Weekly Updates

Dear Members and Advocates, Last night the election results came in. To remain impartial – that’s all we’ll say about that. What we can safely comment on is that Amendment 4 passed and now discrimination against persons required to register is entrenched in the Florida Constitution. That will be a tough hurdle to overcome. It was not unexpected, but no

Dear Members and Advocates: This week’s update is coming to you a bit early because the trial in the Miami-Dade Sex Offender Residency Restriction (SORR) challenge wrapped up on Friday. In all, the trial lasted approximately 20 hours over the course of 4 days. The team of ACLU and Legal Services of Greater Miami attorneys who represented us at trial

Dear Members and Advocates, Last week, the excitement over the filing of our Ex Post Facto lawsuit overshadowed a disaster that struck the Florida panhandle. Hurricane Michael was the third-most intense Atlantic hurricane to make landfall in Florida. It caused over 8 Billion Dollars in property damage and displaced tens of thousands of residents. We are only starting to hear

Dear Members and Advocates, It’s been filed! The “Ex Post Facto Challenge”, as we have come to identify it, has been filed in the Federal District Court for the Southern District of Florida. This was the challenge that has long been in the works and we’ve been waiting for. Although it’s been dubbed an “ex post facto” challenge (challenging the

Dear Members and Advocates, No matter what side of the political fence you fall on or which cable news network you watch, this past week’s news has been riveting. A week ago, as I was awaiting the sentence of Bill Cosby, I couldn’t help but feel sad that “America’s Dad” had so disappointed us. I felt sad for the victim

Dear Members and Advocates, This week’s weekly update is coming to you a bit early because there is an important update to disseminate. The Court’s decision in the Internet Identifier challenge came out late Friday. We initially reported the decision as “disappointing”. We viewed it as such because summary judgment was granted, in part, and denied in part. We should

Dear Members and Advocates, A disturbing thing happened to one of our members this week which anyone who travels internationally should be aware of. This member notified his local Sheriff’s office of planned travel to the Caribbean. Just before the plane started boarding, he was called to the gate attendant where he was met with three US Marshals who told

Dear Members and Advocates, I’ll preface this update by reminding everyone that FAC stands strongly opposed to sexual assault of any kind. While we may object to the way offenders are dealt with by the criminal justice system and especially upon their release from that system, the underlying offenses are deserving of punishment. The #metoo movement has created a culture

Dear Members and Advocates, Please join us tomorrow night for our monthly member call. The topic of the call will be a legal update covering recent court decisions across the country impacting people required to register, with a specific focus on the status of our Florida Ex Post Facto challenge.  Our speaker will be attorney Val Jonas, of Weitzner &

Dear Members and Advocates, Last week, our Legal Chair of Florida Action Committee attended the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) conference. The topic of this conference is “Shattering the Shackles of Collateral Consequences” and it focused on strategies to eliminate barriers to reentry and the enduring challenges that come along with a criminal conviction. As we know all