. One of Florida's more interesting laws is the so-called "10-20-Life" statute, properly cited as §775.087 Possession or use of weapon; aggravated battery; felony reclassification; minimum sentence.  In a nutshell, §775.087 provides, among other things, for mandatory minimum sentences for the possession or use of a firearm while committing one of several enumerated violent crimes.  It appears likely now that some substantial changes will be made to §775.087, particularly in the context of self-defense, on the basis of a bill moving through the Florida Senate.  (The PDF of the proposed revised bill, currently named SB 228, is embedded at the bottom of this post.) §775.087 has, of course, long been a target for groups who oppose mandatory minimum sentencing as a matter of policy.  More interestingly, it has also become a target for the self-defense advocacy community, who believe the statute has been used inappropriately against people who were merely acting in self-defense. In effect, the statute lists 18 various crimes, and then establishes mandatory minimum sentences if a person convicted of one of those crimes was either in possession of or discharged a firearm while committing the underlying crime:

§775.087(2)(a)(1): Possession of firearm = 10 year mandatory minimum.

§775.087(2)(a)(2): Discharge of firearm = 20 year mandatory minimum.

§775.087(2)(a)(3): Discharge causing death or great bodily harm = 25 to life mandatory minimum.

Note that each of those mandatory minimum sentences is to run consecutively with (on top of) sentencing for the underlying crime.  Thus it's actually possible to receive a longer sentence for the "10-20-Life" portion of the offense than for the underlying offense itself. CORRECTION: I am advised by Florida public defender (appellate division) Steven Gosney that the §778.087 mandatory minimum "bumps up" the sentence for the underlying criminal charge, it is not in addition to that underlying sentence. So an aggravated assault sentence of 5 years, in which a firearm was discharged, would under §778.087 be increased to a total of 20 years; it would not end up as a combination of 5 years for the underlying charge and an additional 20 years for §778.087.

Posted by Sarah Rumpf on October 29, 2015 22 Comments
When Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton had an event in South Florida earlier this month, he Republican Party of Florida (RPOF) sent a staffer armed with a video camera and a devastatingly damaging question: "Can you name her accomplishments?" On Wednesday, RPOF released a YouTube video showing Hillary supporters enthusiastically voicing their loyalty to her, but then stumbling when asked to name her top two accomplishments as either Secretary of State or when she represented New York in the Senate.
"To be honest with you, I'm not too sure," says one supporter. "I couldn't tell you," says another. "Ummm, well, I'll be pretty honest with you, I didn't follow her very much when she was involved with those positions," says the third Hillary fan shown in the video compelled to "honest" about being unable to name any of her accomplishments. The very few specific answers were not incredibly helpful, with one supporter mentioning that while he felt she had improved women's rights in the Middle East, the "worst thing" she had done as Secretary of State was "Benghazi," while his friend smirks and agrees.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 22, 2015 41 Comments
There are two big stories in a Florida Atlantic University poll of Republican voters to be released tomorrow. The Orlando Sun-Sentinel reports, Poll: Marco Rubio pulls ahead of Jeb Bush in Florida; Hillary Clinton in trouble:
Marco Rubio has overtaken Jeb Bush among Florida Republicans, as he benefits from positive reviews of his performance in the most recent presidential debate. A Florida Atlantic University poll to be released Wednesday shows Rubio, the state's junior senator, is in second place in the Republican primary field in Florida. His political mentor, former Gov. Jeb Bush, is in third place. Donald Trump, the real estate investor, former reality TV show host and part-time Palm Beach resident, is in first place among Florida Republicans, as he is nationally.... On the Republican side, Trump had 31.5 percent of the Republican primary vote. Rubio was second with 19.2 percent and Bush was third with 11.3 percent.
Ben Carson came in at 10.3% and Carly Fiorina at 8.3%

