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U.S. Supreme Court

Bilirakis fields questions, addresses concerns

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U.S. Rep. Gus Bilirakis fielded questions from constituents during a virtual town hall-style meeting hosted by The Greater Zephyrhills Chamber of Commerce.

The Aug. 6 online “Breakfast with Bilirakis” meeting, allowed the Republican congressman to share various updates from Washington D.C. It also provided a forum for Bilirakis, who represents Florida’s 12th Congressional District, to listen to concerns and questions from East Pasco residents.

One pressing question involved the timeline of when the next COVID-19 stimulus package is coming.

U.S. Rep. Gus Bilirakis participated in a virtual town hall meeting hosted by The Greater Zephyrhills Chamber of Commerce on Aug. 6. He discussed COVID-19 relief, among other topics. (File)

Bilirakis attributed the lack of action by Congress to partisan politics between Democrats and Republicans. He pinned the bulk of the blame on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat.

“This could be done within a matter of hours if we take the politics out of it, but we all know it’s not realistic,” the Republican congressman said.

“Speaker Pelosi does not negotiate. Right now she feels like she’s winning politically, and she’s not putting the people who are really hurting, that need this assistance first, but, I think she’s getting closer and closer (to coming around).”

Republicans have called for $1 trillion in spending; Democrats have a $3.5 trillion plan.

One key difference in the plans involves the Democrats’ proposal to provide funding for large cities, such as New York and Chicago.

Bilirakis doesn’t agree with that.

His reasoned those cities, among others, “have been fiscally irresponsible for years and years and years,” long before the COVID-19 pandemic.

He put it like this: “Nothing against Chicago or New York City, I love those cities, but the management has been terrible, the leadership has been terrible in those particular cities recently.”

Even with ongoing differences between the two parties, Bilirakis is confident a second stimulus package will pass.

President Donald Trump has threatened executive action to break Congress’s impasse, Bilirakis said.

“I don’t blame him — people are suffering; they need help now,” the congressman said.

Bilirakis also is certain federal unemployment benefits will be extended, but doesn’t expect it be at the $600 per week rate.

“It might be a little bit of a different version,” Bilirakis said. He has co-sponsored a bill to ensure people receiving unemployment will not receive an amount that exceeds the amount they were getting paid while employed.

 

Need to help, but also to watch federal debt

Bilirakis also addressed the status of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) business loan program.

More funds will likely be added to program, he said, but he noted there is still $100 billion in loans available.

The next round of PPP loans should be geared toward businesses with 25 employees or fewer, he said. There also should be more flexibility to help the restaurants that are hurting, he added.

Bilirakis acknowledged the original $669-billion federal business loan program was put together hastily, during a state of emergency. Its language allowed some corporations, even charter schools, to take advantage of loans not meant for them.

“It was a successful program and we helped out a lot of businesses, but I think we’ve learned that we need to narrow the scope because a lot of big businesses took advantage,” he said.

The lawmaker expressed sympathy for struggling restaurants and other small businesses, too: “My goodness, you have these restaurants that have been around forever and they’ve survived wars, depressions, recessions, and now they’re closing up for good, and we just can’t have that.”

At the same, as COVID-19-related spending packages are implemented, Bilirakis emphasized the need to be concerned about the government’s increasing debt. The national debt rose to $26 trillion for the first time in June.

“I know this is a crisis and we’ve got to help folks, but we’ve got to be cognizant of this national debt, because we’re passing it on to our children, our grandchildren, our great-grandchildren in some cases,” Bilirakis said.

One constituent questioned Bilirakis on why the Trump administration has denied new or first-time applications for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, despite a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that blocked the president’s attempt to end DACA.

The DACA program grants protection from deportation of undocumented children brought to the country by immigrants.

Bilirakis responded: “I can’t explain it. Obviously, I’m not responsible for it, but what we can do is pressure the administration and (Attorney General) Bill Barr, to make sure that they follow up.”

