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In 1999, the Florida Supreme Court rendered a decision invalidating an “Electric Utility Privilege Fee” imposed by Alachua County upon electric providers using the County’s rights-of-way to deliver electric service. The Court took the case on appeal of a circuit court order withholding validation of bonds to be issued by the County based upon such fees. Relying on a stipulated record largely devoid of factual support for a valid fee, the Florida Supreme Court rejected the fee by applying seven criteria to the record. These criteria included the relationship of the fee to (1) the extent of use of the right-of-way by the utility; (2) “the reasonable rental value of the land” occupied by the utility; (3) the local government’s costs of regulating the utility’s use of the right-of-way; (4) the cost of maintaining the portion of the right-of-way used by the utility; (5) the fee’s origin (i.e., bargained-for agreement vs. unilateral imposition); (6) the utility’s ability to avoid the fee by removing or relocating its equipment; and (7) the use by the local government of the revenue derived from the fee.

On June 23, 2005, when Justice John Paul Stevens announced the majority opinion in Kelo v. City of New London, the national outrage was palpable. The United States Supreme Court held that a Connecticut statute permitting local governments to condemn private property for the purpose of economic redevelopment was consistent with the Constitution’s “public use” requirement for the exercise of eminent domain. Popular magazines, newspapers, talk show hosts, and local, state, and national politicians joined in a nearly unanimous condemnation of the ruling. As of this writing, legislation aimed at “overturning” Kelo, or at least ensuring that its precepts are legislatively blocked, has been
introduced in forty-five states.4 Congress is now considering legislation with similar intent.

Florida’s beautiful beaches, expanding job market, and moderate climate attract thousands of new residents to the state each year. In addition, Florida’s population swells by approximately 920,000 during winter months, as “snowbirds” and other longterm visitors flock to the state to enjoy its warm weather and recreational opportunities. While this growth is undoubtedly good for the state’s economy, increases in population can also negatively impact quality of life.

In 2004, Florida ranked forty-fifth among the fifty states in terms of the state and local tax burden imposed on its residents. This statistic should not surprise anyone who is familiar with Florida’s constitutionally imposed tax structure that provides for prohibitions against certain taxes and exemptions from others. Floridians do not care to be taxed, and the State’s Constitution reflects that sentiment.

The homestead exemption is one such constitutional right that is deeply ingrained in Florida’s history. The original purpose behind the homestead exemption was to protect the family unit from losing its home during times of economic hardship. Today, the Florida Constitution protects the homestead by placing restrictions on transfer, allowing significant exemptions from creditors’ claims, and providing for a $25,000 tax exemption on the taxable value of a primary residence. This Comment will focus on part three of the homestead equation, the $25,000 tax exemption, and its interplay with the more recently passed Save Our Homes Amendment. While reducing the property tax burden on permanent resident homeowners, the $25,000 tax exemption has also removed billions of dollars from the State’s tax rolls each year since its passage in 1980.

Arnulfo Chapa filled two boxes with his personal belongings and brought them into prison, where they remained under the care of the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) during his detention as a federal prison inmate. When the BOP transferred Mr. Chapa from the La Tuna Federal Correctional Institute in Texas to a federal prison camp in Louisiana, the BOP was responsible for ensuring the safety of his belongings during the transfer. The BOP claimed that it had taped the two boxes together and shipped them in this condition. However, when Mr. Chapa contacted the shipping company, he was informed that only one of his two boxes of personal belongings had been shipped by the BOP. Mr. Chapa subsequently brought suit against the Department of Justice under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA)6 for the BOP’s negligent
handling of his personal belongings, which resulted in the loss of one of the two boxes that he had placed in the BOP’s care. Although the FTCA was likely the only means of recovery available to Mr. Chapa, he was barred from recourse under the FTCA. Like most federal courts, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that BOP officials are immune from liability under the FTCA’s detention of property provision. This conclusion, however, is erroneous and, in the Author’s opinion, derives from an improper construction of the FTCA.

