With Gov. Rick Scott still mulling a lawmaker’s request for a law enforcement investigation, supporters of three Florida Supreme Court justices said Thursday no laws were broken when court staff  helped justices file qualifying papers with elections officials.

Attorney Barry Richard, who represented George W. Bush before the court following the 2000 presidential election, submitted a legal opinion to Dan Stengle, legal counsel for Justices Fred Lewis, Peggy Quince and Barbara Pariente.

He denied that justices using court employees to notarize filing papers amounts to what opponents call a criminal misdemeanor. State law prohibits candidates from using the services of a public employee during working hours ” in the furtherance of his or her candidacy.”

“The act of affixing a notary seal to qualifying documents does not indicate that the notary endorses the candidacy of the person filing the documents,” Richard wrote. “It simply certifies that the notary has witnessed the signature and has confirmed the identity of the person signing.”

Rep. Scott Plakon, R-Longwood, has asked Scott to order the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to look into the controversy surrounding the justices qualifying.

The issue played out publicly last month. The court took an hourlong recess during arguments in the state Senate redistricting case to allow justices to complete their qualifying papers for merit retention this fall.

With the help of court staff,  the documents were filed with election officials only minutes before the deadline.

Since then, the issue has been seized on by opponents of the three justices, already tarred as a liberal-leaning bloc by a tea party-linked political committee called Restore Justice 2012. The campaign is seeking to make the trio the first Florida justices ever ousted in a merit retention campaign.

Plakon said Thursday that to him, the case was an obvious violation. “Every candidate learns early on, you don’t use your staff for anything political,” Plakon said. “No one should be above the law.”

But Stengle, the justices’ legal counsel, also advanced an additional level of defense. He questioned whether the justices are really candidates.

 “Florida’s district court of appeal judges and Supreme Court Justices are not elected, but appointed through the merit selection process,” Stengle said. “Every six years, they are required by the Florida Constitution to participate in the merit retention process so that citizens of Florida may evaluate their job performance. Any documents that they are required to file by virtue of their positions as appellate judges or justices to qualify for merit retention are part of routine court business.”

 

Gov. Rick Scott kicked open his inbox Thursday, unveiling an effort dubbed Project Sunburst that will give the public access to emails he and 11 top staffers send and receive — within seven days of being written.

Scott, whose history with email includes deleting communications made by the incoming governor and members of his transition team, hailed the new initiative as unprecedented. It will give Floridians and the media a window into how state government works, he said.

“I invite Floridians to view our emails,” Scott said, adding, “you can learn how we’re making Florida the best state for businesses to grow and create jobs.”

E-mails are available with search capabilities on the Governor’s website at www.flgov.com/sunburst through Microsoft Outlook Web Access. Individuals can access the Sunburst system by using the user name and password sunburst.  Scott also emphasized that public records requests to his office will still be honored.

“It’s a good thing,” said Barbara Petersen, director of the First Amendment Foundation, the advocacy and research organization backed by many of the state’s news organizations. “It’s also a good example for other agencies to follow, and for local governments.”

Petersen recalled amid a generally icy relationship between Scott and the media, she made public records requests last year of five of the governor’s top staffers. It took 11 months and $5,000 in copying and staff costs paid by the foundation to make public several months of governor’s office email.

The loss of email from the period between Scott’s election and his inauguration is still being investigated by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the governor said Thursday. He brought the agency in to review the matter, which was blamed on a private company that hosted the email accounts for Scott’s campaign and transition office.

Legislation was approved this year (HB 1305) that requires an incoming governor, lieutenant governor, and Cabinet members to preserve email between their election and when they officially take office. Scott signed the measure, which supporters said closed a “loophole” in the state’s public records laws.

With the new system, e-mails are to be posted within seven days of receipt or creation unless permission has been granted for an extended deadline.  The goal, however, is for e-mails to be available within 24 hours, under Project Sunburst.

Scott staffers writing the email, or receiving them from others, will determine whether the communication is a public record and make it subject to disclosure at the end of every day. Email considered to include sensitive material that should be redacted would be sent to Scott’s legal office and Office of Open Government for further review, under the new system.

Governor’s office staff don’t always use the state email server — and exchanges over other accounts would not be captured under Project Sunburst. Telephone conversations, text messages and direct messages also can still be conducted without the public looking in.

