Phil Ammann
A roundup of Sunday editorials from Florida’s leading newspapers:
Tampa Bay Times — Call time out on Florida executions, capital cases
This week’s U.S. Supreme Court opinion that struck down Florida’s sentencing system for death penalty cases has created wholesale uncertainty for judges, prosecutors, defense lawyers and those convicted and accused of capital crimes. With no clear direction and as state legislators fumble to find a fix, the only responsible course is to suspend executions and capital trials until the courts and state officials decide on a lawful way forward.
The court found Florida’s death penalty sentencing process was unconstitutional because it vests final authority in a judge rather than a jury. Under state law, judges give “great weight” to a jury’s recommendation in a death penalty case. But the trial judge ultimately decides. In its 8-1 opinion, the court cited a 2002 case, Ring vs. Arizona, which established that juries and not judges shall decide the fate of defendants in capital cases. The court expressly invalidated two cases that the Florida courts have used to uphold the state’s sentencing system.
There is no way around it. The sentencing process that exists in Florida is now unconstitutional and violates due process. And while the court’s decision came in the case of Timothy Lee Hurst, convicted of killing a co-worker at a Pensacola restaurant in 1998, the ruling could impact dozens if not hundreds of pending trials or appeals. Public defenders across the state are calling for a halt to executions and death penalty cases, and prosecutors are complaining they are uncertain how to proceed at trial. The Florida Supreme Court has also asked the state and lawyers for Michael Ray Lambrix, scheduled to be executed Feb. 11 for the 1983 murders of two people in South Florida, to explain why the Hurst decision should not retroactively apply to his case. Oral arguments are scheduled for Feb. 2.
Attorney General Pam Bondi, in a response filed Thursday, said the Hurst decision should not apply, and Lambrix’s attorneys have until Wednesday to respond. On Friday, the Florida Supreme Court refused Lambrix’s request for a stay of execution. But with the legalities unsettled, Florida should put a hold to executions, and state attorneys should refrain from prosecuting death penalty cases. There is no mulligan if the state gets it wrong.
Bradenton Herald — Spike proposal to punish school districts for student test failures
The politicians and policy-makers in Tallahassee and elsewhere in Florida cannot resist the annual temptation to mess with education policy. Often, they create a mess. This year looks no different.
The Florida Department of Education came up with a punitive proposal that lacks sound reasoning. The agency aims to eliminate one-sixth of the full-time equivalent funding that districts receive for each student who fails the Algebra 1 end-of-course exam on the first attempt, starting next school year. How does that help anything?
Districts need more funding to boost student achievement, not less. Small wonder the Manatee County school board expressed anger over this absurd idea at this week’s regular meeting.
Students must pass that test or a different acceptable exam in order to graduate from high school per state policy. Fifty-three percent of Manatee County students passes the test. So the state would slash funding based on the 47 percent who failed. Those dollars add up quickly.
The agency must be running short of money and came up with this claw-back gimmick to back fill some sort of budget hole, right? That’s the only reasoning that makes sense, in a horribly vindictive way.
But the state offers a way out of this penalty, a provision that lacks credibility and knowledge of education. Districts would win back withheld funding if a student fails both the exam and the course, then retakes the class. That simply won’t work.
The Daytona Beach News-Journal — Water legislation is better, not best
The sweeping water-policy legislation rushed through the state House and Senate on the first week of the annual legislative session will strengthen protection of Florida’s rivers, lakes, springs and estuaries.
That doesn’t mean the bill is flawless — which may explain why leaders sailed it through committees and onto the floor with such rapidity, over the protests of environmental groups who say it is too weak. But by moving quickly, leaders also eliminated opportunities for tampering by special interests — and acknowledged the crucial role that affordable, abundant, clean water plays in Florida’s economic future.
The bill, which is on its way to Gov. Rick Scott, has support across a broad coalition of interests, including two of the state’s largest environmental organizations. It includes significant new protections for water bodies and the Floridan Aquifer. And it creates new channels for state funding to flow toward the biggest threats to the state’s water supply.
Among the key provisions in the bill:
n Tougher protections and deadlines for protecting the state’s springs — including several in Volusia County. This isn’t the first time lawmakers have promised better protections for springs, but backers of this bill say the new legislation has more teeth. Clay Henderson, executive director of the Stetson Institute for Water and Environmental Resilience, says the legislation represents “a very focused commitment” to clean up troubled springs like Gemini Springs and DeLeon Springs, which were specifically included in the legislation.
The Florida Times-Union — Our pedestrians put their lives at risk
Jacksonville’s high pedestrian fatality rate continues to climb with new deaths seemingly every week.