The lawmaker expressed support for a single-subject immigration bill to protect DACA youth, but not one with amendments that offer similar protections for undocumented adults and illegal aliens — an ongoing point of contention between Democrats and Republicans.

With that, Bilirakis believes immigrant children will be granted protection at some point, but doesn’t foresee a piece of legislation to pass before the end of the year.

Said Bilirakis, “We should be passing a DACA bill to protect these kids, but the problem is everything’s political. They did nothing wrong themselves and they should not be punished. They only know the United States of America, in most cases.”

Another constituent probed the congressman about what types of COVID-19 safety measures have been put forth for active military and veterans.

Bilirakis explained the Tampa’s James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital and satellite facilities (like those in New Port Richey and Zephyrhills) are offering virtual appointments for primary care and other services. The program is “going pretty well,” he said.

Bilirakis said he is pushing to reopen or expand services at outpatient clinics for veterans, amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We’re trying to give them as much access as possible to health care,” he said.

Published August 12, 2020

This summer camp offers insights into solving crimes

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As many high school teenagers spend their summer break relaxing and having fun, a small group of students used their free time another way — dusting fingerprints, analyzing blood spatter patterns and studying forensic clues.

These campers were learning how to solve crimes as part of Saint Leo University’s inaugural Crime Scene Investigation (CSI) Summer Camp.

Saint Leo criminal justice instructor Dr. Bobby Sullivan, far left, lectures campers on various fingerprinting techniques at the university’s Crime Scene Investigation (CSI) Summer Camp. Sullivan has more than three decades of policing experience, including as a detective sergeant and commander of the narcotics, intelligence, street gang, and counter-terrorism units. (Courtesy of Saint Leo University)

The camp gave high school juniors and seniors a hands-on and behind-the-scenes look at evidence collection, documentation and preservation of evidence through a variety of mock crime scenes.

About a dozen rising high school juniors and seniors from Texas, Pennsylvania and Georgia, as well as Florida, took part in the weeklong camp at the university’s main campus on State Road 52 in St. Leo.

The camp was led by Saint Leo faculty members with extensive experience in the criminal justice system, as well as a host of experts in criminology. The camp offered a realistic glimpse at the hard work and critical thinking needed to locate, preserve and analyze evidence.

Activities included casting foot and tire impressions, and learning about the use of insects in crime scene decomposition.

Campers also learned how to locate and dig up human remains. And, they learned how to conduct interviews and interrogations, and to present their findings.

Saint Leo CSI campers practice documenting a crime scene outdoors, as Saint Leo assistant professor of criminal justice Joseph Cillo looks on.

The camp also included a field trip to the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office Forensics Services Section to learn about latent prints and blood spatter, tour an evidence locker, and view a vehicle being processed for evidence by forensic experts.

The camp culminated in three mock crime scenes, where students had to apply the knowledge they had learned throughout the week. The exercise included collecting and documenting evidence, and then presenting it to a mock grand jury. One such scenario required students to process a car used in a simulated kidnapping and homicide.

Many campers hope to someday work in a crime lab or law enforcement.

Alona Beadles, a rising high school senior from Atlanta, wants to be an FBI agent.

Leesburg’s Amanda Phillips, too, dreams of working for the agency.

Others, including Bradenton’s Vincent Gulbrandsen, want to become a forensic or behavioral analyst.

Here, camper Amanda Philips, of Leesburg, is in the process of casting a footprint. Phillips, a rising high school junior, wants to have a career in the FBI someday.

“I have always wanted to do something with solving crimes in some way,” said Gulbrandsen, who’ll be a senior at Lakewood Ranch High School.

Learning body decomposition and blood spatter patterns fascinated him most, along with the various techniques used in documenting a crime scene.

Said Gulbrandsen, “I really enjoyed learning about blood splatter…and how you can track which way the killer went with a weapon, or, you can track where the murder takes place, depending on the direction of the spatter.”

Charlotte Braziel, a Saint Leo criminal justice instructor and retired Tampa FBI agent, is the brainchild behind the CSI camp.

