Ryder
Member
Big article but worth the read.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-45felonrights,0,5726258.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-45felonrights,0,5726258.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines
Posted April 5 2007, 2:10 PM EDT
TALLAHASSEE -- Most Florida felons who complete their sentences will have their voting and other civil rights more quickly restored under a rule approved Thursday by Republican Gov. Charlie Crist and the state clemency board.
All but the most violent felons would avoid the need to get on a long list for a hearing before the board, which sometimes takes years. The board voted 3-1 on the immediate change, which also requires felons to pay all court-ordered restitution to their victims before becoming eligible to get their rights back.
Attorney General Bill McCollum, another Republican, strongly objected to altering the Jim Crow-era ban on felons automatically getting their rights back once they finish their sentences.
But Crist was emphatic: ``I believe in simple human justice and that when somebody has paid their debt to society, it is paid in full. There's a time to move on, a time to give them an opportunity to have redemption, to have a chance to become productive citizens again.''
The change doesn't affect the right to have a firearm, which still wouldn't be automatically restored. It does let felons more quickly get a license for many Florida occupations, a key concern of activists who say that is one of the largest obstacles for people trying reintegrate into society.
The issue of voting rights drew attention after the disputed 2000 presidential election, when many non-convicts were purged from voter rolls because the state's felons database was plagued with errors. Blacks have complained that the ban targeted them unfairly.
Florida was one of three U.S. states along with Kentucky and Virginia that require ex-felons to take action to restore their civil rights no matter how long they've been out of prison. Other states have waiting periods before restoration, most restore rights automatically when felons complete their sentence.
Crist's predecessor, Jeb Bush, had long opposed changing the ban. But Crist has made it clear since before he was governor that was ready to change the law from the 1800s. He rejected McCollum's assertion that it was welcoming the worst of the worst back into society too easily.
Still, Crist's plan was a compromise, carving out murderers and other violent felons who would still have to either go before the board for a hearing or at least be subject to review by board members without a hearing in some cases. The response from advocates for felons was generally positive, but considerably muted. Many noted that restoration is still not completely automatic.
Under the change, Florida officials will automatically begin the rights-restoration process for felons when they finish their sentences. People who previously completed sentences but are still awaiting restoration of their rights will have to apply on their own because most are not tracked by the state after their release.
``It is not automatic approval _ there is a bureaucratic process,'' said Muslima Lewis, director of the racial justice project for the American Civil Liberties Union in Florida. If it were truly automatic, she said, felons could go simply register to vote tomorrow _ which isn't the case.
And for those already out, many will probably have to apply to have their rights restored because the state generally doesn't track most of them. Corrections Secretary Jim McDonough said the agency would do its best to find all felons who might be eligible. Many aren't likely to have fixed addresses, though.
Estimates of how many felons who have already left prison and haven't had their rights restored might be out there vary widely, from around 630,000 to nearly a million.
Gretchen Howard, the president of the Florida Network of Victim Witness Services, said advocates for crime victims support the new rule because of the restitution requirement.
``This provides an outstanding incentive,'' said Howard. She said currently there isn't much incentive, but some people who want to get their rights back might be spurred to try.
The provision requiring restitution to be paid first, however, is a problem for some advocates for ex-convicts, who say that getting their rights back makes it easier to get a job _ which then makes it easier to pay restitution, not the other way around.
Voting with Crist for the plan were Republican Agriculture Commissioner Charlie Bronson and state Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, a Democrat.
McCollum warned that some criminals who would now have their rights restored automatically were career criminals _ half of whom were likely to commit a new crime and be sent back to prison according to state statistics on repeat offenders.
``We are undermining the rule of law ... the right to vote, the right to serve on a jury, for that matter the right to have occupational licenses are not things that should be just automatically assumed that everybody's going to have,'' he said.
McCollum noted that some occupational licenses would give holders the ability to enter into people's homes _ such as those for pest exterminators. That could be dangerous, he said.
McCollum was defeated in an effort to change the proposal to require a five-year waiting period before the process would kick in.
``We sitting here don't have the right, the moral right, to add five years to that sentence, to add five weeks to that sentence or to add five minutes to that sentence,'' Crist said.
Crist has been known for years, going back to his days in the state Senate, as an outspoken advocate for tougher punishment _ and reminded critics on Thursday of the nickname he had when he was known for being tough on crime. ``I believe in appropriate punishment, I'm 'Chaingang Charlie,''' Crist said. ``But I believe in justice.''
That drew an ``Amen'' from several in the audience at the meeting, including advocates for felons.
A recent federal lawsuit challenged Florida's rights ban on grounds that it disproportionately affected blacks. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected that argument in 2005, noting Florida first banned felon voting in 1845 _ before blacks were allowed to vote. The U.S. Supreme Court later let that decision stand.
The ban was put into the state constitution in 1868.
