Bills target online mugshots // DOCUMENTS

TALLAHASSEE — Proposed state legislation could deal pay-to-remove mugshot websites a fatal blow, but some worry the action would restrict access to public records.

Companion bills have passed unanimously through initial committee stops in both chambers, but take different approaches to solving the problem.

The Senate version (SB 298) would go after the websites directly, outlawing payment for removal, or modification, of online mugshots.

The House version (HB 265) would bar law enforcement agencies, including jails, from electronically publishing and disseminating mugshots. They still would be publicly accessible, but interested parties, like the media and commercial websites devoted to displaying mugshots, would need an individual public records request for each one and law enforcement could require payment. That could make the records costly, time-consuming and paperwork-intensive, critics argue.

Read the Senate bill

Read the House bill

The Florida Press Association, of which The News Herald is a member, has grave concerns about shutting down electronic dissemination. The bill creates a “news-gathering issue” because someone must go to the jail in person to pick up a hard copy of the mugshot, said Sam Morley, the group’s general counsel.

Jim McGuire, the group’s outside counsel, went a step further, ripping lawmakers for trying to impede access to public records.

“It’s the idea that the state constitution says government records are open, but let’s keep them closed by denying the easy means of access,” he said.

McGuire pointed out the workaround — that anyone with the time can go to the jail in person each day and make the request, print out the records and post them online. Local media have the resources to go to police stations, he said, but not the 9-to-5 working public, the disabled and the homebound.

Additionally, getting mugshots from another part of the state would require hours in the car or waiting for days by the mailbox, which “makes no sense,” McGuire said.

The House bill “just creates an unnecessary inconvenience and it assumes that public records generally are going to be used for a bad purpose rather than a good purpose,” he said. “And to me that’s counter to what the Florida Constitution stands for.”

Both lawyers sympathize with the Legislature’s effort to crack down on the pay-to-remove sites, but McGuire called it a “sledgehammer approach to a small problem.”

“Any solution which is going to … deny convenient access to government records is a bad solution,” he said.

Enforcement issues

Senate Criminal Justice Committee Chairman Greg Evers, R-Baker, gave the Senate version a hearing already and stands behind outlawing payment for the removal of mugshots.

Some, though, have pointed out Florida could not force websites outside the state to comply.

“There could possibly be enforcement problems, but … we’re looking at the different opportunities and the different avenues that are available,” Evers said, adding: “We’re still working and tweaking the language.”

Evers hinted a provision similar to the House language — removing electronic uploading and dissemination — could be included in the Senate bill, but he didn’t elaborate.

“In order for them to get the mugshots, they have to be generated out of the state of Florida,” he said.

House committee

House bill sponsor state Rep. Carlos Trujillo, R-Miami, said online mugshots hurt residents, particularly when companies do Internet searches on job candidates.

“What this bill accomplishes is making it illegal for some of these websites to exploit people who haven’t been convicted of a crime, with their booking photo,” Trujillo told the House Criminal Justice Subcommittee this month.

The bill advanced through the committee on a 13-0 vote.

The Florida Sheriffs Association has expressed concerns. Some sheriff’s offices are worried about public safety ramifications; they receive tips based on the mugshots and use them to notify the public about escaped prisoners, said Electra Theodorides-Bustle, who represents the group.

“There’s a lot of nuances to this bill that we want to talk to you about,” she told the committee.

Theodorides-Bustle said the sheriffs agree, however, with the bill’s goal to stop “extortion.”

Trujillo said exceptions addressing escaped prisoners and other scenarios could be put in the bill as it travels through the committee process.

Prior to the vote, Trujillo changed the bill with a “strike-all” amendment, which put it in its current form and, he said, made it “much more constitutional.” The amendment removed a provision, similar to the Senate bill, that would have made it illegal to receive payment to remove mugshots.

Gaetz’s mugshot

Committee Chairman Matt Gaetz, R-Fort Walton Beach, whose 2008 DUI mugshot is still online, pointed out the House bill’s goal would be to “frustrate the business model” for these websites by keeping the photos out of their hands.

Gaetz mentioned his mugshot during the meeting, saying it pops up when people search his name online, although the charge was dismissed.

“I’m of the view that that is part of who I am,” he said. “I made bad decisions (that) resulted in arrest and that is sort of something we all live with.”

These days, Gaetz said, people increasingly live their lives online, particularly the school-age generation.

Gaetz said a mugshot bill was filed last year, but he didn’t give it a hearing in his committee. He said he changed his mind this year because online mugshots are a big problem for some people, particularly those who “don’t put themselves forward to live a more public life” like he’s done.

Both the House and Senate bills have two more committee stops before advances to the chambers.

Like many other newspapers, The News Herald publishes mugshots online. However, there is never a charge for removing a mugshot, which is done if the defendant is not convicted, and with older mugshots that are routinely removed.