Petersen said that while Scott’s step is a good one for expanding public access, it could still go further.

 ”The devil will be in the details,” she said.

 

It is too soon for Florida A&M University’s famed marching band to resume activities, Gov. Rick Scott said the day after authorities charged 13 individuals in connection with the hazing death of Marching “100″ drum major Robert Champion.

“I think we ought to finish and make sure that there’s not going to be anything like this happen again. I don’t think we’re in that position yet,” Scott told reporters after a “National Day of Prayer” event in the Capitol this afternoon. “The band’s got a great history. But we can’t afford to lose another individual like Robert Champion. So I think they ought to continue the process they’ve been going through with their task force but I don’t think it’s ready yet.”

FAMU administrators suspended the celebrated marching band and all other ensembles in the music department in the aftermath of Champion’s November death. The 26-year-old died of a homicide by hazing, authorities said, after being pummeled by his peers following the Rattlers’ loss to rival football team Bethune-Cookman.

As of Wednesday afternoon, seven of the 13 individuals charged had been arrested or turned themselves into authorities, including two in Tallahassee. Eleven individuals were charged with felony hazing, punishable by up to six years in prison. Still others may be charged in the future, Orange County State Attorney Lamar Lawson said yesterday.

Champion’s death exposed a “culture of hazing” at the historically black university. Long=time FAMU music director Julian White was put on administrative leave and the university and Board of Trustees created a task force to look into FAMU’s troubled history with hazing and how to reverse it.

Four members of the fabled band were arrested in January in connection with an unrelated hazing. And two music professors who were allegedly present during the hazing of band fraternity pledges resigned last week.

Both faculty members had been placed on paid administrative leave in late March after a Tallahassee Police Department report quoted witnesses as saying they were on hand when the hazing occurred at the home of one of the professors in early 2010.

Clerk of courts candidate Lisa Epstein, the foreclosure victim-turned-activist who’s challenging incumbent Clerk Sharon Bock in a Democratic primary, is touting an endorsement from fire-breathing liberal former Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson.

The outspoken Grayson was dumped by Central Florida voters after a single term in Congress in 2010. But he’s a hero to many Democratic primary voters — and a favorite to go back to Washington in a redrawn district this year.

Florida is back in the presidential toss-up column, with Republican Mitt Romney moving to a within-the-margin-of-error lead over President Obama in a new Quinnipiac University poll after trailing Obama by 7 points in late March.

Romney holds a 44-to-43 percent edge over Obama in the new Florida poll, which was conducted April 25-May 1 and has a 2.9 percent margin of error. Quinnipiac’s previous poll, released in late March, showed Obama with a 49-to-42 percent advantage in the Sunshine State.

Obama won Florida with 51 percent in 2008.

Florida has a smaller gender gap than Ohio and Pennsylvania, two other swing states where Quinnipiac also released new polls today. Obama has a 44-to-42 percent lead among women voters in Florida, compared to a 13-point advantage with Ohio women and a 17-point lead with female voters in Pennsylvania. Men favor Romney by 4 points in Florida, 10 points in Ohio and 3 points in Pennsylvania.

Obama’s 2-point edge among Florida women in the new poll compares to a 14-point gap in late March.

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U.S. Rep. Connie Mack‘s campaign is pouncing on GOP Senate primary rival George LeMieux for saying he would have voted for the RESTORE Act, which requires that 80 percent of fines collected from BP for the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill go to Florida and other Gulf states.

Florida Sen. and tea party icon Marco Rubio was the only Gulf State Senator to oppose the measure in March. Rubio said he “proudly supported” the legislation originally, but the final Senate product had become “a raw deal that increases taxes, creates a new environmental bureaucracy, and could steer money to places like the Great Lakes and West Coast that had nothing to with the oil spill.”

LeMieux, in a Tuesday interview with a Panhandle radio station, said: “I would have voted for it…in all due respect to Marco, I know he’s a lot closer to it than I was.”

LeMieux, who was in the Senate as an appointee when the 2010 spill occurred, said “Those dollars need to come to the Gulf Coast. You remember I was in Pensacola and all throughout Northwest Florida half a dozen or so times in the aftermath of the Gulf oil spill….In general it’s a good bill and I would have supported it.”

