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Florida streamlines rights restoration for felons
BRENDAN FARRINGTON, Associated Press
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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) The Florida Clemency Board voted Wednesday to automatically restore most civil rights stripped from felons once they have completed their sentences, including court-ordered financial obligations.
Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis proposed the new rules to streamline the restoration of rights. He and the independently elected Cabinet members that serve as the Clemency Board voted unanimously to approve them.
Felons who meet the criteria for restoration of rights still won t have the right to own, possess or use firearms, but they will be able to to serve on a jury and hold public office.
The Florida Capitol on Jan. 20, 2021. Credit: Michael Moline/Florida Phoenix
Gov. Ron DeSantis blocked a pardon on Wednesday for Desmond Meade, who led the campaign behind Florida’s voting-rights restoration ballot initiative in 2018, citing Meade’s dishonorable discharge from the military.
However, the governor suggested Meade could qualify for restoration of his civil rights, including the right to serve on juries and hold public office, under revised clemency rules that he and the Florida Cabinet had approved earlier in the day.
“As a former military officer, a dishonorable discharge is the highest punishment that a court martial may render. I consider it very serious. I’m not saying that he hadn’t done good things, but I would want that as a precondition for us doing the state case, that that military dishonorable discharge be addressed,” said DeSantis, who’d served in the Navy’s judge advocate general corps.
Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Cabinet, acting as the Board of Executive Clemency, did away with the waiting periods, opening the door for thousands of so-called “returning citizens” to have their rights restored and possibly wiping out a backlog of thousands of other cases awaiting review.
For the past decade, felons in Florida have had to wait at least five years after being released from prison before becoming eligible to have their civil rights restored. But on Wednesday, Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Cabinet, acting as the Board of Executive Clemency, did away with the waiting periods.