Smashed Frog

Our House is a Very Fine House

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 22:35 GMT

I took the plunge back into the home buyers market, except this time, weighed down by the burden of residency restrictions due to my family member's designation as a sex offender.

The Internet is a great tool for "walking through" houses online sans realtor, who would likely grow suspicious about continued disinterest in seemingly great homes. Once I saw something that looked decent, I'd google map the address against all possible off-limit areas and then jump in the car to physically drive by the place, measuring distance via my car odometer. It took about three months, but his method turned up three legal houses of interest. Before contacting a realtor, I contacted local law enforcement to officially okay the possible choices.

One house out of the three met the restriction as stipulated by current state law.

One.

Believe it or not, it was a pretty great house, but the police asked us if we knew undesirables (homeless) often camped in the woods across the street. (Hugely ironic, as a) "undesirable" is term is usually reserved for my family member and b) the law put us there, segregating our home search to certain areas of town.

All bets were on this house. We had to like the place, it had to pass a home inspection and of course, the seller had to accept our offer.

After the seller turned down our first offer, we went back and gave her full price, knowing we had no choice due to the limitations imposed, all the while, keeping our fingers crossed that the place wouldn't be sold out from under us. Thankfully, the "undesirables" helped out in the end as the offer was accepted without any competing offers. The home loan went through as well as the closing and we breathed a huge sigh of relief.

Here's the punchline. If the law had stipulated an oft cited potential distance of 1750 feet--instead of the current state law of 1000 feet--a park located around 1200 ft. would've disqualified our new home as a possibility.

I would like to add, that if my children had been of school-age, my new neighborhood would not have been the best as far as neighborhood schools and the area of town is, let us say, "tired". Day labor is within a mile, so lots of foot (and men on bike( traffic travel through the neighborhood. My twenty-something son stumbled across a man unconscious on the sidewalk a couple of weeks back. My point is that many young kids are placed in similar unsafe situations because one of their parents is relegated to living within this law.

I want to keep these kids safe as well.

I've been involved long enough to know reforms won't change overnight. But I will say, the public has been very much educated on what constitutes a "sex offender" as more and more "typical" citizens find themselves (and their families) involved in these laws.

While most continue to stick their heads under a bridge and have failed to take responsibility for the collateral damage associated with these laws, I challenge Florida lawmakers to step back and question how better to address the issue before them now.

***

SB 1284 is listed on Committee Agenda for 3/23/2010, 1:00 PM, 412-K.

The bill preempts certain local ordinances related to residency limitations and provides for repeal of such ordinances.

Gather Around, Kids. Once Upon a Time the Julia Tuttle Causeway was NOT a Child Safety Zone

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 08:46 GMT

Well.

How interesting is this?

Didn't take Miami too long to figure out just how to link child safety zones with the the city's new residency restrictions of 1750 feet, effectively hamstringing the Florida Department of Corrections from assigning homeless citizens designated as sex offenders the address of Julia Tuttle Causeway, Miami, Florida.

The Miami Herald, Brickell residents will soon get new park (3/14/2010):

Residents along Brickell Avenue will see more green space coming their way by year's end.
Thanks to a collaboration between the Hollo family and Commissioner Marc Sarnoff, there will soon be a new park at 1814 Brickell Ave.
Earlier this year, the city of Miami bought the one-acre parcel for $2.6 million and the Hollos contributed a further $200,000, said David Karsh, a spokesman for Sarnoff.

The green space is coming at a crucial time, as more people make downtown Miami their home. A study by the Miami Downtown Development Authority and Goodkin Consulting/Focus Real Estate Advisors found that nearly three-quarters of the 22,079 condo units built since 2003 are occupied. The area spans the Brickell district south of downtown Miami to the Julia Tuttle Causeway.
Possible features of the park include shaded rest areas, a tot lot, dog park and walkways.
Sarnoff said he got the idea for a park in 2008, when he saw that none of the impact fees Miami had collected were being spent in District 2. Impact fees come from building permits and are meant to offset the costs associated with new projects.

(...)

Sarnoff is exploring creating another park in the north end of his district in the Little River area.

``We are looking at a piece of property there,'' he said.

Hmmm. I wonder what's out Little River way that the city may feel the DOC would consider a potential address?