Mack’s campaign released a statement from U.S. Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Pensacola, criticizing LeMieux.

“I am extremely disappointed that George Lemieux indicated he would have voted for the Senate Democrats’ version of the Transportation Bill,” said Miller. “Although the RESTORE Act is a critical provision for those areas affected by the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the Senate version of this bill contains a massive tax increase and redirects $1.4 billion to the Land and Water Conservation Fund, creating a huge federal power grab. The House version of the transportation bill that Representative Mack and I supported did not contain the tax hikes or land grabs of the Senate bill, yet still supports the affected areas of the Florida coast. Floridians need to be careful that we don’t replace a Big Government Democrat in the Senate with a Big Government Republican. Connie Mack is the conservative we need in the Senate.”

Jill Biden, the wife of Vice President Joe Biden, will be in South Florida Thursday and Friday for a pair of official visits.

She’ll visit Coast Guard Base Miami Beach on Thursday afternoon. The White House advisory for the event notes that Biden and First Lady Michelle Obama recently celebrated the one-year anniversary of Joining Forces, an “initiative to honor, recognize and serve veterans, service members and military families.”

Biden, who is an English professor at Northern Virginia Community College, will speak Friday afternoon at commencement exercises at Broward College in Fort Lauderdale.

No immediate word on whether Biden will be involved in any campaign activities in South Florida.

State Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, a former executive director of the Christian Coalition of Florida and the original sponsor of Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law, is endorsing George LeMieux in the Florida GOP Senate primary.

Baxley rips the GOP frontrunner, U.S. Rep. Connie Mack, as “not ready to serve” and says Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson “will tear Mack apart if he is the Republican nominee.”

Here’s Baxley’s statement, released by the LeMieux campaign:

“Today I am proud to join Herman Cain and 31 other State Legislators and endorse George LeMieux for US Senate. George is a faithful husband and father, and has a solid pro-life, pro-family, pro-free enterprise, pro-Second Amendment voting record. He is the most competent candidate we have to beat Bill Nelson. Connie Mack IV is not his father. Mack has an abysmal personal financial legacy, attacked Arizona for addressing its illegal immigration problems, and supports embryonic stem cell research. I served with Connie in the Florida House and love him dearly, but he has performed poorly and is not ready to lead. Nelson will tear Mack apart if he is the Republican nominee. George LeMieux is the only candidate who can defeat Nelson and we must stand with George to take back the Senate in November.”

Prosecutors have charged 13 people in the hazing death of Florida A&M University “Marching 100″ drum major Robert Champion.

Orange County State Attorney Lamar Lawson announced the charges at a press conference Wednesday afternoon in Orlando, where Champion died after being pummeled to death aboard a charter bus outside a hotel in November.

The 22-year-old’s death “is nothing short of an American tragedy,” Lawson told reporters before announcing the charges.

Lawson said the charges include 11 felony hazing charges, which carry a penalty of up to six years in prison, and 20 misdemeanor hazing charges.

The prosecutor indicated more individuals may yet be arrested and asked “others who have facts about Champion’s homicide to come forward and tell the truth.”

Champion’s death exposed a long legacy of hazing within the celebrated marching band. FAMU administrators have halted all of band’s activities until the investigation was complete and launched a task force to look into the “culture of hazing” at the historically black university.

Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings, whose child is a student at FAMU, said his team interviewed four dozen peopel in Tallahassee and spent more than 1,000 hours investigating the case.

“As the parent of a current FAMU student, I know the importance of the work that has been done in this case and how it has impacted the institution,” Demings said.

Hazing that involves bodily harm is a third-degree felony in Florida. The charges filed Wednesday were made possible by the 2005 law passed in the wake of the death of another Florida college student. The law defines hazing as any act that endangers the health or safety of a student for the purpose of admission to a school group.

Lawson said that without the law, he would not have been able to file the charges that carry enhanced penalties when someone is injured or dies after being hazed. No single blow killed Champion, who died after being pummeled to death, Lawson said, thereby preventing him to file more serious murder or manslaughter charges.

“The testimony does not support a charge of murder. We can prove participation in hazing and a death,” Lawson said.

