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Florida Constitution Revision Commission

PUB 700666: Investigate and Provide Legislative Oversight of Florida's "Existing" Parole System. by Shannon o Helton

ARTICLE III: LEGISLATURE, Section 5. Investigations; witnesses.

SECTION 5.Investigations; witnesses.

(a) Each house, when in session, may compel attendance of witnesses and production of documents and other evidence upon any matter under investigation before it or any of its committees, and may punish by fine not exceeding one thousand dollars or imprisonment not exceeding ninety days, or both, any person not a member who has been guilty of disorderly or contemptuous conduct in its presence or has refused to obey its lawful summons or to answer lawful questions. Such powers, except the power to punish, may be conferred by law upon committees when the legislature is not in session. Punishment of contempt of an interim legislative committee shall be by judicial proceedings as prescribed by law.

(b) Not later than one-hundred and eighty days from the effective date of this amendment, each house shall investigate and provide a legislative oversite report to the other house on (1) why review of official actions and orders of the Florida Commission on Offender Review (formerly the Florida Parole Commission) establishing presumptive parole release dates (PPRDs) for inmates, as indexed and published by the FLorida Division of Administrative Hearings on its website, WWW.DOAH.state.Fl.Us, confirms that the parole guidelines developed and implemented by the Commission in chapter 23-21 of the Florida Administrative Code are so undisaplined and infected with the subjectivity of individuals that (a) the Commission's own trained professionals (its commission investigators/hearing officers) can rarely if ever make a recommendation reguarding the establishment of a PPRD that Commissioners will afirm without change, and (b) the supreme court has held that a life sentence with the posibility of parole, based on the way Florida's "existing" parole system operates, actually resembles a life sentence. without the posibility of parole that is not proportionate to the offence and the offender, see Atwell v state, 197 So. 3d 1040, 1048 (Fla 2016); (2) whether remedial legislation should be inacted and applied both retroactively and prospectively to fairly and effectively remedy any and all problems identified by each house in their oversite reports.