Jacksonville’s rate of deaths was, in fact, the third-highest pedestrian death toll in the country in 2014, according to one study.
Research on 2013 pedestrian deaths by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ranked the city second only to Detroit in pedestrian deaths.
There was finger-pointing recently in attempts to explore the reasons for the city’s high pedestrian death rate.
SIXTY BROKEN TRAFFIC SIGNALS
Some have trained their attention on the lack of city sidewalks and poorly designed roadways.
Jacksonville, the largest city in land area in the continental U.S., has a long list of sidewalk needs. Sidewalk construction projects this year barely make a dent (see adjacent box).
Another factor is Jacksonville’s aggressive speeders, perhaps frustrated by broken traffic lights. A count last month showed 60 traffic signals needing repairs.
Florida Today – Ignore Rick Scott’s campaign for billion-dollar tax cut
How ridiculous is it for a sitting governor to use money raised from special interests to campaign for tax cuts from the Legislature controlled by his own party?
That’s what Florida Gov. Rick Scott is doing.
Scott doesn’t have a particularly effective strategy of working with the House and Senate despite both legislative chambers being controlled by members of his own party.
But he does have a PAC.
His political action committee, Let’s Get to Work, takes contributions from many special interest groups, lobbyists and corporations that do business with the state.
In 2015 alone, Scott collected $4.5 million for his PAC.
Scott can’t run for re-election, but he continues to raise money from those with a stake in state government. Perhaps he is eyeing the 2018 U.S. Senate seat. How else to explain why he uses PAC money to run the governor’s office like a campaign?
Scott has a limited agenda for the 2016 legislative session. But if passed, it would permanently reduce the state treasury by $1.25 billion with $1 billion in tax cuts and $250 million for corporate welfare.
Instead of working with the 160 members of the Legislature to craft a negotiated tax package, he chose instead to spend $1 million from his PAC to buy ads statewide to back legislators into a corner.
His campaign-style, nine-city bus tour is designed to rally voter support and encourage voters to lobby their legislators.
Scott sought tax cuts for each of the six years he’s been in office. The Legislature has always obliged. Of course, there were differences.
The Gainesville Sun – Cheers and jeers
A U.S. Supreme Court decision this week is the latest reason for Florida to join the national trend and move away from the death penalty.
Cheer: The justices in the majority of an 8-1 decision to strike down Florida’s capital punishment sentencing system.
The decision focused on the fact that Florida jurors recommend death but judges determine the facts necessary to impose the sentence. But there are numerous other problems with Florida’s death penalty.
Chief among those problems in that Florida is one of just three states that doesn’t require a unanimous jury vote in death sentences. The state also has vast racial disparities in death sentences, according to a new study by University of North Carolina political scientist Frank Baumgartner.
The study found that 72 percent of Florida executions from 1976 to 2014 were for crimes involving white victims despite the fact that 56 percent of all homicide victims are white. Homicides involving white female victims were 6.5 times more likely to result in execution than crimes involving black male victims.
Florida also leads the nation in death-sentence exonerations since 1976. All these problems provide more reasons for Florida to join the growing number of states that have abandoned the death penalty.
Jeer: The Florida Legislature, for rushing to pass a flawed water policy bill.
The Senate unanimously approved the legislation Wednesday after rejecting amendments that would have improved the measure. The House followed suit Thursday on a 110-2 vote, and the governor’s office has said he will sign the bill into law next week.
The Lakeland Ledger — High goals, low funding
When the presidents of Florida’s public universities attend the Florida Cabinet meeting next week, they should bring a new report critical of higher education funding in the state.
Gov. Rick Scott invited the presidents to present their ideas on meeting his “Ready, Set, Work” challenge. He wants the universities to guarantee 100 percent employment within a year for graduates of each of their two most popular degree programs.
He issued a similar challenge to state college presidents, calling on them to ensure their graduates land jobs or transfer to four-year institutions.
But the catch is they’re on their own to fulfill the goals, and Scott isn’t offering any resources to help them out. A recent report from the Florida Research Consortium and Florida Chamber Foundation — “Florida higher education — Is the cheapest fiscally sound?” — shows the problem with this approach.
Florida is the lowest of the 50 states in revenue per full-time student, according to the report. It showed high-research universities such as the University of Florida have far less revenue than their peers from sources such as government funding, tuition and investment income.
The revenue available to spend at those universities is about half the average of their peers in the rest of the country, according to the report.
