Gov. Bush addressing law enforcement officers
and students serving on safety patrol.
Posted on 04/23/2002 7:34:25 AM PDT by summer
Gov. Bush addressing law enforcement officers
and students serving on safety patrol.
Bush signs victim rights bills
Tuesday, April 23, 2002
By JACKIE HALLIFAX, Associated Press
TALLAHASSEE - Battered women won't have to pay $50 to seek protective orders and sexually assaulted children will be able to learn the HIV status of their attackers under bills Gov. Jeb Bush signed into law Monday.
Other legislation the governor signed would make judges either tell crime victims their rights or post those rights on the courtroom doors.
Ashley Aronson, a Tallahassee woman, was one of the victims flanking the governor as he signed the four bills in a Tallahassee courtroom. She said the crime rights measure "will assist victims more than most of you all realize."
Three years ago, Aronson's toddler was the victim of a crime but she wasn't told of any of her rights until two weeks after a defendant was arrested.
"Back in 1999, it would have benefitted me greatly to have these rights posted on the courtroom doors," she said.
The legislation (SB 1974) requires judges to either inform victims of their rights to appear, be notified, seek restitution and make a statement verbally or to post those rights on their courtroom door.
The new law takes effect July 1. Bush called it a "simple idea that ... will have a powerful impact on making sure victims know what their rights are so that they will be treated with the dignity and the respect that they deserve."
Ron Book, a well-known lobbyist from Miami, also spoke Monday. With his 17-year-old daughter at his side, Book said it was important to make sure that HIV results are no longer held private from victims of sexual assaults.
"I want to thank my daughter, who has been such a victim, for coming forward and asking some of my friends ... to help make a difference for those in the future who become victims," Book said.
The legislation, which takes effect July 1, requires courts to order HIV testing of sexual offenders whose victims are children or disabled or elderly persons. It also requires registration of sexual offenders working or attending college.
The domestic violence legislation (SB 716) that Bush signed would waive the $50 filing fee that people seeking protective orders now pay.
"Victims should not have to be paying for their protection," Bush said. "It makes no sense."
The ban on filing fees for protective orders takes effect Oct. 1.
Other provisions of the new law, which take effect in January, create new penalties for people who violate protective orders by going within 500 feet of a victim's home or 100 feet of a victim's car or damaging the victim's property.
Bush also signed a bill (HB 949), which takes effect July 1, to let the state start assessing violent sexual offenders six months before their release for their danger, rather than upon their release.
Under current law, such offenders are detained even after their sentences are served if they are judged to be dangerous.
Of course, no matter what the media spin, people will know FOR SURE how the ACLU feels about crime victims.
Perhaps, and perhaps not.
I did not see a similar thing happen in New Jersey when the ACLU challenged Megan's Law on behalf of someone who wanted to continue raping and killing kids in anonymity.
It's just another liberal feather in the chief's headdress.
There's no evidence that Megan's Law ever prevented a crime, especially since no child molester would be crazy enough to get within ten miles of a property posted as the home of a ... well... child molester. What Megan's Law did accomplish is a couple of vigilante actions where people where brutally beaten in cases of mistaken identity or guilt by association, as in an innocent parent or sibling of a child molester. Again, it comes down to "victim's rights" running counter to true criminal justice.
I fail to see the logic of this sentence. You are almost making it sound like people post signs like "a child molester lives here" at random. This, of course, is false.
See, it all comes down to whether it is more important to keep our kids safe from sexual predators or allowing said predators to roam the countryside raping children again and again in complete anonymity. The answer should be rather obvious.
That is why we need something like Megan's Law, and why it works. Every parent, everywhere has the absolute right to know who the predators are and where they live. This is something that should not even be debated.
And I am sorry, but I just cannot feel compassion for the pedophile whose car is blown up, or home set on fire, or is otherwise run out of town because a neighborhood is armed with such knowledge.
I think that's the idea. As great as our system of law is, I think the Founders failed to realize that some people might not want the guilty to be found guilty. The law goes out of its way to protect the falsely accused. These protections are manipulated so well by the guilty and their lawyers thet the correctly accused walk free. Meanwhile, the victim is victimized again. What is wrong with a victim knowing the HIV status of an attacker? And why only minors and old people? That makes no sense to me.
Well, generally, the only address a convict can give to the judge before he gets out of prison is that of the next of kin. Meanwhile, the pervert holes up somewhere else - usually neareby - when he gets out, and Grammas porch gets set ablaze, dad get's beaten with a baseball bat, or mom's kitty gets hung from a lamp post.
Those are the documented results of Megan's Law. If that's your brand of justice, you're no conservative.
Those are the documented results of Megan's Law.
Really? Then put your money where your mouth is, and provide citiations, with URL's so I can see these things for myself.
And it sounds to me you would much rather have convicted child molesters walking the streets in anonymity, where they can continue to harm kids. If that is your brand of justice, I would not be so quick to call yourself a conservative, either, if you do.
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