Enjoy this review of events leading up to the latest puzzle piece sliding into place.

(...)
In January, Miami-Dade commissioners passed a sex offender ordinance that repeals more than 24 different sex offender laws enacted by municipalities within the county's borders. The new law creates one standard that commissioners hope will balance the need to protect children while still giving housing options to sex offenders and predators.
The ordinance also creates a new provision that supporters say is a more workable and realistic solution to protecting children: child-safety zones.
Under the child-safety zones, sex offenders are prohibited from loitering within 300 feet of where children congregate. In other words, it restricts sex offenders from being near children, but doesn't leave them homeless.

--Miami Herald, Julia Tuttle Causeway sex offender enclave being dismantled, (2/26/10)

Time to File a Civil Rights Complaint?

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:45 GMT

I can't shake this feeling that perhaps a civil rights complaint could be filed by the family members of those citizens designated as sex offenders by the state of Florida.

Due to the immediate access to the Florida Sex Offender Registry by anyone with a computer, private citizens who have done nothing but stand in support of their registered loved one, risk ostracization in their public, familial and employment life due to the listing of their home address online.

Follow my thinking, using the DOJ Civil Rights Division criteria as a guide.

Who is charged:		Usually an organization: Florida Legislature
Standard of proof:		Preponderance of evidence: FSOR
Fact finder:		Judge
Victim:		Individuals and/or representatives of a group or class: Family members
Remedy sought:		Correct policies and practices, relief for individuals: Removal of home addresses, maps from the FSOR
Govt's right to appeal:		Yes

If there is no violence or threat of violence, whom should I contact?

A. If no violence is involved, complaints should be submitted in writing to the Civil Rights Division, where it will be forwarded to the appropriate Section for review. The Division's mailing address is:

Civil Rights Division
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, D.C. 20530

Q. What do I do when my civil rights have been violated, and can I make a complaint on behalf of someone else? Must it be in writing?

A. Individuals may report possible violations on their own or on behalf of others if they have sufficient first-hand information about the incident. The information provided should include names of the victim( s), any witnesses, and the perpetrators (if known), a description of the events, and whether any physical injuries or physical damage were incurred. Complaints in writing are preferred, but there may be circumstances when a telephone complaint is appropriate (especially if there is an immediate danger). The "blue pages" of your local telephone book should have the phone numbers and addresses for the agencies shown below.

And I believe a complaint can be made anonymously.

There is very much a reason our lawmakers will not legislate away the voting rights of RSOs (well, at least those who still retain voting rights). Doing so is a civil rights violation and nobody wants a civil rights complaint breathing down their neck.

What do you think, Froggers?

I'm listening.

Severable

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:32 GMT

While perusing the latest version of CS/HB 119 (read for the 1st time 3/9/10), the last couple of sections of the bill popped out at me.

(...)

(1846)Section 15. The Legislature intends that nothing in this
(1847))act reduce or diminish a court's jurisdiction.

(1848)Section 16. If any provision of this act or its
(1849)application to any person or circumstance is held invalid, the
(1850)invalidity does not affect other provisions or applications of
(1851)this act which can be given effect without the invalid provision
(1852)or application, and to this end the provisions of this act are
(1853)declared severable.

Nothing in this act reduces or diminishes a court jurisdiction.

And if any provision is held invalid, it doesn't effect any other provisions of the act.

Sounds sort of promising, doesn't it? As if the Florida Legislature were granting judges some sort of discretion within the law.

In the case of my family, a judge ruled my loved one was not a sex offender and that sex offender probation need not apply; however, had we known (hell, if the attorney had known) that a solicitation conviction under F.S. 800.04 carried the same weight as if an actual lewd and lascivious act had occurred, I guarantee our attorney would've asked for a continuance to plead down from any charge remotely connected with sex offender laws.

But you know what is said about hindsight....

So, I checked to see if F.S. 943.0436 was a cited statute in the creation of F.S. 856.022, the latest proposed addition to Florida sex offender law. It was not, no big surprise there.

In brief, F.S. 943.0436 legislatively removes the power of a judge to impose a fair and just sentence for first time (or otherwise) offenders, quite effectively stripping citizens from the right of legal due process. Why the law I affectionately refer to as the judicial handcuff has not been championed by the ACLU is beyond me.

