Florida Update #3 - A legislative and judicial update

From the 50 State Visitor Guide :

Fla. Stat. 2019; Fla. Stat. §§775.21, 775.215; Fla. Stat. §§943.043 through 943.0435; Fla. Stat. §§944.606 through 944.607;  Fla. Stat. §947.1405, §985.481

AWA Compliant

Registration Triggers and Deadlines:

“Residence” means either (1) a place where one spends 3 or more consecutive days, (2) a place where one spends 3 or more aggregate days in a calendar year, or (3) a county in which one is present for 3 or more aggregate days in a calendar year.  In all cases, 3rd day triggers registry obligation.

Registrants must appear to register with law enforcement w/in 48 hours of establishing a residence, and must appear to provide any updates within 48 hours.

Transient registrants update every 30 days.

NOTE: "Day" will now be defined in Florida's SOR law to mean "any part of a day" except that your day of arrival doesn't count. Updated 3/2024.

Registrants must also appear to register with the driver’s license office of the FL DMV within 48 hours of registration to obtain a driver’s license or ID card labeled either “SEXUAL PREDATOR” or “943.0435, F.S.”

Residency/Presence and Other Restrictions:

Residence restriction:  May not reside within 1,000 ft. of school, child care facility, park, or playground under certain circumstances. §775.215.  NOTE: Individual cities and counties often have additional more burdensome requirements upwards of 3000 feet.

Presence restriction: Registrants with conviction involving a minor cannot be within 300 feet “of place where children are congregating,” and face restrictions on ability to be present in schools and parks.  NOTE: Individual cities and counties often have additional more burdensome requirements.  Fla. Stat. §856.022

Visiting Registrants once placed on state’s registry ARE NOT REMOVED.

Duration & updates:

Lifetime.  Petition: 25 years.  “Predators” and certain others update quarterly.  All others update every 6 months

Florida’s restrictions on registrants are particularly onerous and should be carefully consulted before visiting the state. 

Every major national or state registrant advocacy group – including NARSOL, ACSOL, Florida Action Committee (FAC) – strongly recommends that you avoid visiting Florida if at all possible.  To this I add my own voice.  Florida’s registry is lifetime for all offenses, no matter how minor.  Florida has no tiered registry – only “sex offenders” and “sexual predators.”  Furthermore, Florida is one of about 15 states where there is no procedure for removal from the registry upon returning to your home state. 

Because of that, of the about 75,000 Florida registrants less than 30,000 actually live in Florida (not counting incarcerated registrants)! All the rest – which is to say the majority of Florida registrants – DO NOT actually live in Florida. Because I recently moved my primary residence to Iowa, I am now included in that number.

A slight improvement for visitors in the definition of the word "day"

Every year the Florida legislature meets, seemingly with the objective of pursuing culture wars instead of solving our state’s many problems.  This year, with LGBTQ rights, library books, voting rights, DEI studies and abortion all on the chopping block, it should not be surprising that an FDLE-sponsored “registry clarifications” bill sailed through to approval despite FAC’s best efforts.

The most egregious part of this bill is the so-called “clarification” that, oh, actually, when our law says that EVERY paperwork error made by a registrant is a felony, whether intentional or not … it actually means that every occasion that you fail to correct that paperwork error – or even every day that you fail to correct that paperwork error because you don’t even know it’s there – can be charged as a SEPARATE COUNT when they arrest you, with each count being punishable by up to 5 years in prison. 

This is just another example of why every state and national advocacy organization urges you NOT to visit Florida so that you will never find yourself running afoul of our cruel and unconstitutional registry.

However … if you find that you must visit Florida for whatever reason, these FDLE “clarifications” have a small silver lining for you.  In the course of “clarifying” that – as I have been warning my readers about Florida and most other states – partial days really do count towards your allowable three days aggregate per calendar year (where the third day triggers your obligation to register), now FDLE has “clarified” that actually, your day of arrival does NOT count toward your three day total.

So what does this mean for visitors?  Previously, because we registered travelers must always assume that partial days always count and the third day in Florida always triggers your obligation to register, that meant visitors really only get two partial days – the partial day when you arrive, and the very next partial day when you must leave because any third day per calendar year would trigger your obligation to register.

FDLE’s new “clarification” says that your day of arrival in Florida actually does not count toward the three days aggregate per calendar year.  Only if you stay overnight will the following morning start Day 1 of your visit.

In practice this means registered visitors get an additional precious day to wallow in Florida’s beauty before hurrying out of state by the end of Day 2 so as to avoid being here for any part of a third day.

Another “clarification” which unfortunately wasn’t in the bill but has been provided in response to FAC questions is that repeated visits to a given location – like your ailing mom’s house, or in my case my ex-wife and family – DO NOT count toward the three day total unless and until you stay overnight. Otherwise you can visit as much as you like.