Rather than taking this as a source of fiscal pride, the report suggest the numbers are the canary in the coal mine suggesting something is wrong. It makes the case that diversifying Florida’s economy and spurring innovation — some of Scott’s big goals — require greater investment in universities.
Miami Herald —Suspend executions in light of Supreme Court ruling
When the U.S. Supreme Court this week invalidated Florida’s death-penalty process, justices were telling the state to put jurors back in control of deciding who gets the ultimate punishment and who does not.
Florida is an outlier — no surprise there. Justices ruled unconstitutional the state’s unique system that gives judges the ultimate power to impose the death penalty. That power belongs to the jurors, the court said in an 8-1 decision that united both liberal justices and most of the conservatives on the high court. Justice Samuel Alito Jr. cast the dissenting vote.
And with this ruling, the relatively smooth ride that state lawmakers were aiming for during this legislative session in Tallahassee just got a little bumpier. In fact, the court’s decision has thrown much of the legal system into uncertainty, sending defense lawyers, prosecutors, the state attorney general’s office, legislators and Death Row inmates themselves scrambling to figure out where to go from here.
This case dates to 1998, when Timothy Lee Hurst was convicted of murdering his boss at a Pensacola Popeye’s restaurant. The jury, voting 7-5, recommended death. Jurors cited two aggravating circumstances in making their recommendation. But it is not clear if all seven agreed on both.
The jury was told that, despite its recommendation, the final decision would be left to the judge, who could consider evidence that the jury did not.
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that the decision to sentence Hurst to death must be based “on a jury’s verdict, not a judge’s fact-finding. Florida’s sentencing scheme, which required the judge alone to find the existence of an aggravating circumstance, is therefore unconstitutional.”
Orlando Sentinel — City, county must unite on Corrine
Corrine Drive is a tale of two roadways. One involves a mile-long stretch of ugly, crumbling pavement in Orlando’s northeast corner that poses a danger to pedestrians, bicyclists and cars. The other Corrine is a success story of urban repurposing, a place where tired strip malls and neglected buildings are being transformed into vibrant, trendsetting businesses.
Which is the real Corrine Drive? The answer could foretell Orlando’s success in rescuing older neighborhoods from neglect and decline. As with many such public challenges, it will require cooperation between local governments, residents and business interests, as well as vision. In other words, success won’t be achieved easily.
First to be resolved is who is responsible for Corrine Drive. Orange County owns the road even though it is inside Orlando city limits and on the southern edge of Winter Park. The last significant work on Corrine, adding landscaped medians, was done by Orlando with the understanding that the road would be the city’s in the future.
It didn’t turn out that way. Now, the city has high hopes for Corrine but no plan. The county has ownership but provides no stewardship.
Orange County Commissioner Ted Edwards, whose district includes Corrine, says the city wants the road but doesn’t want to reveal its intentions for it. He worries that the city will “put the road on a diet,” transportation speak for reducing road capacity. Edwards says he would be open to some changes but wants to see a traffic study first.
A group from the adjacent Audubon Park neighborhood, calling itself Corrine Calming Coalition, wants more than a superficial treatment. The coalition proposes taking two lanes out of the five-lane road and converting them to bike lanes, on-street parking and landscaping. That idea is likely to give heartburn to county officials — seen as fixated on just moving cars.
Ocala StarBanner — Mental health’s woeful funding
The Florida Legislature is back in Tallahassee for its annual, two-month session — earlier than usual, and following one of the bicameral body’s most chaotic years.
Last year, the session ended ridiculously when the House of Representatives abruptly and unilaterally adjourned before important business was done — namely the passage of a budget, the Legislature’s only real requirement. A special session on the budget ensued, followed by additional sessions to redraw congressional and state Senate districts that ran afoul of constitutional amendments in court.
The major source of last year’s regular-session dispute — whether to expand Medicaid coverage, as 30 states have done — is unlikely to receive serious consideration this year. That is unfortunate, as the Legislature’s failure deprives hundreds of thousands of low-income Floridians of health-care coverage and prevents health-care providers from accessing federal funds to partially cover the costs of treating indigent patients.
Nevertheless, the lack of debate over an ideologically divisive issue creates the potential for the Legislature to begin and complete some important work.
Few issues facing the Legislature have more collective impact than the need to create and fund an effective mental-health system in Florida.
As conversations in our community have made clear, the needs are many and many of the challenges are complex. But we hope the Legislature starts its discussion this session with the recognition that Florida woefully underfunds the vast array of mental-health services provided by government and its private-sector partners.
