Jesse Scheckner
One week after he postponed a measure amid outcry from Black Caucus members, Ormond Beach Republican Sen. Tom Leek returned to the Senate floor with an amendment that addressed the concerns of his colleagues.
There was a brief discussion, all of it heartfelt, considerate and appreciative. Then the legislation (SB 234) to enhance penalties for people found guilty of killing a police officer passed 37-0.
“After the last time we heard this, we worked together with everyone to make sure that we came up with good policy,” Leek said.
SB 234 and its House analog (HB 175) would, if enacted by the Legislature, would require defendants convicted of manslaughter in cases involving the death of a police officer to receive life sentences without parole.
It would eliminate statutory language to clarify that a person cannot resist an officer with violence or the threat of violence when the officer is performing his or her official duties. That change is necessary, the House bill’s Republican sponsor Jessica Baker of Jacksonville said, because “jurors can get confused” when interpreting the law and defense lawyers have used that confusion to secure lighter sentences for their clients.
But the legislation, until Leek amended it Thursday, would have also removed from statutes a “good faith” standard for officers. That was too far an overreach, according to several Black Senators, who argued last week for an amendment that Miami Gardens Democratic Sen. Shevrin Jones proffered to preserve the standard in Leek’s bill.
Leek rejected Jones’ amendment last week, prompting a heated, cross-aisle debate that at one point saw Jones raise his voice at Fort Myers Republican Sen. Jonathan Martin for attributing some fear of police violence to “lies in the media.”
Thursday saw none of that tension. Leek’s amendment included the provision Jones’ item aimed to preserve and went further, defining good faith as making “sincere and reasonable efforts to comply with legal requirements, even if the arrest, detention, or other act is later found to have been unlawful.”
Jones called it “a very good amendment” and commended Leek, Senate President Ben Albritton, Majority Leader Jim Boyd and Naples Republican Sen. Kathleen Passidomo “for being amenable to it.”
“We really appreciate you,” he said.
St. Augustine Democratic Sen. Darryl Rouson, who made history as Pinellas County’s first Black prosecutor and joined Jones in criticizing the bill last week, commended Leek too.
“It is the floor of the Senate where hard debate is supposed to take place, where we’re supposed to be agreeable about things that we disagree on,” he said.
“It was very important to the constituents of certain members of the Senate that ‘good faith’ remained in the bill. We didn’t want it to appear that we were condoning wrongful conduct on the part of an officer, so by including ‘good faith’ and the definition for it, we set a standard. And that’s important.”
SB 234 and HB 175, which now awaits a House floor vote, are titled the “Officer Jason Raynor Act” after Daytona Beach Police Officer Jason Raynor, who was fatally shot in 2021.
Prosecutors sought a first-degree murder charge against Raynor’s killer, Othal Wallace, who resisted lawful detainment by Raynor, forced a physical confrontation and in less than 30 seconds pulled a gun and shot the officer in the head. Jurors instead found Wallace guilty of a lesser manslaughter charge, which carries a maximum 30-year prison sentence when the crime involves a firearm.
Community outrage followed Wallace’s sentencing. So did bills last year from Martin and Baker, both former Assistant State Attorneys, neither of which succeeded.
Before the Senate passed the measure, Leek held up a letter from Raynor’s mother.
“To the Raynor family,” he said, ‘this is for you.”