I imagine that's what an appeals court is all about. That is, if one has enough money and enough of an ego to endure the humiliation.

What you (and your attorney) don't know about sex offender law can hurt you.

Has Government Neutralized Ex Post Facto Law?

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 03:42 GMT

An ex post facto law is a law passed after the occurrence of an event or action which retrospectively changes the legal consequences of the event or action.

Will the conclusion offered via the Brief for Law Professors in Support of Petitioner open the door for a much-needed legal clarification regarding ex post facto law?

Recently heard by the Supremes (2/24/2010): Carr v. United States, Docket No. 08-1301

(Argument Transcript here.)

(...)

29

CONCLUSION

While the petitioner’s brief makes a compelling
case for resolving this case in favor of Carr on statutory
grounds, there are significant reasons for the Court to address and resolve the Ex Post Facto Clause argument in favor of the petitioner as well.

Lower courts have created a complete mess of Ex Post Facto law in SORNA cases by confusing the rules of retrospectivity, as the Seventh Circuit did, deciding that a criminal statute with substantial prison penalties was not intended to be punitive, and that lengthy imprisonment and other restraints in SORNA are not punitive in effects. Especially because the Government has effectively neutralized the Ex Post Facto issues by not appealing any district court judgments where it lost the issue, this is an issue that should be addressed in the present matter. The Court should take this opportunity to restate the importance of the Ex Post Facto Clause and provide clear guidance to lower courts in addressing SORNA and other statutes. This will ensure that the Clause provides the necessary bulwark against ill-intentioned legislatures, maintains a proper separation of powers, and preserves the basic

30

right of fair notice. Accordingly, the judgment of the court of appeals should be reversed.

Respectfully submitted.

COREY RAYBURN YUNG
John Marshall Law
School
315 S. Plymouth Ct.
Chicago, IL 60604
(312) 386-2863

DOUGLAS A. BERMAN
The Ohio State University
Michael E. Moritz College
of Law
55 West 12th Ave.
Columbus, OH 43210
(614) 688-8690

WAYNE A. LOGAN
Florida State University
College of Law
425 W. Jefferson St.
Tallahassee, FL 32306
(850) 644.4759

AMY L. NEUHARDT
Counsel of Record
Boies, Schiller & Flexner
LLP
5301 Wisconsin Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20015
(202) 274-1137

Counsel for Amici Curiae

DECEMBER 9, 2009

Status Check: H119 and S1284

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 05:12 GMT

As the last of Miami's residents living beneath the Julia Tuttle Causeway are moved to safe shelter, (NBC, 3/4/10), let's review the progress of residency restriction bills currently before the Florida Legislature.

Senate 1284: Relating to Sexual Offenders and Predators [SPSC]

S1284 GENERAL BILL by Crist; Aronberg (Similar H 0119)

Sexual Offenders and Predators [SPSC]; Prohibits loitering or prowling
by certain offenders within a specified distance of places where
children regularly congregate. Preempts certain local ordinances
relating to residency limitations for sexual predators and offenders and
providing for repeal of such ordinances. Provides additional address
reporting requirements for sexual offenders adjudicated delinquent, etc.
EFFECTIVE DATE: 07/01/2010.

01/20/10 SENATE Filed
02/03/10 SENATE Referred to Criminal Justice; Community Affairs; Judiciary;
Criminal and Civil Justice Appropriations
03/01/10 SENATE On Committee agenda-- Criminal Justice, 03/04/10, 8:00 am,
37-S
03/02/10 SENATE Introduced, referred to Criminal Justice; Community Affairs;
Judiciary; Criminal and Civil Justice Appropriations
-SJ 00092; On Committee agenda-- Criminal Justice, 03/04/10,
8:00 am, 37-S --Temporarily postponed
03/04/10 SENATE On Committee agenda-- Criminal Justice, 03/09/10, 3:30 pm,
37-S

***

House 0119: Relating to Sexual Offenders and Predators

H119 GENERAL BILL by Glorioso; (CO-SPONSORS) Brandenburg; Hooper (Similar
S 1284)

Sexual Offenders and Predators; Prohibits loitering or prowling by
certain offenders within specified distance of places where children
regularly congregate; prohibits certain actions toward child at public
park or playground by certain offenders; prohibits presence of certain
offenders at or on grounds of child care facility or pre-K through 12
school without notice & supervision, etc. EFFECTIVE DATE: 07/01/2010.