Posted by Mike LaChance on September 06, 2015 48 Comments
Early in the 2016 cycle, the Republican establishment pushed Marco Rubio aside in Florida and put its money and support behind Jeb Bush. That decision has created a scenario which could rob both candidates of the state's highly coveted delegates. Jim Newell of Slate reported:
Has the Republican Establishment Created a Monster? Last fall, when Jeb Bush was still mulling a bid for the presidency, Bloomberg Politics reported on what was considered then—and is still considered now—Bush’s greatest advantage as a presidential candidate: His ability to separate wealthy donors from vast sums of money quickly. “Unlike his competitors,” the thinking went, “Bush could lure donors off the fence in a hurry, without undergoing a hazing trial to test skill and stability.” That is precisely what happened. Instants after announcing over the winter that he was “seriously considering the possibility of running for president,” Bush and his team set up the Right to Rise PAC and super PAC to serve as cash receptacles for eager GOP establishment donors. The money rolled in, and by July the super PAC announced that it had met its goal of raising more than $100 million in the first six months of the year.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 30, 2015 99 Comments
On July 4, 2015, 22 year-old Lane Pittman decided to take his electric guitar and play the Star Spangled Banner on the street outside his friend's house in Neptune Beach, near Jacksonville. Pittman says that after a police officer asked him to stop, he asked if it was okay to play on the sidewalk, and was told that was okay. And play he did:
"I don't think I ever played that song as good in my life as I did on that day. It felt right. It was an emotional roller coaster."
The crowd topped 200 people, spilling onto the street around him:
Then Pittman was, to his surprise, arrested for breaching the peace:

Posted by Mike LaChance on July 28, 2015 15 Comments
This might be funny if it wasn't such a serious subject. Earlier this month, as a fashion photo shoot was taking place on Miami Beach, a boat carrying illegal immigrants approached the beach, and the passengers proceeded to run onto and across the beach. The incident was captured on video which you can watch below. Obviously, a border fence wouldn't have prevented this incident. In fact, this is the way immigrants from Haiti, Cuba and other countries came to America for years. This shows that immigration enforcement is not just about a fence or the land border. Joe Saunders reported at BizPac Review:
Caught on video: Gang of brazen illegal aliens swarms Miami beach, interrupt modeling shoot Videographer Ekaterina Juskowski told the News Times Broward-Palm Beach she was shooting video of a model friend about 6 a.m. July 10 when a boat started approaching shore quickly. Thinking it was simply scuba divers, she said, she turned off her camera – but turned it back on when she saw the men pouring off the vessel, out of the surf and onto the sand.

Posted by Andrew Branca on November 06, 2013 21 Comments
Although it had been widely reported (including right here at Legal Insurrection) that the Sanford, FL police department had banned Neighborhood Watch volunteers from being lawfully armed, Police Chief Cecil Smith now says that this policy was miscommunicated to the public. It remains true that volunteers in a more thoroughly organized form of neighborhood watch--called "Citizens on Patrol"--will be prohibited from being armed.  
Readers may recall  "Citizens on Patrol" from early in the Zimmerman trial.  One of the first of the Prosecution's witnesses was Wendy Dorival, a civilian employee of the Sanford PD who acted as their liaison with local neighborhood watch programs.  She testified about her interactions with George Zimmerman in that context, describing him in glowing terms.  Indeed, so impressed was she with Zimmerman that she tried to recruit him for the more substantive "Citizens on Patrol" program.  In that program Zimmerman would have been provided with a patrol car, a uniform of sorts, and generally been as close to being a "real" policeman as he had ever hoped to become. Zimmerman declined the opportunity -- one might speculate because even then the position would have required that Zimmerman disarm himself.   So, if it was always the policy that "Citizens on Patrol" were required to be unarmed, but that the "standard" Neighborhood Watch volunteers could lawfully arm themselves, why the past few days news about these issues? I expect that the only real "miscommunication" from the Sanford Police Department has been in misunderstanding how severely negative the response would be to the notion that Neighborhood Watch volunteers would be required to leave themselves fatally vulnerable to criminal aggressors preying on their neighborhood. For those who are interested, here is Wendy Dorival's testimony from the trial: