Florida Lottery Warns Of Online Powerball Ticket Scam
January 13, 2016
The Florida Lottery is warning players of a lottery scam in which scammers are selling shares of Powerball tickets online.
The website includes the official Florida Lottery logo as well as information about all Florida Lottery games. They promote that they are a “USA POWERBALL Syndicate”, in which players purchase shares and all winnings are divided equally between each share.
Under Florida law, players cannot purchase any lottery ticket, including Powerball, over the internet, phone, or by mail. All lottery tickets must be purchased from an authorized Florida Lottery retailer in the state of Florida.
Florida Prison Boss Calls For More Staff, Shorter Shifts
January 13, 2016
Gov. Rick Scott is backing a request by Department of Corrections Secretary Julie Jones for 734 more prison workers and a reduction in staff shifts from 12 to eight hours.
The recommendations come after three separate audits blamed prison problems, including contraband like cell phones, on inadequate and overworked staff. Scott’s budget request, which came on the opening day of the 2016 legislative session, asks lawmakers for an $82 million increase in prison spending this year, which would bring the agency’s total budget to nearly $2.6 billion.
The additional workers will “make our institutions safer for inmates, agency staff and communities,” Scott said in a press releas
e. In the release, Jones blamed other prison woes on the current 12-hour shift model.
“Poor staff retention, increasing overtime expenditures, introduction of contraband, and staffing shortages are all due in some part to the officer fatigue and burnout associated with 12-hour shifts,” Jones said.
Jones’ budget request is part of an ongoing effort to clean up the state’s corrections system, which has been in the spotlight for allegations of cover-ups regarding prisoner deaths, brutality by prison guards and reports of widespread smuggling of contraband — including cell phones, cigarettes and drugs — into the facilities.
by The News Service of Florida
NorthEscambia.com file photo, click to enlarge.
Northview Chiefs Celebrate Senior Night
January 13, 2016
The Baker Gators defeated the Northview Chiefs 63-40 Tuesday night in Bratt.
It was Senior Night for the Chiefs as they honored Bradley Van Pelt, the only senior on the varsity Northview team. It was also the last home game of the regular season for the Chiefs. They are on the road January 14 at Freeport, January 15 at Jay and January 21 at W.S. Neal. The district tournament begins February 1 in Freeport.
For a photo gallery, click here.
NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.
Gulf Power Warns Of Continuing Scam
January 13, 2016
Gulf Power is continuing to warn customers of a scam in which area businesses received calls from a person claiming to represent Gulf Power and demanding payment — or their electric service would be cut off.
Gulf Power continues to work with law enforcement in reporting these incidents, but the company has received an escalated amount of calls from customers reporting fraudulent calls in recent days.
Customers are being told their electric bill is past due and that their electricity will be cut off if the customer does not provide a credit card payment or other forms of immediate payment.
Gulf Power advises customers that:
- Gulf Power employees will never call a customer at home seeking any personal information, including credit card numbers.
- Gulf Power representatives will never ask a customer for money when they visit a residence or business.
- All Gulf Power representatives carry badges with picture identification that includes the employee’s name and the company’s name and logo.
Customers should call Gulf Power at 1-800-225-5797 if they have any questions about the identity of anyone representing Gulf Power.
Gulf Power is working with local law enforcement agencies to identify the perpetrators. If anyone has been victimized by one of these schemes, or has any information about suspects, call local law enforcement and to contact Gulf Power at 1-800-225-5797.
Missing Woman Found Safe
January 13, 2016
An Escambia County woman reported missing last month has been found safe.
Family members reported Stefanie Bown missing on December 30 after they last saw her on December 23. The Escambia County Sheriff’s Office said Tuesday that she was found safe. She had reportedly left the area by choice.
Arbor Day Free Tree Giveaway On Thursday
January 13, 2016
In celebration of Florida’s Arbor Day, the Florida Forest Service, Escambia County, and UF IFAS Extension will give away 250 one-gallon trees. Participants will receive two trees of their choice of Dahoon Holly, Nuttall Oak and Willow Oak. The event will be held Thursday on the main campus of Pensacola State College located at 1000 College Boulevard in Pensacola. The event starts at 2:30 p.m. and ends when supplies run out.
County and forest service staff, extension agents and master gardeners will be available at to advise participants on tree types and proper tree care and placement in the landscape. The Arbor Day Celebration is funded through the U. S. Department of Agriculture and Florida Forest Service.
Scott Echoes Familiar Refrain In State Of State Address
January 13, 2016
In a narrowly-tailored speech focused on his two main priorities, Gov. Rick Scott used his State of the State address Tuesday to push lawmakers to adopt $1 billion in tax cuts and boost economic-development incentives.
Scott, who told lawmakers during the first day of the legislative session that he wanted accomplishments of “lasting significance,” highlighted what he said were the successes of his administration in helping create 1 million new jobs since he took office in 2011.