09/15/09 HOUSE Filed
10/12/09 HOUSE Referred to Public Safety & Domestic Security Policy (CCJP);
Military & Local Affairs Policy (EDCA); Criminal & Civil
Justice Appropriations (CGHC); Criminal & Civil Justice
Policy Council
01/26/10 HOUSE On Committee agenda-- Public Safety & Domestic Security
Policy (CCJP), 02/02/10, 8:00 am, 404-H --Workshopped
02/09/10 HOUSE On Committee agenda-- Public Safety & Domestic Security
Policy (CCJP), 02/16/10, 10:15 am, 404-H --Not considered
02/22/10 HOUSE On Committee agenda-- Public Safety & Domestic Security
Policy (CCJP), 03/01/10, 2:15 pm, 404-H
03/01/10 HOUSE CS by Public Safety & Domestic Security Policy (CCJP);
YEAS 11 NAYS 0
03/02/10 HOUSE Introduced, referred to Public Safety & Domestic Security
Policy (CCJP); Military & Local Affairs Policy (EDCA);
Criminal & Civil Justice Appropriations (CGHC); Criminal &
Civil Justice Policy Council -HJ 00018; On Committee agenda--
Public Safety & Domestic Security Policy (CCJP), 02/02/10,
8:00 am, 404-H --Workshopped; On Committee agenda-- Public
Safety & Domestic Security Policy (CCJP), 02/16/10, 10:15 am,
404-H --Not considered; On Committee agenda-- Public Safety &
Domestic Security Policy (CCJP), 03/01/10, 2:15 pm, 404-H; CS
by Public Safety & Domestic Security Policy (CCJP); YEAS 11
NAYS 0


And the wheels on the bus go round and round.

Conflict of Interest? Rich Glorioso Accepts Check from Lobbyist Ron Book

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 19:25 GMT

As recently posted by Smashed Frog (Five Years after Jessica, 2/24/10):

(...)
State Rep. Rich Glorioso, R-Plant City, is sponsoring legislation to revamp Florida's sex offender laws by implementing a "circle of safety" to protect children instead of strong residency restrictions on sexual offenders. The main provision of the bill (HB119) would prohibit sexual offenders from loitering within 300 feet of locations where children are present.
"Sometimes we focus on where those people live," Glorioso said. "Where they are sleeping last night really isn't the issue. It's what they are doing when they are awake."

That being said...

(...)

Glorioso has been forced to modify bill HB119 as municipalities are a bit verklempt with the inclusion to preempt "...local residency restrictions on sex offenders, forbidding counties and cities from making barriers tougher than the 1,000-foot standard in state law.
Glorioso said that even though research shows the restrictions don't help, he plans to strike that part of his bill, blaming political opposition."

Just had to wonder if the same duo bopping around Florida talking up circles of safety (in addition to residency restrictions) to any interested municipality willing to listen, was somehow linked to the political opposition putting the screws to Glorioso's bill. (Smashed Frog, The Books Take Child Safety Zones on the Road, 2/5/2010).

Then the following Google alert popped up in my mailbox to help underscore all that is wrong with the Florida state legislature and why the people of this state are the Big Losers.

The Miami Herald, Florida Legislators Making Last Grabs for Money (3/2/2010):

(...)
Standing outside Clyde's & Costello's, Rep. Rich Glorioso, R-Plant City, accepted a check from South Florida lobbyist Ron Book.
``You have to raise money and it takes money to run a campaign,'' said Glorioso, who said the economy has hampered his fundraising. ``Businesses are struggling, so it's a tough year.'

Am I the only one making a connection here?

We Are NOT Who You Think We Are

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 21:35 GMT

As reported by Broward Politics over at the Sun Sentinel (2/25/10), it would appear several state politicians are finally coming to grips with the unintended consequences of Florida's sex offenders laws.

But I think most still cling to the stereotype. You know, the creepy guy in a trench coat who hangs out in the parks.

