Costs to Taxpayers and Ever Increasing Backlog Cited as Valid Reasons for Further Reforms
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
March 22, 2010
CONTACT:
Brandon Hensler, ACLU, (786) 363-2737 or media@aclufl.org
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. –The Florida Rights Restoration Coalition (FRRC) sent a letter to the members of the Florida Board of Executive Clemency today requesting further reforms to the Clemency Rules governing restoration of civil rights, including voting rights. According to the FRRC, administration of the current rules is costing taxpayers millions to implement and hundreds of thousands of citizens remain disfranchised.
While the 2007 changes to the Clemency Rules were an important first step in returning the right to vote to tens of thousands of previously convicted persons, the Parole Commission is unable to timely process RCR cases. Tens of thousands of Florida citizens with non-violent felony offenses have pending cases and are still waiting years to have their civil rights restored.
“There are hundreds of thousands of Floridians with non-violent felony convictions who are eligible for civil rights restoration but they remain disfranchised by a bureaucracy that is severely underfunded and inefficient,” said Monekka Cooper, FRRC President. “They have served their time and deserve the immediate privileges of full citizenship – including the right to vote.”
The 2007 promise of “automatic approval” of RCR remains unfulfilled. Instead, evidence points to an ever-swelling backlog of cases that will continue to grow, and the delays in granting RCR will increase. According to the Parole Commission, it now takes at least one year to process a “Level I” case and individuals with Level I applications who contact the OEC are being informed that the OEC is just now processing Level I cases filed in 2007.
Additionally, the RCR caseload increased from 50,000 pending cases in June 2009 to almost 70,000 pending cases as of February 2010. (*1) All evidence indicates that the current process continues to disfranchise hundreds of thousands of Floridians. The process grows more costly and time consuming for the state of Florida to operate. (*2) Just as importantly, there is no public safety justification for spending millions of taxpayer dollars each year during this economic crisis to process cases of the tens or hundreds of thousands of Floridians with no history of violent offenses.
The FRRC strongly urges the Clemency Board to adopt rule changes that would make RCR truly automatic upon completion of non-monetary terms of sentence or supervision for all individuals with Level I offenses without the need for case-by-case approval. We also request that the Clemency Board revise the RCR rules to remove the restitution pre-condition for all individuals.
Download a PDF of the letter sent to the Clemency Board here: http://www.aclufl.org/pdfs/ClemencyLetter-032210.pdf
1) Proviso Report to the Legislature: A Report on the Status of the Processing of Restoration of Civil Rights’ Clemency Cases for FY 2008-2009, October 1, 2009 (“Proviso Report”), at 9; and Florida Parole Commission Response to ACLU of Florida’s Public Records Request, February 23, 2010 (Appendix A) at 2.
2) According to the Proviso Report, the Florida Parole Commission has requested increased funding from the legislature to address the increase in clemency cases ever year since 2007. Each request for additional resources was denied. See Proviso Report at 8, and Appendix A at 2.
About Florida Rights Restoration Coalition
The Florida Rights Restoration Coalition is a coalition of over 50 national, state and local organizations dedicated to eradicating Florida’s Reconstruction era civil rights ban. FRRC member organizations host Restoration of Civil Rights (RCR) workshops, lobby the Clemency Board and the legislature for RCR reform, and create public awareness of the unfair ban on civil rights, including voting rights, in Florida. For additional information, visit our Web site at: www.restorerights.org.
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