My talk today is titled Citizenship in a Time of Repression and addresses the responsibilities of citizens, including lawyers, in safeguarding civil liberties. I considered whether to select a blander, less provocative title, but decided that I could not do so, for I feel in my heart that our rights as citizens to the truth and to basic liberties are being repressed by our own government, and that we have to stand up against this erosion of our liberties. The ideas and subjects I will discuss are basic: Language, Liberty, Truth, Secrecy, Openness, Repression, Citizenship, and Lawyers.

Today, the word “patriot” is used to name a statute that, in my opinion, stifles liberty. The term “collateral damage” is used to describe the deaths of children and other innocent bystanders. The phrases “weapons of mass destruction,” “immediate threat,” and “imminent threat” were used by our government to justify a war—phrases that have prompted disturbing and unresolved questions about the evidence upon which the government acted as well as about knowledge and intent. To justify unprecedented violations of the international conventions, applicable statutory law, and established military doctrine, even the word “torture” was twisted and constricted in an indefensible opinion of the Office of Legal Counsel, which the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) has only recently withdrawn.

The military commission, created by President Bush in his capacity as Commander in Chief, is prepared to sit in judgment of individuals alleged to be associated with al Qaeda. These individuals face charges derived from a military order issued by the President. In the approximate two years since the President issued this order, there has been a virtual avalanche of legal commentary related to the theory and process implemented to hold such individuals accountable. A cursory review of this body of legal scholarship reveals the tendency of authors to plant their conclusions in one of two polar opposite camps—the clearly illegal camp or the clearly legal camp. Few such commentaries have approached the issue from a pragmatic perspective that seeks to identify shortfalls in the current concept for the use of military commissions and to propose a remedy for these shortfalls that could enhance the legitimacy of the proposed use of military commissions.

The catastrophic attacks of terrorists in Russian cities Kaspijsk, Bujnaksk, Moscow, and Volgodonsk in 1999, and in New York and Washington, D.C., in 2001, as well as ensuing events, “culminating in the victory of the antiterrorist coalition over Taliban in Afghanistan”—they changed the world and “gave hope for the creation of a new, [free and fair] world order.”

It is popular to speak about the radical transformation of international relations’ essence since the end of the Cold War. There is no conflict of superpowers anymore. The United States and Russia are not competing for influence in Europe, the Middle East, and Third World countries. But this new era of cooperation and stability did not emerge. Quite the opposite—the new global threat of international terrorism took the place of superpower conflict as the main defining factor of global and regional politics all over the world.

There has been much talk about “getting inside the terrorist’s mind” in order to better understand the rationale behind terrorist attacks. A typical comment has been, ‘“We may not agree with it, but in their minds, [the terrorists] have good reasons for what they’ve done.’” The idea is that perhaps we should be able to win the “war on terror” by simply using a compassionate approach, so as to understand the cause of grievances of those who seek to justify the deliberate taking of innocent lives.

This Article will discuss both political violence and terrorism and attempt to distinguish these two species of violence. The distinction is important, if it can be made, because the international community in general supports political violence as an adjunct to political reform movements of various types, while this same community generally condemns the species of violence that carries the label “terrorism.” In the end, one is hard-pressed to provide a clear demarcation between the two species of violence because both kinds of violence may involve indiscriminate targeting of noncombatants, and both kinds of violence are motivated in large part by a desire to effect political change. Even so, once the mode or scope of violence goes beyond a certain threshold, then even legitimate freedom fighters will be branded as terrorists by the international community.

When I look back to when I was called to the Bar in 1973 by the Treasurer and Benchers of the Honourable Society of Gray’s Inn, the world—and certainly the legal world—seemed a safer place. Stern portraits of richly robed and magnificently bewigged judges lined the panelled walls of the sixteenth-century hall. On a raised dais, a distinguished band of legal luminaries and assorted, bespectacled greybeards watched keenly as each of the fifty nervous student barristers, white tie and tailed like extras from a Fred Astaire movie, shook the Treasurer’s hand and on being declared “utter barristers” received a slim volume entitled Duty and Art in Advocacy by Sir Malcolm Hilbery. All this spoke of centuries of slowly evolving legal tradition, of the significance and dignity of the profession, and of the certainty of the role of judges and trial lawyers in the legal process.