As part of the settlement, the county agreed to pay damages of $2,500 each to the plaintiffs ― sex offenders Charles Munsey Jr., Vincent Rinaldi and Charles Violi ― plus pay $150,000 for plaintiffs’ attorney fees.

The lawsuit filed in January 2022 in U.S. District Court was triggered by a 2006 Brevard County ordinance that, with some exceptions, prohibits people on the sex offender registry from being within 1,000 feet of a school, day care center, park or playground. Violators are subject to up to 60 days in jail and up to a $500 fine.

Because the Brevard County Government Center in Viera is within 1,000 feet of a school — and the ordinance had no exceptions for attending public meetings — sex offenders were prohibited from attending County Commission meetings.

Legal action filed: 3 Brevard County registered sex offenders file federal lawsuit against county

The lawsuit alleged that, because of this, the county violated the First Amendment and Florida’s Government in the Sunshine Law.

After the lawsuit was filed, the County Commission changed the rule to allow an exception for attending commission meetings. But the lawsuit continued, until the plaintiffs and the county agreed to the settlement.

Appearing before commission: Registered sex offenders address county commission after rule changed to allow them

In commenting on the settlement, the plaintiffs’ lead attorney in the case, Ray Taseff of the Florida Justice Institute, said: “We’re happy that the Brevard County government is now truly open to everyone. Cities and counties should take note that they cannot restrict who attends their public meetings.”

Taseff added that “it is quite unfortunate that this lawsuit had to be filed in the first place.”

Another attorney for the plaintiffs in the case, Jessica Travis of the law firm DefendBrevard.com, said: “It is important that every single citizen be able to address their elected officials, regardless of who they are or what their background may be.”

Taseff noted that, before the County Commission carved out an exception for its meetings, the plaintiffs could not even address commissioners when the commission in 2020 was considering making sex offender ordinances more restrictive by barring offenders from entering within 1,000 feet of businesses where children typically congregate, a proposal that commissioners approved.

Brevard County Communications Director Don Walker said the county would have no comment on the settlement other than saying the payments of the legal fees and the payment to the plaintiffs would be covered by insurance.

After the County Commission modified the ordinance in March 2022 to allow sex offenders to come to County Commission meetings, the plaintiffs attended a May 17, 2022, meeting. During the public comment period, they spoke about how the remainder of the ordinance negatively affects their lives, such as restricting their ability to take loved ones to the hospital or attend events with their grandchildren.

By settling the lawsuit, the case did not go to trial, and no formal judicial ruling was issued.

Those with registry requirements who have recently been released from incarceration will still be processed and registered, according to media reporting.

Current registrants in Texas that have been previously processed and actively on the sex offender registry are instructed to call and make an appointment to come back at a later date.

Other police agencies throughout the country are suspending sex offender registrations and in-person requirements as a precaution due to the COVID virus pandemic. Police agencies in South Carolina, Nevada, Arkansas, and Florida have taken steps to not only protect officers but the registry community. Some of these states are using Skype, Zoom, and other mobile based video conferencing to check on the registry population as an alternative.

All of the police departments have taken the advice and guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to reduce low priority contact with the general public.

NCRSOL has reached out on multiple occasions to the various state and local leaders as well as medial outlets to suspend mandatory sex offender in-person registration temporarily. We have not had replies.

Today, a sex offender advocacy group in California has filed a civil lawsuit to stop police from requiring sex offender in-person or home checks because of the pandemic. Perhaps North Carolinians affected by the sex offender registry should consider filing a lawsuit to temporarily suspend in-person sex offender requirements?

He and the others there are on the state sex offender registry. Miami-Dade County laws make it almost impossible for them to find places to live and bar homeless shelters from taking them in. For many registrants, the encampment has been a last resort, but in January, county leaders passed a new rule that makes them subject to arrest if they don’t find housing by May 7.

The person most responsible for the camp’s existence may be state lobbyist Ron Book. In 1996, he and his wife hired Waldina Flores as a nanny for their three children in their home outside Fort Lauderdale. Over the course of six years, Flores sexually and physically abused their oldest child, Lauren. Lauren Book eventually told a psychiatrist, and Flores was arrested and ultimately sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Lauren Book went on to found a nonprofit that promotes sexual abuse prevention, of which Ron Book is the chair; Lauren is now a Florida state senator. But Ron Book also lobbied for new laws. In 2005, he helped convince Miami Beach to pass an ordinance that bans people on sex offender registries from living within 2,500 feet of a school, a rule later adopted countywide. State legislators earlier had passed a law barring registrants from living within 1,000 feet of day care centers, parks, playgrounds, and schools.

In combination, those policies left only tiny patches where Miami-Dade registrants could live. By 2007, news reports were describing people with sex-crime records living under the Julia Tuttle Causeway, some literally dropped off there by their probation officers. In 2010, a spate of negative news stories forced the county to shut down that encampment.

