Opinion ID: 1819622
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Existing State of the Law and the History of the Statutory Amendment

Text: The previous version of the statute read: Unless otherwise indicated in the treatment plan provided by the sexual offender treatment program, a prohibition on viewing, owning, or possessing any obscene, pornographic, or sexually explicit material. § 948.03(5)(g), Fla. Stat. (1995). And the majority concludes that [g]iven that the previous version of the statute already prohibited the possession of any `obscene, pornographic, or sexually explicit material,' the 1997 amendment seems intended to narrow the prohibition's scope. Majority op. at 809. The majority's supposition is unfounded. Not only is it contrary to what the session law title unambiguously reveals, there is also absolutely nothing in the 1997 amendment's history to suggest any intention to relax the preexisting blanket ban on obscene, pornographic, or sexually stimulating material. Indeed, the opposite is true: The Legislature amended section 948.03(5)(g) (postamendment 948.03(5)(a)(7)) to improve the effectiveness of supervising sex offenders in the community by (1) retaining the broad prohibition against obscene or pornographic materials by leaving that language unchanged; (2) changing the phrase sexually explicit materials to sexually stimulating visual or auditory materials in order to clarify the breadth of the prohibition; and (3) adding a prohibition of telephone, electronic media, computer programs, or computer services that are relevant to the offender's deviant behavior pattern. Ch. 97-328, Laws of Fla. The effect of this change is an expansion, rather than a limitation, of the prohibition regarding obscene, pornographic, and sexually stimulating materials. The overall scheme the Legislature enacted in 1997 evinces an intent to fortify control of sex offenders. Specifically, the Legislature enacted the following new restrictions: [P]rohibiting a sex offender from possessing telephone, electronic media, or computer programs or services that are relevant to the offender's behavior pattern; requiring that a sex offender submit to certain warrantless searches; requiring a sex offender whose crime was committed on or after a specified date to undergo polygraph examinations; requiring that such offender maintain a driving log and not drive a motor vehicle alone without prior approval; prohibiting such offender from obtaining or using a post office box without prior approval; requiring such offender to submit to HIV testing; requiring such offender to submit to electronic monitoring.... Ch. 97-308, Laws of Fla. The Legislature also tightened the following existing restrictions: (1) changing the discretionary curfew into a mandatory curfew; (2) requiring a sex offender treatment program to be conducted by specifically trained therapists, unless such a trained therapist is not available; (3) requiring the additional approval from the victim and the therapist in addition to the sentencing court in order for a sex offender to contact the victim; and (4) requiring approval by the sentencing court in order for an offender to engage in unsupervised contact with a child, if certain other conditions are met. Id. Together with section 948.03(5)(a)(7), these measures constitute a comprehensive scheme to fortify community containment of sex offenders. Read in this context, it is apparent that the Legislature amended section 948.03(5)(g) (postamendment 948.03(5)(a)(7)) to expand, rather than limit, the existing prohibition. Specifically, the clause regarding telephonic, electronic, or computerized materials was added to target otherwise benign services or materials that are used by some sex offenders as part of their particular deviancy. [33] Examples of how this new restriction applies is the case of a sex offender whose deviant behavior pattern includes either luring children to meet him by trolling Internet services like MySpace.com or one who uses these media to trade in child pornography. This reasoning that the 1997 change was intended to expand the scope of prohibition, not to retract it as the majority holds, is even more compelling when one considers the evil to be corrected.