Sarasota Tackles City’s Growing Homeless Population

14Jul

Sarasota Tackles City’s Growing Homeless Population

July 14, 2016 by Derek Byrd

In Sarasota, Florida, homeless people are becoming more of a mainstay than not. There are far too many, and many of them are homeless because they lost jobs that were good due to the recession.

Sarasota can see the homeless and poor without help, and right next to them is the very wealthy that have nothing to want for. In the city, there is one shelter for all the homeless people, but they are not allowed to sleep outside or in their cars without having to face some sort of harassment, or criminal complaint.

The only shelter in the area can only fit so many homeless per night, so when it is full, the other plighted individuals must find somewhere else to go. Since the weather is nice all year round in that part of the country, they could let them have a camp of some sort, or open more shelters so that they do not have to sleep on sidewalks, benches, and in some cases on streets. These people, are not all alcoholics, or drug attics. No, by far, not, and there are children that are affected.

There is an anti-panhandling law in this city. Those that are homeless, with nowhere to go and no food, cannot ask others for help, or they might reap repercussions from the law. This can hurt the homeless even more, because they can’t get work or housing, and then, they have no where to go. It is almost as if the city just turns its back, and wants them all to die.

The city also closes the parks at dark so that the homeless can’t sleep there, and they have taken out benches, and other such items that might enable a homeless person to sleep there. They have also had outreach teams try to get the homeless to go to the shelter, but there is no guarantee that they will get to stay. It is the hope that they will open up an emergency shelter that can at least help in some way. The Salvation Army will find somewhere for them to stay, but the city is finding that many of them will not accept the help.

The homeless problem will get worse, if it persists. Sarasota needs to talk to other hard hit areas around the country that have a lot of homeless. They need to make more shelters, camps or some place for them to sleep, eat and get back to work and life.

23Jun

US Court Rules Internet as a Utility, not Luxury

June 23, 2016 by Derek Byrd

In a 2016 Federal court ruling, the courts decided that high-speed internet service is a utility. This was a victory for start-up tech firms, microbusinesses and everyday consumers. They all use and depend on the internet on a daily basis. While some Americans cannot afford high-speed internet, many Americans find it difficult to function without it. Therefore, the Federal Communications Commission (F.C.C.) decided high-speed internet is a necessity and the courts agreed. This ruling affirms that high-speed internet is as important as telephones and electrical power in the lives of Americans. It is not a luxury.
The decision from the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit was made in a case about net neutrality. Net neutrality is a rule that ensures internet service providers deliver the same internet service to all its consumers. This keeps companies who can afford to pay for faster speed and broader service from having an unfair advantage over their competitors who cannot afford it. Without net neutrality broadband providers could allow some content on the web to be delivered at slower speeds. Consumers could be charged extra for better service and have to pay more to be able to receive some content. Only two judges were in agreement. The dissenting Judge, Stephen Williams referred to the rules an “unreasoned patchwork”. He felt that competition in the broadband industry would be jeopardized by the ruling of the F.C.C. Google and Netflix are in favor of the neutrality rules.
When the rule was put in place Ajit Pai was a commissioner with the F.C.C. He was appointed by President Obama in May 2012. Ajit Pai, a Republican commissioner, was outspokenly against the regulation of broadband as a utility from the very beginning. Ajit Pai encouraged cable and telecommunications firms to continue the legal challenges against the rule. Cable, telecommunications and wireless internet providers sued to overturn the regulations put in place by the F.C.C, claiming that the F.C.C. exceeded its authority. This resulted in the 2016 ruling, upholding the decision by the F.C.C. The legal battle is anticipated to continue.
In January 2017, President Trump named Ajit Pai the new Chairman of the F.C.C. Since Mr. Pai took office, the F.C.C. closed an investigation involving T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon. The investigation was concerning their zero-rating practices. Some view this as the dismantling of net neutrality by the F.C.C.

15Jun

#PrayforOrlando Exploring Current Gun Laws in the US

June 15, 2016 by Derek Byrd

The shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando was a terrible tragedy that took the lives of 49 innocent people, while another 53 victims were wounded. This brutal act was committed by a lone gunman named Omar Marteen. The incident has caused the exploration of current gun laws in the US. Because of the nightclub shooting and other tragedies in Orlando that occurred around the same time, some people asked how much more the City of Orlando could take. A number of individuals were moved to pray by #PrayForOrlando. There is much debate about whether or not better gun control laws would prevent this type of tragedy.