Pensacola News-Journal — How the human race adapts
If you’ve ever gone hiking high in the mountains out West and gotten sick, you’re not alone. Acute mountain sickness, which involves loss of appetite, fatigue, nausea and vomiting, is a common condition among recreational hikers and skiers.
“If you took anyone from sea level and flew them to top of Pikes Peak, everybody would have some limitation on their performance by virtue of the reduction in oxygen. Almost everybody would get acute mountain sickness within a day,” said Dr. Richard Moon, an anesthesiologist and professor of anesthesiology, pulmonary and critical care medicine at Duke University.
Moon, who is also the medical director for the Center for the Hyperbaric Medicine and Environmental Physiology Laboratory at Duke University Medical Center, will discuss his insights about how humans adapt to extreme environments — from deep underwater to high altitudes — in a talk at the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) on Thursday titled “From Ocean Depths to the Mountain Tops: How do Humans Adapt?”
In reality, human adaptation is only part of the story. “You can’t survive in the sea without a lot of technology,” Moon said. “Most of the adaptation has been as a result of technological changes.” One example of that is altering techniques for breathing gas to affect slow decompression so divers don’t get the bends.
At high altitudes, the decrease in oxygen pressure causes hypoxia, or a deficiency in the amount of oxygen reaching the tissues. “Oxygenation in the blood improves over time,” Moon said, adding that usually within a week to ten days of being in a high-altitude environment, people feel better. “Still, their exercise performance, and ability to run/carry loads would not be normal. When the Olympics are held in a place like Mexico City, not too many people are breaking records.”
While much is not understood about the physiology of high altitude sufferers, hypoxia occurs in people with conditions such as heart and lung disease. That means the knowledge gained from studying hypoxia in high altitude sickness is potentially transferable to those with other conditions.
The Palm Beach Post — Let Zuckerberg donate in peace
In what has been heralded as the $45 billion birth announcement, Mark Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan pledged 99 percent of their Facebook shares — valued at $45 billion today — to a new charitable venture in celebration of their daughter’s birth. Some mistaken observers see this as a bad thing.
Zuckerberg’s pledge should not come as a surprise. He has a history of using his vast wealth to support various causes, including nearly $2 billion in the past few years to support public education, health care and fighting Ebola, making him one of the most generous donors in America.
You would think that the creation of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative — which will focus on “advancing human potential and promoting equality” — would warrant praise, which it certainly has received. Some have even said that it may end up being more important than Facebook (gasp!).
But others are uneasy, and even alarmed, because the Initiative is structured as a limited liability company (LLC) rather than a traditional nonprofit. This means it can invest in for-profit ventures, make political donations, lobby elected officials, and even make its own charitable contributions.
Some second-guessers on both the right and left are calling this nothing more than an elaborate tax dodge. By creating an LLC, however, Zuckerberg isn’t avoiding any taxes on his Facebook shares. He will still owe capital gains taxes on any that are sold. If and when the Initiative donates shares to a charitable organization, it will trigger a deduction — but he’d receive this tax break through a traditional nonprofit too.
In fact, if he were to create a traditional foundation, and then donate his shares over time, he’d likely be able to take greater advantage of the charitable deduction. There is no tax scheme here.
The Panama City News-Herald — The State of the Union, as usual
If you missed the president’s final State of the Union message Tuesday night, don’t worry.
It might have been billed as historic, but you didn’t miss much.
There were no surprises. No shocks. No awe. Nothing historic or memorable.
It was the usual Obama setup — “We have to find a way to come together, end the government gridlock and make America better and stronger” — followed by the implication that Washington isn’t working the way it should because Republicans in Congress are mean, stubborn or stupid.
In seven years Obama hasn’t changed the country, not for the better anyway. He hasn’t changed his leadership style, either.
Remember back in 2009, three days after he was sworn in, when Barack Obama, his egocentric advisers and the congressional leaders of both parties met to discuss how to frame a gigantic stimulus bill working its way through Congress?
That’s when Obama famously said to Republican Whip Eric Cantor, “Elections have consequences, and at the end of the day, I won.”
We didn’t know it then, but that snippy quip betrayed a lot about the way the hope-and-change president plays ball.
It’s my football, damn it, and if you’re not going to play the way I want, I’m going to take my ball and go home.
South Florida Sun Sentinel – Skyscrapers don’t suit Fort Lauderdale beach
Compared with what’s now there, the proposed redo of Bahia Mar on A1A in Fort Lauderdale beach makes a show-stopping statement. The problem is, it’s all too much.
