Recent editorials from Florida newspapers:
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Aug. 13
Tampa Bay Times on Florida’s “stand-your-ground” law:
Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Bernie McCabe made a reasonable decision to charge Michael Drejka with manslaughter in last month’s deadly Clearwater convenience store parking lot confrontation. The shooting, which erupted over use of a handicap parking space, took the life of Markeis McGlockton, a father of three, and shocked the community. But prosecutors still will have a high hurdle to overcome in showing that Drejka is not immune under Florida’s stand your ground law, which leaves too much chance for unwarranted killings to go unpunished. It’s a case study in why stand your ground has to go.
Drejka, 48, first confronted McGlockton’s girlfriend as she sat in her car at the Circle A Food Store on July 19, parked in a handicap space. Drejka was questioning why Britany Jacobs was using the space when McGlockton, 28, who was inside the store with his 5-year-old son, saw the argument and walked outside.
Surveillance video from the parking lot shows McGlockton approaching Drejka and pushing him to the ground. Drejka then pulls a gun and shoots McGlockton, who stumbles backward. Drejka told deputies after the incident that he was in fear of being attacked again - a key element of the stand your ground law, which eliminated any duty to retreat and allows people to use deadly force if they fear great bodily harm. But who’s to say whether Drejka believed he was in real danger or if he recklessly fired a deadly shot at someone who was backing away and was no longer a threat?
That’s a question Pinellas Sheriff Bob Gualtieri tried to answer and reached a different conclusion. Gualtieri cited the stand your ground law in opting not to arrest Drejka, though he said Monday he supports McCabe’s decision to bring a manslaughter charge. That’s how the system should work, but it also underscores the problems with the law that two veteran law enforcement officials, both of whom hold law degrees, could look at the same evidence and come to opposite conclusions.
Before a jury ever hears the evidence against Drejka, he will be entitled to an immunity hearing if he claims self-defense in the case. Last year, the Legislature amended the stand your ground law and made it even more insidious, flipping the burden of proof in such hearings to the prosecution. Now the state must show with “clear and convincing evidence” why a person should not be immune - instead of requiring a defendant who has killed someone to show why he shouldn’t have to stand trial. That’s both backward and dangerous.
Monday’s decision to bring a criminal case against Drejka is a positive step that will allow the public to see all the evidence and hear both sides of what led to McGlockton’s death. Like all criminal defendants, Drejka is entitled to a presumption of innocence and a fair process. But the process in Florida, as it stands now, has been tilted out of balance and needs correcting. Lawmakers should start by scrapping the stand your ground law.
Online: http://www.tampabay.com
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Aug. 14
Panama City News Herald on Sen. Bill Nelson claiming that Russian operatives have penetrated some of Florida’s election systems:
U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson has dropped a bombshell claim about the integrity of Florida’s election systems.
Russian cyberspooks “have already penetrated certain counties in the state and they now have free rein to move about,” Nelson told the Tampa Bay Times before appearing at campaign event in Tampa last week.
“We were requested by the chairman and vice chairman of the (Senate) Intelligence Committee to let the supervisors of election in Florida know that the Russians are in their records,” the three-term Democrat added to the Times.
Failure to protect election systems, Nelson said, would allow Russian operatives “to go in and start eliminating registered voters. …You can imagine the chaos that would occur on Election Day …. That’s exactly what the Russians want to do. They want to sow chaos in our democratic institutions.”
When the Times pressed for details, Nelson coyly replied, “That’s classified.” He then referred reporters to a July 2 warning letter he and Republican Sen. Marco Rubio sent to Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner.
That letter reminded Detzner of Russian efforts to hack election systems in 2016, and said bad actors had succeeded in breaching some Florida election networks “in a small number of cases.” The senators urged Detzner to take advantage of federal resources to block hacking attempts.
State election officials disputed Nelson’s claims, saying federal authorities had not informed them of any security breaches. Detzner’s office went so far as to say they had received “zero information” from Nelson himself about the breaches. The Department of Homeland Security subsequently pushed back against Nelson’s assertion, which he continued to stand by. …
If Nelson has specific information about the threat, he must make that public. Now. So we can stop it and correct any damage, if necessary.
