Posted on 11/19/2004 8:20:07 AM PST by JesseHousman
TALLAHASSEE -The state Supreme Court struck down two curfew laws in Southwest Florida, placing others in doubt.
A closely divided Florida Supreme Court struck down two juvenile-curfew laws in Southwest Florida on Thursday, jeopardizing similar ones throughout the state, including one in Miami-Dade County that served as a model for others statewide.
In the 4-3 opinion, the majority of justices said the laws in Tampa and neighboring Pinellas Park were too broad because they targeted minors who committed no other crime than being night owls, and because they criminally punished parents and even shop owners who condoned or couldn't control kids' curfew-breaking.
The 91-page opinion and its dissents concern a number of municipalities in Florida that passed juvenile curfew laws after Miami-Dade's ordinance survived a challenge at the appellate court level in the mid-1990s.
Key West, Miami Beach and Fort Lauderdale have laws similar to those in Miami-Dade, Tampa and Pinellas Park. All have slightly different language but seek the same thing: to keep minors off the streets after 11 p.m. or midnight. The other laws may stay on the books unless challenged.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which sued Miami-Dade in the mid-1990s and brought the lead suit in Pinellas Park, said the laws have a target: young minorities. Two of the three youths who challenged Pinellas Park's restrictions are black.
''There is a radical difference between the well-intentioned and high-sounding words of the ordinance and the way it ends up being enforced on a day-to-day basis -- which is typically against young black men,'' said Howard Simon, the ACLU's executive director in Florida.
In Fort Lauderdale, a law was passed in 1997 but wasn't really used at all, said city police Detective Chuck Sierra.
''It was basically abandoned,'' he said. ``What was problematic for us was where are we going to put them? We would be stuck baby-sitting the child until somebody relieved us.''
SUCCESSFUL DEFENSE
Miami-Dade County Attorney Robert Ginsburg noted the county's success defending the law, but said he would have to wade through Thursday's opinion before commenting. Ginsburg, the Miami-Dade state attorney's office and a Metro-Dade police spokesman declined to say whether the law has been effective or how often it is used.
Key West was a latecomer to the curfew-law craze, passing its ordinance in 2002 as the town gentrified and tried to tone down. But, as in Miami-Dade, police don't appear to use the law often. A spokesman for the Key West Police Department said officers use the ordinance as ''a tool'' to get kids off the streets and usually take them home or have parents pick them up at the police station.
Miami Beach City Attorney Murray Dubbin said the new ruling should have little effect on Miami Beach's enforcement of the county's curfew ordinance. He said the city's law, like the county's, was narrowly tailored and would survive a challenge because it provides civil -- not criminal -- penalties for repeat violators.
Tampa and Pinellas Park provided criminal penalties that ''are possibly the most troubling aspect,'' Justice Peggy A. Quince wrote in the majority opinion.
The justices also seemed troubled with the fact that, in Tampa's law, ''business operators who knowingly permit a juvenile to remain on business premises during curfew hours are also subject to the sanctions.'' Though Miami-Dade and some of the other cities have civil penalties, they still seek to penalize private businesses and parents involved in curfew violations.
POSSIBLE JAIL TIME
In Tampa and Pinellas Park, kids, shopkeepers and parents could be thrown in jail and fined for a first curfew violation. In Miami-Dade, a parent or shopkeeper could only be fined up to $500 starting with a third curfew violation. Kids could be taken to a holding facility.
Miami-Dade's law, passed at the insistence of former Commissioner James Burke in 1994, embodies the tone of alarm sounded in nearly every ordinance: It is ``a matter of fact that Miami-Dade County is facing a mounting crisis caused by increasing crime, including juvenile crime and delinquency which threatens peaceful citizens, residents, and visitors.''
But that determination might not cut it. The justices rapped Tampa's law because officials in that city didn't provide statistical data showing the need for it. Pinellas Park officials did provide the required data.
The lead lawyer in the case, Bruce Howie, said he was encouraged by the opinion. In his case, a white girl identified only as T.M. was cited by Pinellas Park police when she stepped beyond the curb of her friend's home, where she was staying overnight, to talk to some boys in a car at 1 a.m.
''She was there with her mother's permission. So this ordinance interfered with her mother's right as a parent giving consent to her child to stay over and her right to be in the street just talking to some boys,'' Howies said. ``Police have better things to concern themselves with.''
Herald staff writers Jennifer Babson, Nicole White and Samuel P. Nitze contributed to this report.
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© 2004 Herald.com and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved. http://www.miami.com
this is a growing trend in America, parents not teaching and/or not supervising them. Parents want their children, but they also want to do what they want (party, socailize, have time without the kids, whatever...)so it's easy just to tell them go out and have fun with your friends till you get home. My kids get into enough problems at home let alone out on the street.
I am not saying a curfew is the solution, what I am saying, parents do you know where your kids are AND especially - what they are doing?
Adults, in many cases, don't have parents. They're on their own in the big cruel world.
it takes a village -without a curfew...
Exactly. Cops can arrest or ticket kids who are loitering, drinking, smoking etc. in public. If a group of teenagers are out at Denny's at 1 in the morning with their parents' permission, what business is it of the police?
'Do you think its constitutional?'
I think it's a slippery slope. And loitering laws are another one. 'Loitering' could conceivably be construed to deny 'the right to peacefully assemble', such as in front of an abortion clinic, or hospice.
Pinellas Park bump
One more quick note, in case these workmen cut off my electricity AGAIN, I couldn't be happier. I've read Florida's 'Juvenile Delinquent' Laws. They could have a very Orwellian impact. Kids are being abused in 'the care' of the states. One less tool for them, the better. Get the kids to church.
Words from my grandmother which are absolute.
Don't go to Vegas much, do you? ;)
How would these judges feel if it was their neighborhood? Maybe they should send some of these juveniles to the streets these judges reside - liberal snobbism - they probably live in gated communities!
I think we really need to do a better job at keeping track of judges rulings so that when elections come we can get them voted out. Most folks I've talked with are very concerned re their vote on judges but don't have enough info to decide one way or the other so they just reelect them.
Jeff, you need to get a grip on yourself.
What the hell does blacks have to do with these local, repeat local, curfew rulings that now have been overturned by a bench of fatheaded liberals who live so far away from the roots of crime they need never worry.
They're out raising hell and terrorizing the locals.
I'd rather see the cops round out the curfew offenders than going to their houses to settle domestic disputes and violence. That's the kinds of homes these little candidates for the big house are from.
So young kids aren't supposed to have a healthy fear of authority figures, specifically police officers? That's the reason these curfew laws were put in place to begin with. We 'are' a society with too many youth that exhibit total disregard for laws and the authorities who enforce those laws.
Just because liberals are bad parents is no excuse for the government to tell me how to parent my children. How about innocent until proven guilty? If the bad seeds commit a crime, arrest and prosecute to the fullest extent of the law, but don't assume that everyone out past a certain time is up to no good..plenty of crimes get committed during broad daylight... I've known plenty of daytime crime victims...
Keep your kids home at night.
Even itf they're not potential perps they're walking targets for those who are.
No the bill of rights doesn't have a disclaimer. There are certain legal rights our society has agreed to grant one to receive when they reach adulthood, the 'rights' associated with adulthood vary from state to state as well the 'privileges'.
Why should a minor have the right to be out in the middle of the night without an adult?
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