The governor’s office also announced that Scott would visit Orlando, Tampa and Sunrise on Wednesday on the first leg of his “Million Miles for a Million Jobs” bus tour.
“The state of Florida is, in one word, growing,” Scott said. “Together, we have completely turned our economy around and more families are thriving here today than five years ago…But we cannot let up.”
The governor has essentially staked his legislative session on the success of two initiatives: The tax cut and devoting $250 million to a new “Florida Enterprise Fund” to help lure employers to the Sunshine State. While hammering away at those two topics in his address, the governor gave short shrift to other proposals, including an increase in education spending to record levels and measures he says would curb “price-gouging” by hospitals.
Scott used the words “job” or “jobs” 31 times in his speech, according to the prepared text, and “tax” or “taxes” another 19 times. By contrast, he used the word “education” twice.
The governor also took time to focus on the threat of the Islamic State terrorist group, also known as ISIS. The group and its sympathizers have been blamed for bloody attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif.
“No one can dispute that ISIS is evil,” said Scott, who is rumored to be interested in running for U.S. Senate in 2018. “Our next president must make it their mission to immediately eliminate the threat of ISIS to the United States of America.”
Scott did not propose any new policies for confronting the group.
Democrats hammered Scott’s focus on tax cuts and business incentives. Senate Minority Leader Arthenia Joyner, D-Tampa, said Scott’s wealthy allies have “the best governor money can buy,” even as the governor ignores other problems.
“He’s fond of helping his Florida,” Joyner said in response to the address. “But he’d rather forget the other one.”
House Minority Leader Mark Pafford, D-West Palm Beach, suggested that political maneuvering shaped Scott’s remarks.
“Maybe was this was his vie for vice president under Donald Trump, I don’t know,” Pafford said. “But it was a real waste of time.”
Republicans, though, defended the governor’s focused agenda after a series of special legislative sessions in 2015 that featured grinding conflicts between the House and Senate. Counting the regular session, lawmakers met four times last year, and finished their main task in just one of those gatherings.
Rep. Manny Diaz, R-Hialeah, said Scott’s approach would give lawmakers “flexibility” in dealing with issues confronting the state.
“I think that there was probably a strategy to it because of the fact that we’re coming off a rough session and, going into this session, having some narrow goals to try to get to I think was a good move,” Diaz said.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Galvano, a Bradenton Republican in line to become the Senate president after the 2018 elections, said the focus on jobs was nothing new for Scott, who ran for office six years ago promising an economic turnaround.
“To his credit, he’s maintained the same message his entire tenure as governor and during his campaign as well,” Galvano said. “We do have many more issues that need to be addressed other than simply addressing tax cuts.”
Galvano said he was surprised that Scott didn’t mention a proposed extension of a gambling agreement with the Seminole Tribe that would bring the state an additional $3 billion over seven years.
Scott’s lobbying on his main priorities might be paying off.
House Speaker Steve Crisafulli, R-Merritt Island, said Tuesday his chamber would try to meet the governor’s goal of $1 billion in tax cuts.
However, the speaker also indicated that lawmakers instead might focus more on one-time tax cuts, to avoid weakening the state’s revenue picture in future years. Legislative leaders have expressed concern that providing too many tax cuts that continue year after year could create shortfalls down the road.
“We obviously have a lot of commitments, whether it be education or other issues in the state that we obviously have to make sure that we take care of, but at the end of the day, a $1 billion total number is what we have in mind,” Crisafulli told reporters.
by Brandon Larrabee, The News Service of Florida
Nine Mile Road Murder Case Leads To U.S. Supreme Court Rejecting Florida Death Penalty Sentencing
January 13, 2016
In a “monumental,” decision from an Escambia County case, the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down Florida’s capital-punishment sentencing system, saying that juries — not judges— should be responsible for imposing the death penalty.
The 8-1 decision coincided with the opening day of the 2016 legislative session, sending Republican lawmakers scrambling to address what could have far-reaching implications on death penalty cases throughout the state.
Tuesday’s ruling focused on what are known as “aggravating” circumstances that must be found before defendants can be sentenced to death. A 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, in a case known as Ring v. Arizona, requires that determination of such aggravating circumstances be made by juries, not judges.
Florida requires juries to make recommendations to judges regarding the death penalty after considering aggravating and mitigating circumstances, with judges ultimately imposing the sentences.
But Florida’s unique law giving judges the power to decide whether defendants should face death equates to an unconstitutional violation of the Sixth Amendment right to a trial by jury, Justice Sonya Sotomayor write in the majority opinion.
The high court’s decision came in the appeal of convicted murderer Timothy Lee Hurst, who was sentenced to death for the 1998 killing of fast-food worker Cynthia Harrison in Pensacola. Harrison, an assistant manager at a Popeye’s Fried Chicken restaurant where Hurst worked, was bound, gagged and stabbed more than 60 times. Her body was found in a freezer.