Days prior to the shooting, Mateen purchased the Sig Sauer .223 semi-automatic rifle and Glock 17 from a Florida gun store. The purchases were legally made on separate occasions. Assault weapons are often criticized for the ability they give shooters to shoot faster and produce higher death tolls. A federal ban against assault weapons expired in 2004. Sales for these weapons increase whenever there is a new legislative push to restrict them from being sold. According to Derek Byrd, a Sarasota, Florida based lawyer, there is no law that would have prevented the Orlando shooter.

The Orlando shooting sparked new gun control language debates prompting Senator Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton and other Democrats to speak out. Hillary Clinton has historically been outspoken against the National Rifle Association (NRA). Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy blamed Congress for the mass shootings, because of its failure to enact stricter gun control measures.

Sanders said, “We should not be selling automatic weapons which are designed to kill people. We have got to do everything that we can on top of that to make sure that guns do not fall into the hands of people who should not have them, criminals, people who are mentally ill. So that struggles continues.” Former US Senate candidate, Patrick Murphy, joined Christine Leinonen, who is the mother of one of the victims, in giving a speech before the Democratic National Convention about “common sense” gun measures.

27May

Justice Department Challenges N.C. Transgender Law

May 27, 2016 by Derek Byrd

In 2016, the North Carolina Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act, commonly referred to as House Bill 2, was challenged in court by the U.S. Justice Department.

Among other things, House Bill 2 eliminated anti-discrimination protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and stated that in government buildings, individuals could only use restrooms corresponding to the sex on their birth certificates.
After the Justice Department notified North Carolina’s governor and leaders of the University of North Carolina (UNC) system that the law violated the U.S. Civil Rights Act, suit was filed on May 9, 2016.

According to the Justice Department website, www.justice.gov, the complaint alleged that the defendants, as a result of the bathroom and changing facility provisions of House Bill 2, discriminated against transgender public employees and applicants in violation of Title VII. Title VII makes sex discrimination in employment unlawful. The Justice Department claimed that access to restrooms was a basic condition of employment and that denying transgender access to restrooms and changing facilities constituted unlawful sex discrimination.

The complaint also alleged that, under House Bill 2, the defendants were violating the non-discrimination provision of the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex and gender identity and Title IX, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex. The Justice Department asserted that these laws applied to recipients of federal funding.

The complaint sought a federal court order prohibiting the defendants from enforcing the ban under House Bill 2.
That same day, North Carolina’s governor and secretary of public safety sued the Justice Department in a different federal court.

According to the New York Times, that decision was narrow in scope, The judge’s decision applied only to the parties who brought the challenge and found that they had shown that they were likely to succeed in proving that the House Bill 2 access restriction violated Title IX.
“In sum, the court has no reason to believe that an injunction returning to the state of affairs as it existed before March 2016 would pose a privacy or safety risk for North Carolinians, transgender or otherwise,” the opinion stated. “It is in the public interest to enforce federal anti-discrimination laws in a fashion that also maintains longstanding state laws designed to promote privacy and safety.”

03Feb

Florida Needs to Fix it’s Death Penalty Law

February 3, 2016 by Derek Byrd

The death penalty has caused controversy since it was first made a legal possibility and this controversy has only increased every year as more and more people come out against it. While the death penalty is legal under federal law, various states have made it illegal over time. It is currently legal in 32 states with prisoners in 35 states currently on death row (the death penalty is illegal in Connecticut, Maryland, and New Mexico but isn’t retroactive so prisoners who were on death row will still be executed). Now it seems as though the Supreme Court is being called in to look at certain state’s death penalty laws.

Recently, the Supreme Court ruled that the way Florida handed down its death penalty rulings is unconstitutional and needed to be changed. This is a big deal for a number of reasons, one of which is that Florida currently has one of the country’s most crowded death row systems and seems to hand out the death penalty with more ease than other states in which it’s legal. With the Florida lawmaking session ending in six weeks and prosecutions for cases that have capital punishment as a possible sentence currently stalled, lawmakers in Florida are rushing to create new legislation that will answer the concerns of the court while simultaneously keeping constituents happy.

Up until now, Florida’s death penalty only required a simple majority of a 12-person jury to recommend a death sentence to a judge who would then decide on the punishment — most other states require unanimous jury recommendations. With the 2nd largest number of inmates on death row (behind only California) but the highest execution rate in the country, Florida’s court system is now in turmoil as it tries to figure out a fix. The Supreme Court ruled that the current law gave too much power to judges and not enough to juries, flying in the face of the Sixth Amendment and becoming unconstitutional in the process. While there is no set fix to the ruling yet, it will be interesting to see whether the laws change on a grand scale or simply on a smaller scale targeted to this specific ruling.