Gov. Rick Scott firmly dismissed Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn’s request that firearms be temporarily banned during the GOP convention in August, saying in a strongly-worded letter that guns would make citizens safer, not pose a threat as Buckhorn suggested.

“We have had political conventions in this country since the dawn of the Republic,” Scott, a gun owner, wrote in a letter dated yesterday. “They are an essential means of furthering our constitutional rights to free speech and to vote. “Our fundamental right to keep and bear arms has coexisted with those freedoms for just as long, and I see no reason to depart from that tradition this year.”

Buckhorn had asked Scott to bar firearms in downtown Tampa, including temporarily restricting people with state-issued concealed carry permits from toting their guns near the convention site. City officials have decided to ban some weapons, including clubs and spears, but state law prohibits them from enacting any ordinances dealing with firearms.

“Normally, licensed firearms carried in accordance with the Florida statute requirements do not pose a significant threat to the public,” Buckhorn wrote in a letter to Scott. “However, in the potentially contentious environment surrounding the RNC, a firearm unnecessarily increases the threat of imminent harm and injury to the residents and visitors of the city.”

Scott, whose task force looking into the state’s “Stand Your Ground” law held its first meeting yesterday, strongly disagreed.

“Like you, I share the concern that ‘violent anti-government protests or other civil unrest’ can pose ‘dangers’ and the ‘threat of substantial injury or harm to Florida residents visitors to the state,’” Scott wrote. “But it is unclear how disarming citizens would better protect them from the dangers and threats posed by those who would
flout the law. It is at just such times that the constitutional right to self defense is most precious and must be protected from government overreach.”

Scott’s rejection of Buckhorn’s request is sure to resonate with Florida gun rights advocates who are up in arms over the governor’s “Citizen Safety and Protection” task force. The panel, headed by Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll, is examining the Florida “justifiable use of force” chapter of state law that allows individuals to use deadly force when they feel threatened. The National Rifle Association released a statement yesterday saying it would fight to defend Florida’s first-in-the-nation “Stand Your Ground” law and other similar statutes. And the Florida Carry Inc. organization is urging its members to show up at the meetings and contact the panelists to tell them the law should not be changed.

The now-controversial law is the focus of national attention in the aftermath of the Feb. 26 shooting of Trayvon Martin. Sanford neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman claimed he shot the unarmed teenager in self-defense. Special prosecutor Angela Correy, appointed by Scott, arrested Zimmerman on second degree murder charges six weeks after the shooting.

Leading Republicans praised a Central Florida House member who formally announced Tuesday that he was at least temporarily ending his legislative career — rather than challenge a fellow GOP lawmaker in a redrawn House district.

Rep. Eric Eisnaugle, who is in his second term representing parts of Orlando, revealed his decision in a Tuesday Op-Ed in the Orlando Sentinel. Eisnaugle said he wouldn’t duel with “my friend and fellow conservative,” Rep. Steve Precourt, R-Orlando, for the House District 44 seat they both share in the new, redistricted House map.

Precourt is a close ally of  incoming House Speaker Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel.  But Eisnaugle’s decision to take one for the team also helped underscore the position of House and Senate Republican leaders that legislative and congressional maps were not drawn to help incumbents, a view apparently now shared by courts and federal officials, who have given the plans the go-ahead.

Florida Republican Chairman Lenny Curry said Eisnaugle’s “decision to put his family and his personal commitments above himself is commendable.”

Weatherford also held out the possibility that Eisnaugle’s decision to step aside — for now — may help his political future.

“ He is a true rising star,” Weatherford said of Eisnaugle. “I believe he will continue to earnestly serve his community, not as an elected official, but as a neighbor and a friend. That’s the kind of leadership that earns the trust of voters; it’s why I believe he will be back in the Florida Legislature one day.”

Battle lines are drawn in Florida’s controversial “Stand Your Ground” law during an organizational meeting of Gov. Rick Scott’s “Citizen Safety and Protection” Task Force.

The meeting set the stage for what is likely to be a heated debate between law enforcement, defense lawyers, judges, the public and gun rights advocates over possible changes to Florida’s first-in-the-nation “Stand Your Ground” law – or if it needs to be modified at all.

