Ana Ceballos
A 135-year-old law that makes it a first-degree misdemeanor to defame a woman for being unchaste would be repealed under a bill that cleared its first of three Senate committee stops on Monday.
“In our modern society these penalties are too severe for an issue that has mostly been handled among two private citizens in private proceedings,” said Sen. Daphne Campbell, a Miami Democrat sponsoring SB 1060.
A first-degree misdemeanor could be punishable for up to a year in jail or a $1,000 fine.
The measure would also repeal a provision that makes it a crime to make derogatory statements about a bank, building or loan association.
Members in the Senate Criminal Justice Committee praised Campbell for championing the effort to repeal these defamation laws and advanced it with a unanimous panel vote. Chairman Rob Bradley said Campbell’s bill is one of his favorite proposals this session, and joked that he wished he would have thought of it first.
“We should clear our state statute of these archaic and silly crimes,” Bradley tweeted after the committee vote.
While Campbell’s bill has two more stop before it can head to the full Senate floor for consideration, the trek for an identical bill in the House has proven more difficult.
State Rep. Al Jacquet, a Lantana Democrat, filed HB 6019 last October and it has yet to gain momentum in his chamber. His proposal has two committee assignments, but has yet to be heard in one.