If you’d like to read more, the link is here.

18Dec

Florida Dog Bite Law is Overturned After Review

December 18, 2015 by Derek Byrd

Recently, I wrote a post about a law that is being challenged in my hometown of Sarasota, Florida. The law I spoke about has been a source of controversy since it was enacted and says that any dog who bites a person hard enough to require stitches or reconstructive surgery, regardless of the reason behind the bite, has to be euthanized due to it being a danger to people. As you can expect, there are a number of reasons that this law has faced the amount of criticism that it has — the law is very cut and dry and unless there are concerted efforts at appeals, the law ignores any context behind the dog bite (even if the dog was biting an intruder during a home invasion).

The law was finally brought under legal review when a dog named Padi bit a child’s ear after allegedly being instigated. What is agreed is that the dog moved to a corner to escape the child only to have the child follow it, leading to the eventual bite. Padi’s owner, Dr. Paul Gartenberg, brought the case to court where a judge ended up reviewing the law as a whole. Judge Andrew Owens ended up throwing both the case against Padi out of court, as well as declaring the law “arbitrary and unduly oppressive.”

This overturning of the law and it being struck down is with no doubt a huge weight off of the shoulders of all dog owners in the state of Florida. Dogs are animals and even the best trained dog will lash out either in fear or panic when it is backed into a corner with no chance of escape. Just like you wouldn’t punish a human as fully for hurting someone in self-defence, the same should goes for dogs because they’re just animals. Hopefully this law will lead to less needless deaths for pets that are honestly more than just pets, they’re family members.

If you’d like to read more, the link is here.

12Nov

Florida Is Going to Introduce a Daily Fantasy Sports Bill

November 12, 2015 by Derek Byrd

Since they were first introduced to the mass public watching sports, daily fantasy sports betting companies like FanDuel and DraftKings have been capturing the minds of consumers and the attention of lawmakers. Betting has had a tenuous relationship with all forms of government (local, state, federal) and legislators for a long time and the laws regarding it are confusing and change depending on where you are. Daily fantasy sports leagues just add another layer of confusion to the mess simply because of how popular they are. Millions of people across the country watch sports, play in fantasy sports leagues, and engage in some sort of betting or another, whether from company pools to the websites and apps in question.

Unlike many states that are considering outlawing companies like DraftKings and FanDuel do to gambling restrictions, two Florida legislators is looking to do something a little bit different. Instead of outright banning the practice and the companies that facilitate these practices, they want to introduce laws that will regulate the practice and introduce consumer protections laws so that people don’t get taken advantage of and harmed financially. Republican state Senator Joe Negron and Representative Matt Gaetz are pushing for the law because they believe that people engaging in daily fantasy sports betting don’t deserve to be criminalized and penalized by the law.

That being said, they are also fully aware of just how these sorts of fantasy apps work. Most of the money is won by a very small percentage who do nothing but study statistics and turn fantasy sports betting into a full-time job of sorts. Seeing as almost everyone using these apps are simply doing so casually and for fun, they run the very real risk of being swindled out of their money. Companies like DraftKings and FanDuel have been hiring lawyers and lobbyists in states across the country once they got wind that legislation (both for them and against them) in an attempt to sway people to their sides and if what’s happening is an example, it seems as though this strategy might be working.

If you’d like to read more, the link is here.

13Oct

Sarasota Sheriff’s Office to Receive Heroin Medication

October 13, 2015 by Derek Byrd

More and more reports seem to be flooding the news regarding the ongoing fight against the heroin epidemic that has struck much of the country. Heroin is becoming a larger and larger issue in the United States due to the easy access (and frequently unnecessary prescriptions from doctors), the high chance for addiction and abuse, and the high price involved in getting pills. As heroin becomes more and more prevalent, and rates of addiction go up, governments across the board (both at the state and federal level) are working hard to both stem the tide of addiction, as well as provide the necessary treatment and guidance for those who need it.

The Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office announced Friday that they received a donation of 800 doses of naloxone, a drug that stops the effects of an opioid overdose and saves victims from death. KATE IRBY/Bradenton Herald

The Sarasota Sheriff’s Office is going to be the first law enforcement agency in Florida to receive funding from a new law that is aiming to fight heroin on a series of levels. This new law will allow officers to administer medication to people who are overdosing on heroin and other opioids and drugs. The officers have received 800 doses of EVZIO — an auto-injector of naloxone, which immediately stops the effects of a heroin or opioid overdose upon injection — in a donation from the manufacturer of the drug, Kaléo. The donations amount to about $320,000 and the drug is both easy to use and provides no harmful side-effects to people who aren’t overdosing but have been injected by accident.