Our leaders keep saying how important our elections are. And they’re right. If they truly believe that, and want us to believe they are sincere, then they need to explain the threat.
Beyond that, though, if Nelson fails to share his knowledge of these breaches, he actually feeds the chaos he attributes to Vladimir Putin.
To borrow from Nelson’s “what-if,” imagine the uproar and chaos that will ensue if he remains quiet and the much ballyhooed “blue wave” fails to materialize on Nov. 6, including in Nelson’s own election against Republican Gov. Rick Scott.
Democrats, of course, will have a ready excuse to explain away losses at the polls, and many Democrats will conclude that Republicans somehow cheated, with the aid of Russians. That not only would undermine their trust in the system, but divide our state and our communities even further, as Republicans would recoil from assertions of fraud elections. If that happens, Putin wins.
Sen. Nelson must stop that from happening. He needs to be open about what he knows. Sooner rather than later.
Online: http://www.newsherald.com
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Aug. 15
The Daytona Beach News-Journal on young voters:
Following the horror and chaos of the shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School, young people across the nation saw something they didn’t expect. They saw survivors who looked like them - who could have been their high-school classmates - take control of a debate that was raging long before any of those protesters were born.
And they saw their peers joining the discussion - some echoing the Parkland shooting survivors’ calls for stricter gun controls, others offering thoughtful rebuttals defending the Second Amendment. It was a modern children’s crusade, and it clearly pierced the feelings of apathy, helplessness and insignificance that many young Americans feel.
The result was a surge in voter registration among young people. In Volusia County, 1,351 people under the age of 30 registered to vote in the two and half months after the Feb. 14 tragedy in Parkland - almost double the number that registered in the preceding two and a half months, The News-Journal’s Cassidy Alexander reports. The shift was more subdued in Flagler County but Elections Supervisor Kaiti Lenhart says she’s seen a substantial number of young new voters.
Elections officials still don’t know, however, how those newly registered voters will turn out in the 2018 midterms. A Pew Research analysis shows that by 2010, the numbers of eligible voters among younger generations - people born after 1965 - outstripped the population of Baby Boomers and their predecessors. But that younger cohort has never fully exercised its clout; in the 2014 midterms, “younger generations accounted for 53 percent of eligible voters but cast just 36 million votes - 21 million fewer” than Boomers and older voters, the report says. Younger voters participated more in the 2016 election, giving them a slight majority over older voters, but among the younger cohort, Gen X voters (who range as old as 52) outstripped Millennials (aged 20 to 37 this year).
Millennials could take control this year - if they turn out. Some indicators suggest they won’t. But the state’s youngest voters - those most likely to be moved to action by the Parkland shootings - have seen firsthand how a watershed event can ripple through the tiers of federal, state and local officials. They have seen mayors, county commissioners and state lawmakers stand with them at rallies across the state. And they have seen others make political hay from mocking the Stoneman Douglas students. This year, they watched the Florida Legislature scramble to bolster school security - at the expense of classroom funding.
If they were watching, and many were, these young voters were also being shown how decisions made at all levels of government could impact their own futures. Even before Parkland, young voters were keenly aware of the issues most important to them: Social and racial inequalities. Climate change and environmental decline. The push to create good jobs and strong communities to raise families of their own. Anger at the ever-growing burden of government debt - bills these young voters will someday have to pay.
These are all issues that resonate up and down the ballot. If younger voters don’t weigh in, they might have to live with consequences many find unacceptable.
In the post-Parkland activism, one moment stands out: 18-year-old Emma Gonzalez, in front of hundreds of thousands of people on the National Mall and a TV audience of millions, fighting back sobs as she stood silent for more than three harrowing minutes - and then exhorting the crowd to “fight for your lives before it’s someone else’s job.” It was a rallying cry, and it was heard.
Young Americans take the first step when they register to vote. But the real fight is to show up - and raise their voice.
Online: http://www.news-journalonline.com
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