(...)
State Rep. Martin Kiar, D-Davie, disagreed with his colleagues.

He said the local restrictions are designed to “make sure that these deviants are kept away from our children. These proposals in Tallahassee would weaken your ordinances.”

If the state overrides the city, town and village restrictions, setting a rule prohibiting sex offenders within 1,500 feet of schools and other kid-friendly places, Kiar said, “it will bring these deviants closer to our kids.”

I'd like Kiar to define "deviants" for me. Would that be our family member or friend or neighbor who found themselves caught up in some low-level offense that state legislators have deemed sexual in nature?

Or possibly a teenage boy who wears the RSO label like some sort of permanent tatoo for sending out nude pics of his most recent girlfriend to any and all friends with a cell phone?

How about all those people who will never work again in a chosen profession because a) the license is lost due to the felony conviction or b) residence on the registry is the equivalent of leprosy as far as employer liability?

I could go on and on about regular people who have made a poor behavioral choice resulting in a lifetime sentence of registration as a sex offender, many of whom sustained and survived severe physical and sexual abuse themselves as a child.

(BTW, Kiar--as part of a Broward county commission task force--sat right alongside One of Us, an offender that helped make recommendations about laws governing where sex offenders can live).

And I loved this observation.

(...)

Wilton Manors Mayor Gary Resnick, president of the Broward League of Cities, said as a matter of principle the state shouldn’t meddle in the decisions the local governments have made.
“The solution in every city is going to be very different,” he said. “A one-size-fits-all is not going to work here.”

Fairly ironic, this one-size-fits-all comment.

Because it certainly worked for the Florida Sex Offender Registry, lumping all offenders as if one and the same.

Florida Legislators. We are not who you think we are. It's time to undo the damage done.

Roll these laws back.

Five Years After Jessica

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 16:27 GMT

It's true.

Succubus "stuff" has diverted my attention the last few days, but my posts here at Smashed Frog have proved irregular these past couple of months.

That's because I've have been in celebratory mode. :)

My loved one has satisfied the obligation owed to the state of Florida.

Most beloved Froggers will catch my drift immediately. For those who have arrived here in Paradise and somehow managed to avoid the criminal justice, allow me to clarify.

Five years has come down to two words.

Probation DONE.

No more threat of the dreaded VOP, no more unexpected guests for holiday dinners, no more searches of the house. No more. D-O-N-E.

So, we've been out doing or planning fun stuff, You know, like staying the length of the late movie instead of rushing home to meet curfew, driving across the state line (hell, driving across the COUNTY line) and staying out just when the fun starts without mumbling some lame exit line.

I couldn't have made it without you all, people huddled with me beneath an umbrella of shared circumstances, who have chosen to poke back hard at a politically-assigned designation that has disrupted our families through collateral and unintended consequences.

For a murderer, life would resume in an almost normal fashion. But for those deemed a sex offender, the punishment goes on via residency restrictions, ankle bracelets and the public stockade of a registry accessible to anyone with access to a computer. Finding employment is much like the story of the Three Bears. It's tough these days, even tougher for any ex-offender, but the toughest of all for an ex-offender designated as a sex offender via an online registry. No one dare risk hire those kind of people.

The work goes on.

When Smashed Frog first posted back in June 2006--as reported by Orlando Weekly (Ghosts in the Machine, 11/24/2005), 36,037 offenders were listed on the Florida Sex Offender Registry. Of course, 541 of that number were dead, 807 offenders were deported, and 7,173 had moved out of state. Oh, and "...8,260 on Florida's rolls are in custody at the local, state or national level." Even five years ago, concerns were expressed about the "...thousands of other offenders still on the site who pose little or no threat to the public."

But who's counting?

We are.

As more and more Floridians found themselves, friends or family members caught up in one of the many offenses the state deems as sex offenses, the tipping point was reached and the education wildfired grassroots about what was really going. The bigger the list, the better the chance of obtaining federal grant funding.

Today 53,500 people--an increase of nearly 50 percent in five years--are listed on the FSOR. Nationwide, the tally of registered sexual offenders exceeds 700,000. St. Petersburg Times, (Five Years After Jessica Lunsford, 2/22/2010).

