Former inmates get civil rights restored

[Judi Lynn]

Posted on Fri, Jun. 18, 2004


STATE CLEMENCY


Former inmates get civil rights restored

BY GARY FINEOUT
[e-mail]


TALLAHASSEE - Jorge Lara says he has never voted in his life.

But this fall he will get his chance, thanks to a full pardon he was given on Thursday by Gov. Jeb Bush and members of the Cabinet.

''The system works,'' said a smiling Lara, who proclaimed he planned to vote Republican. ``It worked perfectly today.''

Flanked by his mother, his fiancée and friends, Lara had traveled from Collier County for his five minutes before the governor and Cabinet. The 29-year-old Lara was 16 when he was arrested on drug trafficking charges in Miami-Dade County -- two years before he was eligible to vote.

Now Lara joins the ranks of nearly 21,000 ex-convicts who, Bush announced on Thursday, have had their civil rights restored in the past year. Bush also said that the state has substantially reduced the numbers of those one-time prisoners whose cases have yet to be reviewed.
(snip/...)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/state/8950876.htm
(Free registration required by the Miami Herald)



A NEW MAN: Jorge Lara, with friend Christopher
Blanco and family members, weeps after his rights
restoration in Tallahassee. MARSHA HALPER/HERALD
STAFF

(Please don't tell me the only people _Bush will be giving restored voting rights are going to be REPUBLICANS!)

[uptown ruler]

1. wouldnt shock me...

nothing shocks me anymore, when it comes to republican tactics.



ScrutinyHooligans

[Dirty Hippie]

2. This was court ordered ...

From the Tallahassee Democrat:

Last year a judge ordered the state to help former prisoners get their rights back because the Department of Corrections failed to provide them with an application as they left prison between 1992 and 2001.

http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/tallahassee/8951137.htm

I had wondered what the motivation was...

[joycep]

6. I'm sure Louise is nicer than *

And better looking. And she certainly has to be smarter!

[Racenut20]

3. I would say the "photo op example" is Cuban. Thats a guess

[sam sarrha]

4. More BushShit.. the council that reinstates them only does 100 a year

out of hundreds of thousands.. many know it is a waste of time to try.. the system is set up to screw them... Jeb is on the Faux council

I would take 210 years if there were really only 21,000, there is probably over 50X that

if a bushes lips are moving COVER YOUR ASS...with both hands

the smirk is heriditary !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Catt03]

5. Link to 100 a year?

Thanks

[catmandu57]

7. Sounds like vote buying

we'll restore your right to vote, but you gotta vote the right way, wink wink nudge nudge.

[sam sarrha]

8. it was on CNN