The Florida Senate Criminal Justice Committee took up several pieces of legislation Monday, approving bills affecting human trafficking victims, unborn victims of violence, juveniles sentenced to life in prison, and drug possessors.
The first bill taken up by the committee was Sen. Eleanor Sobel's (D-Hollywood) SB 974, the Florida Victim's Relief Act, which provides several protections to victims of human trafficking who, under current law, might be charged with prostitution. The bill provides that these victims will not be charged with sex crimes committed as a result of their being trafficked, provides procedures for courts to overturn judgments of those already convicted, creates a special privilege for communications between victims and human trafficking-counselors (similar to that which already exists between attorneys and clients), and allows courts to award punitive damages against traffickers.
Sobel told the committee panel that Florida is third in the country, behind California and Texas, for numbers of human trafficking victims, while Terry Coonan, director of the Florida State University Center for the Advancement of Human Rights, explained that we can prosecute this till the cows come home, but until we give victims the ability to get at their traffickers' pockets, we really won't be able to stop this.
The bill passed the committee unanimously.
SB 876, the Offenses Against Unborn Children Act, sponsored by Sen. Kelli Stargel, R-Lakeland, also passed the committee, against the no votes of the panel's two Democrats: vice chairman Christopher Smith of Fort Lauderdale, and Sen. Audrey Gibson of Jacksonville.
The bill provides that anyone who commits a criminal offense that results in harm to an unborn child is responsible for a separate, additional offense from the one committed against the mother. Gibson expressed concern that the legislation does not give direction as to how a court would determine that a particular act of violence led to a harm short of death to a fetus, while Smith objected that the bill holds offenders liable even if they do not know or should know that a woman is pregnant.
Stargel replied that liability for harm done to a fetus is a factual determination that would be proven in court on a case-by-case basis, and that, as to Smith's concerns, I would suggest [would-be offenders] don't do violence against a woman to avoid the risk she might be pregnant.
Sen. Rob Bradley, R-Fleming Island, voicing his support for the bill, pointed out there is plenty of precedent in the criminal justice system for holding offenders responsible for all the consequences of their criminal act, even if they do not specifically intend those consequences. For example, drunk drivers are held liable for deaths caused by their accidents, even if they do not know that a certain number of people are passengers in a car they collide with.
The committee also took up SB 1448, Controlled Substances, sponsored by Smith, which would criminalize possession of certain performance-enhancing drugs without a prescription and place restrictions on their being advertised, particularly to minors. The bill passed the panel unanimously, though Bradley expressed concerns about the adding of more criminal penalties for drug possession to Florida's statutes.
After lengthy debate, the committee also passed Bradley's own SB 1350, Criminal Penalties,, which aligns Florida law with two recent decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court. In two landmark 2012 rulings, the high court decided that life imprisonment of juveniles without possibility of parole for nonhomicide crimes, and mandatory life imprisonment even in homicide cases, both constitute cruel and unusual punishment.
Bradley's bill amends Florida's statutes to reflect these decisions, while also providing that juvenile offenders of nonhomicides cannot be sentenced to more than 50 years in prison, and that juveniles convicted of homicide cannot be sentenced to less than 50 years.
SB 1350 passed the committee, though Smith and Gibson each voted no, in opposition to the bill's statutory minimums.
The committee concluded its hearing by unanimously passing SPB 7148, Drug Trafficking, a bill introduced and sponsored by the committee itself, which increases from 4 grams to 14 grams the amount of the painkillers Oxycodone and Hydrocodone one must posses, without a prescription, to be charged criminally.
The bill, if passed into law, is expected to result in the need for 576 fewer prison beds by 2017 and to rake in a savings to the state of over $60 million.
Reach Eric Giunta at egiunta@sunshinestatenews.com or at (954) 235-9116.