Judge calls Florida SOR law idiotic

Well … not exactly …

But there is this from the Florida Action Committee website:

Mar 27, 2024

On March 25, 2024, Federal District Judge Robert L. Hinkle, of the Northern District of Florida, ruled that the requirement under Section 943.0435(4)(a) that people registered as sex offenders report in-person travel within the state of Florida to the FDHSMV [Florida’s DMV] violates substantive due process, and is thus unconstitutional. His order declared that this requirement is irrational and very burdensome for registrants. His order makes clear that the requirement under Section 943.0435(4)(a) to make an in-person report within 48 hours to the FDHSMV applies only to a change of home address (where one lives), and not to a temporary in-state residence. For in-state temporary residences, instead of going in-person to the DHSMV, people registered as sex offenders must report only to the sheriff’s office. Furthermore, they will be able to do so online, not in person. The order directed FDLE to make online access for in-state travel reporting available within 60 days.

It is unclear from the order if in-state travel reporting is required, not only after establishing the temporary residence, but also upon return from the temporary residence. We will seek clarification of this point.

Please be aware that the order does NOT change the requirement under Section 943.0435(7) that registrants report in-person at least 48 hours before establishing an out-of-state residence. Judge Hinkle’s order makes clear that out-of-state travel is governed only by subsection (7) of Section 943.0435, and not subsection (4)(a). Because subsection 7 is silent about reporting upon return from out-of-state travel, it appears that return reporting from out-of-state is not required.

 North Carolina

Folk Art Center, Blue Ridge Parkway near Ashville

From the 50 State Visitor Guide :

N.C. Gen. Stat. 2019 Art. 27A, §§14-208.5 through 14-208.45

Registration Triggers and Deadlines:

3 business days for initial reg. and updates.  §§14-207, 14-208.9. New residents: w/in 3 business days of establishing residence, or whenever present in the state for 15 days, whichever comes first (“residence” not defined). §14-208.7.  “Employed” means more than 14 days or more than 30 days in a calendar year.  §14-208.6

Per Rolfe Survey, visiting registrants once placed on state’s registry ARE NOT REMOVED.

Residency/Presence and Other Restrictions:

Residence restriction: 1,000 ft. of school or child care center, with exceptions.  §14-208.16.  NC law includes a very expansive definition of “child care” that includes e.g. Boys & Girls Clubs. §110-86. However, “school” does not include “institutions of higher education” or “home schools” as defined in §115C-563.

Presence restrictions:  For offenses involving a victim under 16 and other offenses, may not be present on “place intended primarily for the use, care, or supervision of minors,” or w/in 300 ft. of such a place if it is located on another property such as a mall. Also may not be present “where minors gather regularly for scheduled educational, recreational, or social programs.”  Various exceptions for parents on school business, or in need of medical care. §14-208.18.  

Duration & updates:

30 years to life. Petition to remove – 10 years. Tier III updates every 90 days; all others every six months. §§14-208.7A, 14-209A

North Carolina Arboretum, Ashville

Most recent visit: March 2024

North North Carolina has a lot of onerous residence and presence restrictions which you should be concerned about.  However, according to state law (§14-208.16) these restrictions apply to “an offender who is required to register,” and therefore apparently not to a visitor who is not required to register because you’re in the state for less than 15 days.

Just to be safe, however, I would certainly suggest staying away from schools, child care centers and “places where minors gather regularly.”  You can, however, attend your college reunion because “institutions of higher education” are excluded by definition from the term “school.”

On a previous trip through North Carolina I traveled the Blue Ridge Parkway, which is administered by the National Parks Service which makes it a park.  That was no problem in North Carolina because they have no law against registered people visiting parks, whether local, state or national parks.  You can also visit Smokey Mountains National Park, national forests or any state park in North Carolina without fear.  You can also visit historic sites, museums and monuments of which the state has many.

In March 2024 I joined my family for their Spring Break vacation in the mountains of North Carolina.  They came from Florida.  I came from Iowa, but afterwards traveled with my family to Florida, all of which I properly reported at my local Iowa sheriff’s department as a 6 1/2 week trip with multiple destinations in multiple states.  I even told them that in the middle of this trip I’d be inserting another trip with my ex from Florida to New Jersey and back before returning to Iowa. 

The view from Chimney Rock State Park, NC

Iowa had no problem entering this level of travel complexity into my registry sheet – which just goes to show that you shouldn’t worry about complex travel plans.  I like to think that having my sheet with the answers to any suspicious police officer’s questions sitting right in my glove compartment protects me during my travels.

During my NC family vacation we visited the usual attractions – museums, quaint small towns, Chimney Rock State Park, drove the Blue Ridge Parkway and stopped at the Folk Art Center, etc.  We arrived on Monday and left on Friday, so even including partial days that makes five days, well within the 14 days allowed by North Carolina without triggering an obligation to register.

In June 2022 on my way to the NARSOL National Conference in Raleigh I entered North Carolina from Virginia on I-77, stopping at the Welcome Station to pick up a few brochures.  This was pretty close to Mt. Airy which is very touristy and bills itself as the home of TV’s Mayberry RFD.  I skipped that in favor of the authentic historic town of Bethania, just outside Winston-Salem.  It’s the real thing, folks.  After grabbing some lunch and moving on to Raleigh I visited the NC Museum of Natural Sciences which was having a special exhibition called “Life Before Dinosaurs: The Permian Monsters.”  I’m such a sucker for that kind of stuff!

But then it was time to head for the conference hotel and settle in for the NARSOL conference which was great and informative! Three days later I was on my way to a Pisgah National Forest campground near the entrance to Great Smokey Mtns. National Park, which I decided to report on in a separate blog post because more than half of it is in Tennessee.