Workman, himself married with two children, stressed that his legislative initiative is not anti-marriage or anti-family. Rather, he described it as a practical move to remove statutes that are no longer realistic in today's society. Workman said most legislators, even those who are more conservative in Florida, don't want to discuss cohabitation and adultery.
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The offenses that qualify a juvenile as a sexual offender include: Section Investigators in sex crime cases should be cognizant of this change when interviewing victims.
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Contact Our Office. Meet the Attorneys Jason D. Read more Leslie M. Both sections are of general application, both require proof of intercourse to sustain a conviction, and both authorize imprisonment up to two years.
The fourth section of the chapter, A one-year prison sentence is authorized. The conduct it reaches appears to be the same as is proscribed under the first two sections of the chapter. This offense, however, is distinguishable from the other sections of the chapter in that it is the only one which does not require proof of intercourse along with the other elements of the crime. The elements of the offense as described by the trial judge are the 1 habitual occupation of a room at night, 2 by a Negro and a white person 3 who are not married.
The State presented evidence going to each factor, appellants' constitutional contentions were overruled and the jury returned a verdict of guilty. Solely on the authority of Pace v. Alabama, U. We noted probable jurisdiction, U. We deal with the single issue of equal protection and on this basis set aside these convictions. Florida makes no claim to the contrary in this Court.
However, all whites and Negroes who engage in the forbidden conduct are covered by the section and each member of the interracial couple is subject to the same penalty.
In this situation, Pace v. Alabama, supra, is relied upon as controlling authority. In our view, however, Pace represents a limited view of the Equal Protection Clause which has not withstood analysis in the subsequent decisions of this Court. In that case, the Court let stand a conviction under an Alabama statute forbidding adultery or fornication between a white person and a Negro and imposing a greater penalty than allowed under another Alabama statute of general application and proscribing the same conduct whatever the race of the participants.
But taking quite literally its own words, 'for the same offense' emphasis supplied , the Court pointed out that Alabama had designated as a separate offense the commission by a white person and a Negro of the identical acts forbidden by the general provisions.
There was, therefore, no impermissible discrimination because the difference in punishment was 'directed against the offence designated' and because in the case of each offense all who committed it, white and Negro, were treated alike.
Because each of the Alabama laws applied equally to those to whom it was applicable, the different treatment accorded interracial and intraracial couples was irrelevant. This narrow view of the Equal Protection Clause was soon swept away.
While acknowledging the currency of the view that 'if the law deals alike with all of a certain class' it is not obnoxious to the Equal Protection Clause and that 'as a general proposition, this is undeniably true,' the Court in Gulf, C.
Ellis, U. This approach was confirmed in Atchison, T. Matthews, U. Louisiana, U. Greene, U. Royster Guano Co. Virginia, U. Appliance Corp. Day, U. Coleman, U. Harrison, U. Oklahoma ex rel. Williamson, U. Texas, U. Illinois, U. Doud, U. Pennsylvania, U. California, U. Judicial inquiry under the Equal Protection Clause, therefore, does not end with a showing of equal application among the members of the class defined by the legislation. The courts must reach and determine the question whether the classifications drawn in a statute are reasonable in light of its purpose—in this case, whether there is an arbitrary or invidious discrimination between those classes covered by Florida's cohabitation law and those excluded.
That question is what Pace ignored and what must be faced here. Normally, the widest discretion is allowed the legislative judgment in determining whether to attack some, rather than all, of the manifestations of the evil aimed at; and normally that judgment is given the benefit of every conceivable circumstance which might suffice to characterize the classification as reasonable rather than arbitrary and invidious.
See, e. Maryland, U. McGinley, U. Bowers, U. New York, U. Natural Carbonic Gas Co. But we deal here with a classification based upon the race of the participants, which must be viewed in light of the historical fact that the central purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment was to eliminate racial discrimination emanating from official sources in the States.
This strong policy renders racial classifications 'constitutionally suspect,' Bolling v. Sharpe, U. United States, U. Thus it is that racial classifications have been held invalid in a variety of contexts.
Woolls Virginia Board of Elections v.
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