We screamed, shouted, faxed Congress and our state legislators, found ourselves betrayed by those thought to be fellow activists, used self-addressed stamped envelopes to mail the latest research back to whoever opened the company mail in hopes to educate and have stood opposed by many who have stood to profit both personally and financially by keeping children less safe. Many among us found occupations jeopardized or lost entirely. When we thought the laws couldn't get any worse, boy did they and back to court we went to fight off the ex post facto lawmaking.

We searched for a interstate billboard to post a public service message.

The Florida Sex Offender Registry. It's no fantasy.

We found Jill Levenson. (Or did the researcher find us?)

The Human Rights Watch wrote No Easy Answers. Real people took a chance and told their stories here at SF. Yet, we witnessed people with influence (Josh Lunsford) and people of affluence (North Miami city attorney Barry Kutun) commit sexual offenses, yet wiggle out of the stigma of the sex offender laws via connections and money.

We called out Coward Activists. (wink-wink, NG). :)

This nation's state Attorneys General found themselves embarrassed by the very report they themselves commissioned. The esteemed Berkman Center for Internet Safety found teens were more at risk for cyberbullying than online predation. (Read Enhancing Child Safety and Online Technologies here).

Several very brave women opened Pandora's Box on the Julia Tuttle Causeway at a risk to their own safety and as a result, the Miami New Times spotlighted the homeless colony. Miami Herald columnist Fred Grimm took notice as well and faster than we could yell Bookville!, Newsweek, TIME and the BBC were straight up reporting the human rights disaster created by a certain lobbyist and Homeless Trust chair with an oh-too-personal-conflict-of-an-agenda.

Children of offenders spoke out (Dear Governor Crist) and requested an audience with officials elected to represent us all. To my knowledge, Florida Governor Charlie Crist has yet to open his door to these budding civil rights attorneys or future public servants.

Do we dare believe that it's all about to change?

In the above St. Pete Times article, the introduction of legislation at the Florida state house proves the truth is reaching the right ears. And if we want to be perfectly truthful, sex offender management costs $36 million annually and this wonderful state is about two quarters shy of bankruptcy, but hey, whatever works.

I'd like to highlight a few very important points made in Five Years After Jessica Lunsford.

But before I do... thank you. Thank you, thank you thank you to each and every one of you, for the support, the advice, the knowledge and the acceptance. For the snarky laughs at the ridiculously obvious, for the shared disbelief at the lows many elected officials and those who slime among them will and do stoop.

As Dorothy said in Oz, I love you all.

The difference being, I'm not going anywhere.

It's been some five years. Let's cross the finish line together.

***

(...)

"...after time, a trial and the killer's death have dissolved the zeal that spurred the Jessica Lunsford Act in 2005 — a number of lawmakers are rethinking how the state monitors sex offenders and whether current laws are really making children safer.
"The emotion and publicity and political science that comes into play after a horrific situation tends to create an overreaction," said Rep. Mike Weinstein, R-Jacksonville, a prosecutor."
***

(...)
"But recent studies and state statistics show that the fear that propelled the laws doesn't match reality.
"Across the country, studies are not showing that changes in sex crime rates can be attributed to those policies," said Dr. Jill Levenson, a professor at Lynn University who studies sex offenders. "Sex crimes against children are on the downslide — but since the 1990s."

***

(...)

The laws also have created unintended consequences. The restrictions on where sex offenders can reside made hundreds homeless and prompted dozens in Miami to live under the Julia Tuttle Causeway. And the requirements to register those convicted of lewd crimes put the sex offender label on people authorities don't deem a threat. (i.e. F.S. 800.04).
"There is no empirical support that restrictions on where sex offenders live prevents sexual abuse or reoffending," said Levenson, a clinical social worker. "Not every person who commits a sex crime is a predatory pedophile."

***

(...)

"This is the message Jennifer Dritt, a leading victims advocate at the state Capitol, preaches. As executive director of the Florida Council Against Sexual Violence, Dritt supported tougher restrictions on sex offenders. But she said the lesson from the Jessica Lunsford case was misunderstood. Most sexual offenders are not strangers across the street. The overwhelming majority are those with familial authority.
"In a positive vein, (Jessica's case) really raised awareness of sexual offender management issues," Dritt said. "But I think it also sponsored a lot of knee-jerk reactions."