At the FBI, Braziel was senior team leader for the Tampa Evidence Response Team and a certified instructor of crime scene management, case management, presentation skills and defensive tactics.

As Braziel taught students crime scene techniques, she often referenced her past experience in the field, such as working high-profile cases on John Gotti Jr., and the Gambino organized crime family.

To drive home a point in other discussions, Braziel would mention other widely known cases, such as the O.J. Simpson murder case.

“They like the fingerprints. They like the blood spatter. They like the stuff that’s on TV,” Braziel said of the experience of teaching the campers.

In one midweek lesson, Braziel stressed the importance of crime scene photography, and how investigators and detectives need to take at least four basic photos — long-range, medium, close-up and close-up with scale.

Two other key takeaways from the photography lesson — you can never take too many photos; and, never, ever delete a photo. “Every time you go somewhere, you take a photograph,” she noted.

Real-life investigations not much like TV
In an adjacent classroom, Dr. Bobby Sullivan, another Saint Leo criminal justice instructor with more than three decades of policing experience with the Pasco Sheriff’s Office, pointed out the nuances of rigor mortis and lividity, and how forensic entomologists use maggots from a dead body to establish when a person died, and whether or not a body was moved.

Learning fingerprinting techniques was one of high school campers’ favorite exercises at the inaugural Saint Leo CSI Summer Camp.

Sullivan would certainly know, with his lengthy background as a former detective sergeant and commander of the narcotics, intelligence, street gang, and counter-terrorism units.

“Establishing the time of death is huge in an investigation, because now we know approximately when this person died…and we can figure out what (our suspect) was doing at 2 o’clock yesterday afternoon,” Sullivan told the campers.

Saint Leo assistant professor Joseph Cillo, meanwhile, gave students a different perspective into the criminal justice system.

Cillo, a former Los Angeles defense attorney and an expert on serial killers and mass murderers, as well as the U.S. Supreme Court, detailed the importance of forensic evidence collection in building an airtight criminal case.

In one demonstration, Cillo scattered handfuls of Milk Duds on a classroom floor — telling students to imagine each as a piece of evidence and a piece to a puzzle in crime solving. “You have to put them together to make a clearer picture,” Cillo said, “and you have to do it sufficiently so that defense attorneys can’t tear your evidence up.”

Retired Tampa FBI agent Charlotte Braziel, right, shows camper Samantha Stephenson, of Palatka, how to describe and document items at a crime scene, as part of Saint Leo University’s inaugural Crime Scene Investigation (CSI) Summer Camp, which ran from June 24 to June 29. The camp offered a realistic glimpse at the hard work and critical thinking needed to locate, preserve and analyze evidence.

Students discovered pretty quickly that what’s shown on TV dramas, like Criminal Minds, NCIS and CSI are, for the most part, embellished and sensationalized.

They also come to find out associated jobs within forensics oftentimes include long hours and tedious work, not to mention they’ll be placed in the center of unsavory crime scenes.

Sullivan explained what forensics work is really like can be a slap in the face to a lot of kids: “They’re watching CSI, and they’re seeing women running around in miniskirts and high heels, carrying guns and interviewing bad guys, and locking up the bad guys. They’re not seeing that you never see a bad guy, you never see a suspect — you are so focused on the crime scene and the evidence that the only time you may see a suspect is at trial when you’re testifying. You never talk to him, you don’t interview him, you don’t get in shootouts with bad guys; most forensics people don’t even carry guns, so, that’s kind of the wake-up call,” he said.

Though the assortment of TV crime dramas millions watch aren’t quite the real thing, campers did observe some likenesses, such as the fingerprinting technology used to nab suspects.

“It’s not like TV, but occasionally you’ll see something similar, but it’s not the same,” Philips said.

But, that realization didn’t deter some campers, including Gulbrandsen, who still want to work in criminology.

After the camp, the high-schooler is even more sure it’s the route he wants to take: “I’m very interested in going into the forensics field,” Gulbrandsen said.

