FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
December 3, 2010
CONTACT:
ACLU of Florida Media Office, (786) 363-2737, or media@aclufl.org
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – The ACLU of Florida, together with a group local, state and national organizations, sent a letter today to the current members of the Florida Clemency Board – Governor Charlie Crist, Attorney General Bill McCollum, CFO Alex Sink and Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson – urging them to adopt an Executive Order before the end of their terms that would immediately restore civil and voting rights to Floridians with past felony convictions for non-violent offenses.
The letter – cosigned by The Brennan Center for Justice; Collier County Branch, NAACP Homeless, Formerly Homeless Forum, Inc.; HFHF Rights Restoration Comm; Florida Justice Institute; Florida State Conference NAACP; NAACP National Voter Fund; National Congress of Black Women, Orlando Chapter; Orange County Branch, NAACP; Progress Florida; The Sentencing Project – lays out the reasons why the Clemency Board should seize this opportunity to make a reality the Board’s 2007 promise to expedite the grants restoration of civil and voting rights to all persons with non-violent.
"We are asking that the current Board address the shortcomings of the 2007 revisions to the Florida Rules of Executive Clemency and set a strong precedent for meaningful reform for the Clemency Board that takes office in January 2011," stated Muslima Lewis, Director of the ACLU of Florida's Voting Rights and Racial Justice Projects. "The 2007 promise of 'automatic approval' of restoration of civil rights requests remains unfulfilled, leaving hundreds of thousands of Floridians who have no history of violent offenses barred from the democratic process. With this Executive Order, the Board would honor its promise."
You can download a PDF of the letter here:
http://www.aclufl.org/pdfs/LetterToClemencyBoard.pdf
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