Individual Rights and Responsibilities

Individual Rights and Responsibilities

Florida--Committee on Individual Rights and Responsibilities--Member Interests

Florida--Bar Legislation Committee--Bills

Individual Rights--Florida

An article about various bills and interests that the Committee on Individual Rights and Responsibilities in the Florida Bar supports.

Pequignot, Margot

HIST 298, University of Mary Washington

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Florida

The Committee on Individual Rights and Responsibilities concentrated its efforts this year on legislative matters. Under the guidance of member Michael Mello, the committee studied and voted to support the “jury override” bill. The proposal would revise the death penalty statute to require that a jury recommendation of mercy in capital cases be binding on the court. The bill was presented to the Bar’s Legislation Committee, which recommended that the Board of Governors support it. The Board approved lobbying efforts by The Florida Bar in active support of the jury override bill during the 1986 session.

The second bill supported by the committee was drafted by Abbey Hairston’s Subcommittee on Employee Rights. The original proposal would have created a cause of action for any employee wrongfully terminated for notifying authorities of illegal activities conducted by his or her employer. Opposition from the Corporation, Banking and Business Law Section resulted in a revision to the bill which limited its applicability to public employees. The Individual Rights Committee received approval from the Board of Governors to lobby for the revised proposal.

Other issues studied by the committee this year included the rights of AIDS victims. Member Allen Terl provided the committee with specific instances of discrimination against AIDS victims and agreed to chair a subcommittee to determine how the committee can most effectively minimize this threat to individual rights.

The three substantive areas of greatest interest to members continue to be privacy rights, employees’ rights, and individual rights in medical matters. Other issues discussed during this year’s committee meetings were children’s rights, victims’ rights, the rights of aliens, and collateral appeals in capital cases.

In January, the committee voted to support both legislative and judicial efforts to prohibit the imposition of the death penalty on defendants under the age of 18. This issue has been agendaed for future study and action.

The scope of the term “privacy rights” has made it difficult for the committee to focus its efforts in this area. Specific issues of interest to members include computer intrusion, fingerprinting of children, and mandatory lie detector tests. The committee will continue to study these issues.

The committee rejected a suggestion that a public interest section be formed within the Bar and voted that individual rights and responsibilities remain a standing committee. Similarly situated committees adopted the same position.

The committee has discussed forming a subcommittee on the responsibility of attorneys to apprise the public of both their responsibilities and rights as citizens. It is hoped that this project will gain momentum in the coming year.

Members who have actively participated in the committee’s work this year have found that participation to be extremely rewarding.

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