Book has been at the center of this debate for years, as both an advocate for the restrictions and as chair of the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust, the lead body for implementing county plans for solving homelessness. After the Julia Tuttle camp closure, he used the proceeds of local food and beverage taxes to find short-term housing in a trailer park and hotels for some of the homeless people. But when that money ran out and the the trailer park was found to be too close to a school, the registrants were out on the streets again. In March 2014, the Miami New Times reported that 57 men were living at the Hialeah encampment, and its numbers have since more than quadrupled.

A 2013 study in the journal Criminal Justice Policy Review found that only 4 percent of Miami-Dade county residences were outside a ban zone, and only 1 percent of legal residences rented for $1,250 a month or less. Registrants in the county are more than 50 times as likely as those in the general population to be homeless, the researchers found. Many of the people living in the encampment have family members who would take them in, but their homes are off-limits, says Jeanne Baker, legal panel chair of the ACLU’s greater Miami chapter.

Read the rest of Steve’s article here at In Justice Today.

Attorney General Pam Bondi’s office filed a notice of appeal at the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Also, it requested a stay of an order by U.S. District Judge Mark Walker that gave the state an April 26 deadline for making changes to the rights-restoration process.

Walker ruled that the current process is unconstitutional, in part, because it gives Scott and Cabinet members, serving as the state Board of Executive Clemency, “unfettered discretion” in deciding whether former felons should have their rights restored after completing sentences.

But in a 27-page motion Wednesday requesting the stay, attorneys in Bondi’s office hammered Walker’s ruling and defended the state’s authority to decide how to handle restoration of rights.

“(The) injunction in this case does not just prevent the state from effectuating state law,” the motion said. “It also directs four of the state’s highest-ranking executive officers to revamp a 150-year-old vote-restoration scheme in 30 days. A federal court order requiring state officials to come up with new state policies impinges on the sovereignty and autonomy of the state.”

Walker, in an order issued March 27 and in an earlier ruling, said the state was violating First Amendment rights and equal-protection rights of ex-felons. But the state’s attorneys wrote in Wednesday’s motion that Walker “relied on unsubstantiated insinuations of actual discrimination,” and they sought to dispel arguments that the restoration process is unconstitutional.

“In short, federal law, as authoritatively construed by the (U.S.) Supreme Court, affirmatively authorizes the state not to maintain any vote-restoration system; this (Walker’s) court may not instruct state officials on how to conform their conduct to state law; state law does not require the Board (of Executive Clemency) to come up with a new process for considering applications seeking restoration of civil rights; and, even if state law could be construed to require an active and ongoing process by which voting rights may be restored, such a process is already in place,” the motion said. “Thus, this court’s injunction improperly prevents the state from pursuing policy options consonant with federal and state law.”

Restoration of voting rights has long been a controversial legal and political issue in Florida. After taking office in 2011, Scott and Bondi played key roles in changing the process to effectively make it harder for felons to get their rights restored.

Under the current process, ex-felons must wait five or seven years after their sentences are complete to apply to have rights restored. After applications are filed, the process can take years to complete.

A political committee known as Floridians for a Fair Democracy has collected enough petition signatures to place a measure on the November general-election ballot that, if approved by voters, would automatically restore voting rights to felons who have served their sentences, completed parole or probation and paid restitution. Murderers and sex offenders would be excluded under the measure, which will appear on the ballot as Amendment 4.

As a sign of the political implications of the restoration issue, Democratic gubernatorial candidates Gwen Graham, Philip Levine and Andrew Gillum quickly issued statements Wednesday criticizing Scott and Bondi for appealing Walker’s decision. Critics of the current process say it disproportionately prevents African-Americans from voting.

“Stripping Floridians of their voting rights is a shameful policy with roots in the Jim Crow era,” Graham said in her statement. “If Rick Scott won’t act to restore voting rights, the people of Florida will do it for him this November — and, as governor, I will ensure the rights restoration amendment is fully implemented.”

But John Tupps, a spokesman for Scott, issued a statement that said state elected officials, not federal judges, should determine clemency policies.

“The governor will always stand with victims of crime,” Tupps said. “He believes that people who have been convicted of crimes like murder, violence against children and domestic violence, should demonstrate that they can live a life free of crime while being accountable to our communities.”

The Fair Elections Legal Network and the law firm Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC filed the lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the restoration process.

Walker’s March 27 ruling chastised Scott and other state officials and ordered the clemency board to devise a constitutionally sound program with “specific, neutral criteria that excise the risk — and, of course, the actual practice of — any impermissible discrimination, such as race, gender, religion or viewpoint.”

Walker did not specify a particular process but ordered that “Florida’s corrected scheme cannot be byzantine or burdensome.”

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