The jury in the Hurst case recommended a death sentence to the judge, but its vote was split seven to five.
In sentencing Hurst to death, a judge found two aggravating circumstances — that the murder was committed during a robbery and that it was “especially heinous, atrocious or cruel.”
But the decision should not have been the judge’s, Sotomayor wrote.
“The Sixth Amendment requires a jury, not a judge, to find each fact necessary to impose a sentence of death. A jury’s mere recommendation is not enough,” she wrote.
Sotomayor also rejected “a bevy of arguments” made by the state for why Hurst’s sentence was constitutional.
“None of them holds water,” she wrote.
The majority opinion also overruled two previous U.S. Supreme Court rulings that had upheld Florida’s capital sentencing structure.
“Time and subsequent cases have washed away the logic” of those cases, known as Spaziano and Hildwin, Sotomayor wrote.
In a dissent, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that, at the time of sentencing, judges perform “what amounts, in practical terms, to a reviewing function.” While judges can impose a different sentence from that recommended by the jury, the judge must give the jury’s recommendation “great weight,” Alito wrote.
Harrison’s death was so heinous that, if given the opportunity, the jury would have ordered Hurst to be executed anyway, Alito wrote.
It was not immediately apparent whether Tuesday’s decision would have an impact on more than 400 Death Row prisoners in the state, which has the nation’s second-highest number of inmates sentenced to death, or on two executions that Gov. Rick Scott has scheduled in February and March.
But the decision will likely cause an avalanche of appeals in cases already decided and will certainly affect cases in which sentences have not been imposed, legal experts said.
“This may very, very well stop executions in Florida for quite a time while all of these cases might be pending,” said former Florida Supreme Court Justice Gerald Kogan, a death penalty opponent and one of three former justices who filed briefs supporting Hurst’s challenge. “What has happened today is, in my opinion, going to basically cause a moratorium on capital cases until the Supreme Court has time to sort this out.”
The decision is likely to spur an avalanche of appeals, Kogan predicted.
“Attorneys who know what they’re doing are going to go ahead and file whatever actions they can to prevent their clients from being executed,” said Kogan, who described the ruling as “monumental.”
Scott told reporters he was reviewing the decision and did not say whether he would put the planned executions on hold. Attorney General Pam Bondi also said she is reviewing the opinion.
Marty McClain, a lawyer who has represented Death Row inmates in Florida for at least two decades, said Tuesday’s decision was more complicated than it appeared because it “changes the boundaries” of first-degree murder convictions that result in death sentences.
“How to proceed with death cases in Florida is completely in chaos at the moment until we know what the Legislature and what the (Florida) Supreme Court are going to do,” McClain said.
Republican legislative leaders pledged to settle the issue during the legislative session already underway.
“It does create legal challenges in Florida. As a policy maker, I think it will be a high priority for the Legislature to remedy the defects in our death penalty process so that this issue is quickly resolved,” said Sen. Joe Negron, a Stuart Republican who will become Senate president in November and now chairs the committee responsible for criminal justice spending.
The decision striking down the state’s death-penalty sentencing structure comes nearly three years after Scott signed into law a bill, sponsored by Negron and Rep. Matt Gaetz, aimed at reducing delays in death penalty cases.
Gaetz, R-Fort Walton Beach, said lawmakers are “obligated to step forward and come up with a reasonable solution” to Tuesday’s ruling.
“What’s important is this is a problem we can fix. This isn’t like some Supreme Court decisions which forever bind us to a particular ideology. Here, we simply have to adjust and modernize our death penalty system so that it comports with what the Supreme Court has said, and when we do that I think we’ll be right back on track to have a good system in place,” he said.
by Dara Kam, The News Service of Florida
Lady Gators Down NHS
January 13, 2016
The Baker Lady Gators defeated Northview 60-43 Tuesday night in Bratt.
The Lady Chiefs are next on the road against Freeport on January 14 followed by Jay on January 15.
NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.
Atmore Man Arrested On Drug, Weapons Charges
January 13, 2016
The Atmore Police Department has arrested a convicted felon on weapons and drug charges.
Police said 35-year old Derrick Knighten of Atmore was driving when they conducted a traffic stop on a vehicle on Martin Luther King Drive after receiving a complaint about a possible stolen vehicle. Knighten was in possession of a firearm, and inside the vehicle they found the “precursor items used to make methamphetamine” and a clear plastic bag believed to contain methamphetamine, according to Chief Chuck Brooks.
Knighten was charged with possession of a pistol by felon, possession of an altered firearm identification, possession on drug paraphernalia and manufacture of a control substance. Police said additional charges are pending.
Knighten was booked into the Escambia County (AL) Detention Center in Brewton.