Title: Elimination of Potential Bias from Charging Decisions

Summary: Requires state attorney & statewide prosecutor to adopt two-tier system for charging criminal defendants that is designed to reduce potential for racial bias.

Full Text:
An act relating to elimination of potential bias from charging decisions; creating s. 925.13, F.S.; requiring each state attorney and the statewide prosecutor to adopt a two-tier system for charging criminal defendants that is designed to reduce the potential for racial bias; requiring documentation for certain decisions; requiring reports; authorizing rulemaking; providing an effective date. Be It Enacted by the Legislature of the State of Florida: Section 1. Section 925.13, Florida Statutes, is created to read: 925.13 Elimination of potential racial bias from charging decisions.-(1) Each state attorney and the statewide prosecutor shall adopt a two-tier system for charging criminal defendants. (a) Before a prosecutor may make a preliminary charging decision, all potentially racially identifying information shall be redacted from the information provided to the prosecutor. Such information includes the arrested person's name, race, photographs, videos, and any other information that would be likely to indicate the person's race. Based on this redacted information, a prosecutor shall then make a preliminary charging HB 2020 decision. (b) After a preliminar ycharging decision is made, the prosecutor may review the unredacted information before making a final charging decision in the case. (2) If a prosecutor changes the preliminary charging decision after reviewing the unredacted information, he or she must document what additional evidence caused the change in the charging decision. (3) Each state attorney and the statewide prosecutor shall, by October of each year, report to the Department of Law Enforcement the number of charging decisions changed af ter prosecutors reviewed the unredacted information, the additional evidence that caused such changes, statistics on the cases involved, the races of the defendants and victims in such cases, and any other information specified by the Department of Law Enforcement. The department shall, by December of each year, submit a report to the Governor, the President of the Senate, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives summarizing the information reported to it under this section and making any recommen dations for legislative changes necessary to reduce any biases in the criminal justice system revealed by the information reported. (4) The Department of Law Enforcement may adopt rules to administer this section. Section 2. This act shall take effec tJuly 1, 2021.