Scott created the task force in the wake of the Feb. 26 shooting of Trayvon Martin by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman. Zimmerman claimed he shot the unarmed 17-year-old in self-defense, focusing a national spotlight on the state’s first-in-the-nation “Stand Your Ground” law that allows individuals to use deadly force when they feel threatened. Read the rest of this entry »

Minnesota Rep. and former Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann is endorsing U.S. Rep. Connie Mack in Florida’s Republican Senate primary, likening Mack to Senate tea party faves Marco Rubio and Rand Paul.

Bachmann is the second former GOP candidate with a tea party following to weigh in on the Senate race recently. Herman Cain came out for George LeMieux over the weekend.

Says Bachmann: “Connie has been a steadfast fighter for freedom, less government and a fiscal hawk together with me in the United States Congress. For every good proposal passed out of the House, the liberal Senate under Harry Reid and Bill Nelson have stopped it, including Connie’s recent proposal to build the Keystone XL Pipeline without Presidential approval. Senators like Marco Rubio and Rand Paul need other like-minded conservatives in the Senate to stop the liberals from tearing down our nation. America needs Connie Mack in the U.S. Senate.”

Former Democratic state Rep. Kevin Rader made an endorsement splash by jumping into the Senate District 27 primary this week with the backing of U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton.

Rader’s rivals — Democratic state Reps. Mack Bernard and Jeff Clemens — have rolled out their own endorsement lists studded with local elected officials.

Bernard’s backers include Palm Beach County Commissioner Priscilla Taylor, former county commish Addie Greene and school board members Marcia Andrews and Debra Robinson.

Clemens’ supporters include County Commissioner Paulette Burdick and Mayors Sam Ferreri of Greenacres, Dave Stewart of Lantana, Don Clayman of South Palm Beach and Bev Smith of Palm Springs.

See a complete list of Bernard and Clemens endorsements after the jump…

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Former appointed Sen. George LeMieux, whose reputation as former Gov. Charlie Crist‘s “maestro” once made him the embodiment of the Florida GOP establishment, has been endorsed by Herman Cain, who hailed LeMieux’s anti-establishment credentials at a Hernando County GOP dinner over the weekend.

“Tonight was the first time I ever heard Sen. LeMieux. And I’m sitting there thinking to myself: He’s saying everything I would say,” businessman and former GOP presidential candidate Cain said.

“This is the type of person that we need in Washington, D.C. — people who are not afraid to challenge the establishment,” said Cain, who said he didn’t tell LeMieux or his own staff in advance before making the endorsement.

LeMieux and Rep. Connie Mack are the leading Republican contenders for the nomination to take on Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee isn’t officially taking sides in the Democratic primary between former West Palm Beach mayor Lois Frankel and Broward County Commissioner Kristin Jacobs for the Palm Beach-Broward congressional District 22 seat.

But DCCC Chairman Steve Israel, D-N.Y., will be in West Palm Beach on Saturday to raise money for Frankel at a $1,000-a-plate brunch.

DCCC spokeswoman Stephanie Formas said Israel’s appearance does not constitute an endorsement of Frankel by the committee or its chairman.

But it certainly furthers the perception that Frankel’s big-dollar campaign is favored by the party establishment.

Through March 31, Frankel had raised more money from outside contributors — $1.845 million — than any other non-incumbent Democrat in the nation. Jacobs, who entered the race in February, raised $203,931 by the end of the first quarter. The Democratic primary winner will face former state House Republican leader Adam Hasner of Boca Raton in the general election in a district that voted 57 percent for Barack Obama in 2008.

District 22 is now represented by U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Plantation. But with legislators redrawing it with a Democratic tilt, West decided to run in Palm Beach-Treasure Coast District 18.

U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Plantation, is scheduled to give a routine congressional update at this morning’s Palm Beach County commission meeting. With tea party favorite West’s reputation for controversial rhetoric, one Democratic aide coached his boss on the best way to walk out of the meeting “if he gets too insulting to the president or Democrats.”

Peyton McArthur, a former executive director of the county Democratic Party who’s now an administrative aide to Commissioner Paulette Burdick, e-mailed this advice to Burdick in preparation for a Monday appearance by West at the Forum Club of the Palm Beaches and today’s West appearance before the county’s Greatest Deliberative Body:

“Hopefully, he will be on his best behavior, but you should walk out of the Forum Club and the BCC if he gets too insulting to the President or Democrats. Don’t be the first one to walk out, but don’t be the last either.”