Published July 18, 2018

Bondi asks court to clarify same-sex marriage ruling

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Saying she’s trying to correct the exact situation she originally tried to avoid, state attorney general Pam Bondi is asking U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle to clarify his August ruling that some say would make Florida the 36th state to allow same-sex marriage.

Both sides of the controversial issue are battling over what appears to be ambiguity in Hinkle’s ruling, which ordered a Panhandle county clerk to issue a same-sex marriage certificate following one of several cases making their way through the court. Bondi and a vast majority of the county clerks — including Pasco County’s Paula O’Neil — have said they will not begin issuing licenses the day after the stay is lifted Jan. 5, claiming it’s unclear if the ruling affects them, or just Washington County, which was originally sued.

“Due to this legal uncertainty, our clerk … has been advised by the Florida Court Clerks & Comptroller’s association and its legal counsel to refrain from issuing same-sex marriage licenses without a binding order issued by a court of proper jurisdiction,” O’Neil spokeswoman Debbie Gay said in a statement last week.

However, same-sex marriage proponents claim county clerks like O’Neil could be in legal trouble if they refuse to start issuing marriage certificates next week.

“Any Florida clerk who refuses to follow the Constitution’s command, and who withholds marriage licenses from couples once the stay expires, is on the wrong side of history, and the wrong side of the law,” said Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, in a statement through the gay rights advocacy group Equality Florida. “There is one Constitution, Florida is one state, and all Floridians are entitled to equal treatment throughout the state.”

In a motion filed Monday with Hinkle’s court, Bondi looked for the judge to clarify the ruling.

“The widespread confusion that now exists, as evidenced by multiple media reports, is precisely what the attorney general’s office sought to avoid while seeking a stay pending final resolution in favor of either side of the issue,” Bondi spokeswoman Jenn Meale said in a statement. “As stated in the response filed (Monday), if the federal court intended the injunction to have effects beyond those that appear on its face, the court may wish to provide appropriate clarification.”

The U.S. Supreme Court refused to intervene in the Florida case last week, where Hinkle struck down laws banning same-sex marriage, saying the state’s ban violated the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which provides for equal protection under the law. Hinkle refused to keep a stay in place for further appeal, which would technically allow same-sex marriages beginning Jan. 6.

It’s not clear if or when Hinkle will respond to the motion with more clarification, or if it will come ahead of the Jan. 6 date the stay is expected to be lifted.

Pasco won’t issue same-sex marriage licenses Jan. 6

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Florida is set to become the 36th state in the nation to allow same-sex marriages just after the new year starts. But don’t expect Pasco — or even neighboring counties — to join in.

The U.S. Supreme Court refused to intervene in a Florida case, where U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle struck down laws banning same-sex marriage in August, saying the state’s ban violated the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which provides for equal protection under the law. Hinkle refused to keep a stay in place for further appeal, which would technically allow same-sex marriages beginning Jan. 6.

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi appealed that decision to the Supreme Court, which decided last Friday not to reinstate the stay that would’ve put a hold on Hinkle’s decision.

Yet, there continues to be quite a bit of ambiguity when it comes to the court ruling, and whether or not county clerk’s offices — like Paula O’Neil’s locally — would be allowed to start issuing same-sex marriage licenses on Jan. 6.

“Due to this legal uncertainty, our clerk … has been advised by the Florida Court Clerks & Comptroller’s association and its legal counsel to refrain from issuing same-sex marriage licenses without a binding order issued by a court of proper jurisdiction,” said Debbie Gay, the interim director of records in O’Neil’s office, in a release.

On her website, O’Neil said there “has been a lot of press” about same-sex marriage in Florida, and as a constitutional officer, she is required to “support, protect and defend” the U.S. Constitution, as well as both federal and state laws. Those state laws, she said, currently prohibit marriage licenses to a couple that is not a man and a woman, and that a clerk who violates that prohibition is guilty of a criminal act that would make them subject to both fine and imprisonment.