Right now, Bahia Mar is a modest white Doubletree hotel that looks like it did in the mid-1980s. Behind the hotel is a massive asphalt parking lot, plus some tennis courts. Around the periphery is a 23-acre marina famous for hosting the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show, a historic annual event that’s made our region the yachting capital of the world.
Since the 1940s, the city of Fort Lauderdale has owned this signature property between the beach and Intracoastal Waterway, one of the finest publicly owned sites on the Eastern Seaboard. But over the years, the city has leased it out. Today’s disappointing terms have another 47 years to go.
In 2014, after a previous developer’s big plans went nowhere, the lease was acquired by Tate Capital, a South Florida firm with even bigger plans.
Tate’s $400-million proposal starts with a new shell on the hotel, plus updated rooms and amenities. A waterfront promenade would wind around the site, with two restaurants and a one-acre park at the western edge. Also, an A1A “fishing village” near the Jungle Queen’s home would be created, mostly with kiosks and food venues.
Hugging the highway, however, Tate wants to build two 39-story skyscrapers, defined as buildings at least 400 feet tall. Topping out at 420 feet, these condo towers would be, by far, the tallest on the beach. The next tallest — Point of Americas and The Palms — are 31 stories. In Broward County, only two downtown Fort Lauderdale buildings are taller. Downtown is where tall buildings belong.
The Tallahassee Democrat – More change needed in our school district
The new year is always a time of reflection and resolution for change. Recently we have seen some needed action in our school district. Three years ago, following the Sandy Hook tragedy, I brought an item to the City Commission to add interaction with Tallahassee Police Department officers and our elementary schools. I am pleased that Superintendent Pons is following up on this effort by augmenting security measures using retired law enforcement officers. Also, last year Commissioner Ziffer and I pushed for the creation of a community school. Once again, we are now starting to see much needed action from our school district.
There are two additional areas where we need change and action: school start times and our school calendar. Last fall, Corinne Porcher and Jana McConnaughhay wrote an insightful “My View” about high school start times and their correlation with student health and success. Backed by the Centers for Disease Control and American Academy of Pediatrics’ recommendations, they advocated changing high school start times to an hour later – following the lead of 22 other Florida school districts.
Pushing the high school start time back would require change. It would alter the way our school transportation system works and traffic patterns for commuters. But change is OK. “Because we have always done it this way” is never a good reason to defend the status quo.
Our school calendar needs change as well. On Monday, Jan. 4, the rest of the world entered the rat race of the new year. However, because schools didn’t reopen until Tuesday, Jan. 5, many parents couldn’t get out of the starting block.
The Monday “off” was a much deserved teacher work day for unencumbered prep time. But even for those teachers with children attending our schools, it meant finding a way to keep their children occupied and safe. Some of our families have the resources to cover that extra day in camps while others have their “village” of friends, family and sitters. Some brought their kids into work and many had to take the day off.
The Tampa Tribune — Maybe a new “Stop the specialty tag madness” license plate will get the attention of lawmakers
Anyone who drives Florida’s roads can see there are too many specialty license tags and not enough rules to address the thorny free speech issues that put the state in an untenable position when groups — even those some might find objectionable — want to spread their message via state-sanctioned license plates.
A bill introduced this legislative session by Sen. Jeff Brandes, a Republican from St. Petersburg, would help reduce the number of tags. It would require pre-sales of 4,000 of a proposed specialty tag before approval is granted and would eliminate specialty tags that drop below 4,000 owners during any one-year period.
It would certainly lead to fewer specialty tags and is deserving of support by lawmakers. A similar measure was moving through the Legislature last year when the House ended the session three days early.
Law enforcement has long complained about the proliferation of tags and how they can be confusing to patrol officers.
Beyond that issue, though, is whether the state should be sanctioning tags for so many groups, some of them with political or religious agendas. We wish the Legislature would limit the tags to tax-funded agencies, such as those dealing with the environment or children’s welfare, or to public colleges and universities.
Let those agencies and institutions use the tag money to support their mission.
Tags that promote pro-life or pro-choice agendas or take on religious overtones, or promote tennis or surfing for that matter, have no business being sanctioned by the state. They open the door to any group that wants to get their message before the public, no matter how objectionable it might be to some Floridians.
A federal court ruling in 2011 found it unconstitutional for the state to approve some tags over others. The case involved the Sons of Confederate Veterans and a proposed “Southern Heritage” tag. For all of the groups wanting tags, the appeal goes beyond messaging. An annual fee of up to $25 for each specialty tag sold goes to the groups. No question, the money supports many worthwhile and charitable ventures, and has become a welcome revenue stream for those groups.
But the program has spun out of control.