Florida Democrats were dealt another blow in redistricting Monday when a Leon Circuit Court judge denied their bid to have the 27-seat congressional plan declared invalid.

The ruling by Judge Terry Lewis comes after the Florida Supreme Court on Friday upheld the Republican-ruled Legislature’s map for redrawing Senate boundaries. Democrats and allied organizations also had sought to have the Senate plan ruled unconstitutional for favoring incumbent Republicans and hurting minority voters.

Earlier in the day Monday, the House also announced that the U.S. Justice Department had concluded its review of the House, Senate and congressional maps and determined that they complied with the Voting Rights Act. The preclearance determination is a key step in assuring that the redistricting plans will be in place for candidate qualifying, June 4-8.

Democrats did not immediately respond to the actions. But Republicans cast the federal approval as effectively the end of the redistricting fight.

“Today’s preclearance by the U.S. Department of Justice signifies the final approval of the state legislative and congressional maps passed by the Florida legislature,” said House Redistricting Chairman Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel. “I appreciate the hard work of my colleagues and all of the input we received from Floridians throughout the process.  With their help, we were able to draw fair and compact maps that puts the interests of Floridians over the interests of politicians.”

WEST PALM BEACH — Republican U.S. Rep. Allen West‘s recent remark that as many as 81 House Democrats are communists hinders “meaningful bipartisan discussion” on issues, Democratic U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch said today when he and West appeared together at a nonpartisan Forum Club of the Palm Beaches lunch.

West called Deutch’s comment a “cheap shot” as the two stood together on the dais for an otherwise cordial discussion of the federal health care law.

With a crowd of about 700 on hand at the Palm Beach County Convention Center, Deutch gave a 10-minute defense of the Affordable Care Act and West offered a 10-minute criticism.

In an audience question-and-answer period afterward, the congressmen were asked about bipartisanship in Washington.

West said that he took an oath in the Army and as a congressman to protect and defend the constitution, not a political party. He said voters should demand their elected officials represent constituents rather than partisan interests.

“While I have great respect for my colleague’s service to his country, I would respectfully suggest that it is awfully hard to engage in meaningful bipartisan discussion when some suggest that half my party belong to the Communist Party, that the way we do things is reminiscent of the Nazis,” Deutch said.

“That’s a little bit of a cheap shot,” said West, who was standing near Deutch but away from the microphone.

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Requiring individuals to be in imminent danger before they can use deadly force, giving law enforcement officials the ability to arrest people who claim they killed or injured someone in self-defense and sending all “Stand Your Ground” cases to a grand jury would improve Florida’s self-defense laws, according to recommendations made by Sen. Chris Smith today.

Smith convened his own task force to look into the controversial “Stand Your Ground” law in the wake of the national outcry over the death of Trayvon Martin two months ago. Neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman claimed he shot the unarmed 17-year-old in self-defense, focusing attention of Florida’s first-in-the-nation law and subsequent other states’ laws that allow individuals to use deadly force when they feel threatened.

The Fort Lauderdale Democrat released a set of suggestions crafted by a panel of lawyers, judges and law professors the day before a task force set up by Gov. Rick Scott is scheduled to hold its first meeting tomorrow.

Smith offered six unanimous recommendations and several others signed off on by a majority of the 18-member panel. Smith said he is giving the suggestions to Scott, his task force (headed by Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll, a National Rifle Association life member), and Senate President Mike Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island.

While most of the group wanted to repeal Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law, Smith said the majority was not large enough to include doing away with the law in its recommendations.

Instead, he offered a suite of tweaks to ensure the safety of the state’s citizens, Smith, a lawyer, said.

“No reasonable person can say this is a perfect law,” Smith told reporters at a press conference this afternoon.

The other three recommendations are:
- Educate the public and law enforcement about the law and how to do use it. Smith said the Florida Department of Law Enforcement should provide a specific set of procedures to create uniformity in how the law is applied throughout hte state.

- Create a system to track self-defense claims in Florida.

- Change the name of the statute to “Use of Force in Defense of Property” instead of its current title “Use of Force in Defense of Others.”

Smith said lawmakers should convene a special session before the regular session begins in March to change the law.