The case Hinkle decided, O’Neil said, was specific to those who sued Washington County, and does not have authority or provide protection for clerks of court outside that county to issue same-sex marriage licenses.

Bondi, responding to the Supreme Court decision, also remained ambiguous on what the ruling would mean once the stay is lifted Jan. 5.

“Regardless of the ruling, it has always been our goal to have uniformity throughout Florida until the final resolution of the numerous challenges to the voter-approved constitutional amendment on marriage,” Bondi said in a statement. “Nonetheless, the Supreme Court has now spoken, and the stay will end on Jan. 5.”

Although clerks like O’Neil may be worried about criminal penalties if they start issuing same-sex marriage licenses, some gay rights groups warn clerks should be worried if they don’t.

“Any Florida clerk who refuses to follow the Constitution’s command, and who withholds marriage licenses from couples once the stay expires, is on the wrong side of history, and the wrong side of the law,” said Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, in a statement through the gay rights advocacy group Equality Florida. “A discredited memo from a law firm won’t provide much protection against the risk of being sued for unconstitutional actions, and being held liable for any damages — and attorney fees — incurred by couples as a result of withholding the freedom to marry. There is one Constitution, Florida is one state, and all Floridians are entitled to equal treatment throughout the state.”

Minter is referring to the legal opinion from the Greenberg Traurig law firm that clerks like O’Neil are adhering to in deciding whether or not to issue same-sex marriage licenses.

Florida first state to demand a single-subject Constitutional convention

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The first step in many to call the nation’s first Constitutional convention in nearly 230 years is on its way to Washington D.C., after a proposal from state Sen. Wilton Simpson earned approval from both the Florida House and Florida Senate.

S.M. 368 calls for an Article V Convention — named for the section of the U.S. Constitution that allows states to start the amendment proposal process. This particular convention would demand the U.S. Congress only consider and pass bills with a single subject. The goal is to eliminate the many unrelated riders that get attached to bills, amendments that may not have been passed otherwise on their own.

“This is about having the federal government start conducting themselves in a professional manner,” Simpson, R-Trilby, told The Laker/Lutz News back in January. “Most of the frustration we have with our government is that you have something like a spending bill in Congress. They always add on several hundred millions of dollars of something that has nothing to do with the subject they are dealing with. And as a citizen of the state of Florida, I am tired of our federal government being operated this way.”

What made it through the Legislature is not necessarily a bill, but instead a “memorial.” It demonstrates Florida’s support of a specific measure, in this case calling for a convention, and does not require the signature of Gov. Rick Scott.

However, that does not mean delegates should start making travel plans. At least 33 other states will have to pass similar or identical memorials before such a convention could be scheduled.

A convention of this sort is just one way to amend the Constitution, but one that is typically not used. In fact, the last time a convention was called this way, it was 1787, and that was to write the U.S. Constitution itself in Philadelphia.

Congress can propose Constitutional amendments, and then have them ratified by the states. However, if Congress doesn’t introduce such an amendment — which supporters of this movement believe Congress wouldn’t do — then the fallback position is to have states call for the convention directly.

The passage of the memorial was great news for W. Spider Webb Jr., a former Tallahassee lobbyist who founded the activist group Single Subject Amendment.

“Both parties are guilty about the use of riders,” Webb said in January. “We are not trying to give Congress a black eye. We are trying to improve the way Americans view Congress.”

Webb now plans to take the newly approved memorial to the national stage as he tries to convince other states to do the same thing.

“If Florida passes this, then other states will take a more serious look at this,” Simpson said earlier this year. “Doing a Constitutional amendment is such a large task, I think it will pick up momentum as more states pass it.”

Many state governments already prevent riders on bills, either by requiring bills to be single-subject, or giving governors the power to veto specific portions of a bill, and approving the rest.

President Bill Clinton tried to accomplish this at the federal level with a line-item veto act introduced by Republican U.S. Sen. Bob Dole in 1996. However, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that law unconstitutional in 1998.