With 99 deaths due to opiate overdose in 2014 and a much higher number expected for 2015, these drugs and the training officers will receive will be truly life-saving. While the drug won’t cure addiction (it will only help fight overdoses), it will allow victims to survive, recover, and give them more time with their family and loved ones, increasing the chance that they will enter a treatment program. This is the perfect example of laws cutting through bureaucracy and finding bipartisan support for a cause that is obviously in need of tackling. Hopefully the price for individual doses of this medicine will decrease (it’s still high and preventing other counties from taking advantage of this law) so that more doses can be used to save more lives.

If you’d like to read more, the link is here.

10Sep

A New Privacy Law Could Make Insurance Expensive

September 10, 2015 by Derek Byrd

Drones have been causing issues with both the law and U.S. citizens since they exploded in popularity a few years ago. There have been countless stories of people clashing and violence occurring when drones are involved in flying over private property. With issues of privacy and a fear of governmental and private spying and intrusion on private life, it makes sense that drones are viewed with suspicion — not that that justifies harming the operator or damaging someone else’s private property. Now, it seems as though a new law that was just enacted in my home state of Florida is going to make flying a drone even more financially risky.

Florida Governor Rick Scott had signed the Freedom from Unwarranted Surveillance Act (FUSA) and it took effect on July 1st. This act is meant to prohibit a person, governmental agency, or political party or subdivision to use drones from taking pictures and capturing video of a person’s private property or the people on said private property (regardless of whether they are the owner, an occupant, or simply a visitor) with the intent to conduct surveillance and spy on their private and personal lives. The law makes it so that a drone operator must get written consent from the people on said private property if they want to use the drone in this manner, especially if the people have a reasonable expectation of privacy on their own property. The law applies to both private citizens as well as law enforcement and goes along with a previous law that require police to get a warrant to use drones for evidence collection. It also doesn’t apply to certain businesses or professions that are licensed by the state for certain reasons.

With the option to sue using this law as support, it’s going to become much more difficult for people and agencies to get insured against damage and lawsuits. It also means that many companies that rely on drones for their businesses are going to be bringing lawsuits against the state of Florida for infringing on their ability to conduct business in a free and fair way. Drones are used by insurance companies to scope out damage in hard to reach places and hazardous environments so that they can gather information more quickly and with less chance of putting someone in a dangerous position. While it remains to be seen how this will play out (after all, the law is relatively new), I can already foresee a host a lawsuits from both private citizens and corporations aimed at this law.

If you’d like to read more, the link is here.

08Jul

BP Settles in Court Over 2010 Gulf Spill

July 8, 2015 by Derek Byrd

Derek Byrd According to a recent news article put out by the JURIST online archives, BP is paying 18.7 billion dollars in restitution and penalties due to the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The settlement, considered to be one of the largest in US history, is an addition to the previous payment of $43.8 billion they had to pay in penalties and clean up fees. The settlement sum will be split between the Clean Water Act ($12.8 B) ,and the rest ($4.9 B) will be distributed among the states that were affected by the spill.

Despite these penalties, a report filed by the U. S Public Interest Research Group is claiming that BP could benefit from this settlement once it files taxes at the end of the year. The Federal tax law does not prevent BP (or any other company) from treating the ecosystem restoration pay out as a business expense, which means that they can get a tax break on any money that isn’t used to pay penalties. Phineas Baxandall, an analyst for tax and budget policy, believes that BP should be held accountable for their actions, and in no way should they shift this burden to taxpayers. In order to ensure this does not happen, Public Interest Research Group is pleading the federal judge to make these court documents public, and to incorporate specific language that will not allow BP to get tax breaks from this settlement.

The devastating 2010 spill has had major negative impacts on the ecosystem and families surrounding the Gulf, however many environmentalists believe that this settlement is a positive step towards restoration and helping out the communities whose livelihood was seriously hurt. Shortly after the spill, the US president appointed a committee that could answer questions, gather data and devise a plan for reconstruction. Their jobs will be much more intense now that the resources are in place.

Fore more information on the ruling : http://jurist.org/paperchase/2015/07/bp-agrees-to-187-billion-settlement-over-2010-oil-spill.php