• • •

(...)
State Rep. Rich Glorioso, R-Plant City, is sponsoring legislation to revamp Florida's sex offender laws by implementing a "circle of safety" to protect children instead of strong residency restrictions on sexual offenders. The main provision of the bill (HB119) would prohibit sexual offenders from loitering within 300 feet of locations where children are present.
"Sometimes we focus on where those people live," Glorioso said. "Where they are sleeping last night really isn't the issue. It's what they are doing when they are awake."
He said he wants to protect children but readily acknowledges the problems in the existing laws. "These people, whether we like it or not, still have constitutional rights," he said. "I don't want to infringe upon their rights, but I don't want to jeopardize my kids either."

(Side bar. Glorioso has been forced to modify bill HB119 as municipalities are a bit verklempt with the inclusion to preempt "...local residency restrictions on sex offenders, forbidding counties and cities from making barriers tougher than the 1,000-foot standard in state law.

Glorioso said that even though research shows the restrictions don't help, he plans to strike that part of his bill, blaming political opposition."

On the state Senate side, Dave Aronberg's S1284 has been filed and referred to committee).

***

(...)
"I think after a period of time you have to determine whether it's working the way you designed it to work," said Ron Book, a prominent lobbyist whose daughter was a victim of sexual abuse. But, he added, "nobody wants to read a piece of mail in a campaign that they have somehow lessened child safety laws."
Rep. Adam Fetterman, D-Port St. Lucie, embodies the difficulty of legislation so closely tied to emotional crimes. His wife was abused as a child, and he is pushing a measure to limit sex offenders' access to the Internet if they used a computer to commit a sex crime.
"I don't want there to be a boogeyman, but for too long we refused to accept the number of children … who have been victims of sexual abuse," said Fetterman, a lawyer.
But he also thinks the existing laws need a tweak to make them more effective. "I think the Legislature passes all kinds of laws that haven't been well thought out because of political reasons," he said.
***

The AshBritt Connection

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 18:38 GMT

Seven hundred and sixty-five thousand dollars gone missing after an in-house audit of Broward County Schools hasn't preempted the contractor who faces alleged ties to the missing cash--Pompano Beach-based disaster recovery contractor AshBritt--from discussing earthquake clean-up with Haiti President Rene Preval.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 2/14/2010:

(...)
Randal Perkins, head of Pompano Beach, Fla.-based AshBritt, has already met with President Rene Preval to tout his firm's skills. To press his case, Mr. Perkins, a big U.S. political donor with a stable of powerful lobbyists, has lined up a wealthy and influential Haitian businessman, Gilbert Bigio, as a partner.
(...)
In his Jan. 28 meeting with Mr. Preval, which was attended by a McClatchy Newspapers reporter who was chronicling a day in the president's life, Mr. Perkins made a hard sell, boasting of AshBritt's $900-million U.S. government contract to clean up after Hurricane Katrina and promising his firm would create 20,000 local jobs.
(...)

AshBritt, Mr. Perkins said, also has clinched a coveted contract to handle future disaster cleanup work for the U.S. government in California and several other states.

"First and foremost, we have the experience," Mr. Perkins said.

That experience has come with controversy.

After Katrina, some questioned whether AshBritt's political donations or lobbyists paved the way for its fat federal contracts. The lobbyists have included: Barbour Griffith & Rogers, a firm founded by Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour; Mike Parker, a former Mississippi Republican congressman who also was a senior official with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; and Ron Book, a South Florida power broker.

Congressional hearings after Katrina aired objections that local contractors were passed over in favor of AshBritt. A 2006 congressional report examining federal contract waste and abuse noted AshBritt used multiple layers of subcontractors, each of whom got paid while passing on the actual work to others.

AshBritt denies overbilling Broward County Schools and has threatened to sue. (Questions raised, The Miami Herald, 2/1/2010). As summarized by the school district:

(...)

It was discovered in the audit that some companies did not have contracts when the work was being done, and had to be written after the fact. Also, several different department heads were accepting invoices for the work being done. This led to double billing, which was discovered during the audit. Broward County also had the same problem of double billing. General Counsel is in the process to recover the over billed dollars. It will ultimately be the Superintendent and General Counsel's decision if the District will go after the money.