Jesse Scheckner
Cop killers won’t get off easy due to a misinterpretation of Florida law, according to a bill that is near passage. However, a slight change the House made to the proposed language will require one final vote in the Senate.
In a 116-0 vote, the House passed SB 234, setting a minimum life sentence without parole for killing a police officer.
The bill eliminates statutory language to clarify that a person cannot resist an officer with violence or the threat of violence while the officer is performing official duties. It also defines “good faith” by an officer as making “sincere and reasonable efforts to comply with legal requirements, even if the arrest, detention, or other act is later found to be unlawful.”
SB 234’s House sponsor, Jacksonville Republican Rep. Jessica Baker, amended the bill ahead of Tuesday’s vote to replace language referring to “lawful or unlawful arrest” with “any arrest.”
She said that change, along with other provisions in the bill, should bring some solace to the loved ones of its namesake.
SB 234 is 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 Raynor 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 Baker and Fort Myers Republican Sen. Jonathan Martin, both of whom were former Assistant State Attorneys, though neither succeeded.
Ormond Beach Republican Sen. Tom Leek, a lawyer by training, carried the Senate bill this Session. He amended it earlier this month to retain the “good faith” standard at the request of the chamber’s Black Caucus.
“Case law is clear. A court has held that a person is not entitled to the use of physical force to contest any arrest, even an illegal arrest, meaning lack of reasonable suspicion or lack of probable cause,” Rayner said Tuesday.
“What this bill is doing is it’s removing this confusing language in our Florida Statutes, the language that says, ‘lawful performance of a legal duty’ or ‘execution of a legal duty,’ and it’s replacing it with language that the court has held it to mean in more laymen’s terms. It’s held that those sentences mean when an officer is engaging in the performance of his or her official duties.”
Baker tabled her version of the bill (HB 175) in favor of the Senate version, which will now return to the upper chamber for what is likely a final vote.
