#Florida appeals

[andrewjbernhard]

Understanding Florida's Legal Requirements for Appellate Motions: Rehearing, Certification of Conflict, and Written Opinion

Navigating Florida’s appellate process? Learn the rules for filing motions for rehearing, conflict certification, and written opinions. Stay informed on how to challenge or clarify court decisions! #FloridaLaw #AppellateLaw #LegalTips #BernhardLawFirm

When appealing a decision in Florida, the appellate process offers several options for parties to challenge or seek clarification on rulings. Three common motions filed in appellate cases are the motion for rehearing, motion for certification of conflict, and motion for written opinion. While each serves a different purpose, they are governed by specific rules and limitations. Understanding these…

[saywhat-politics]

For the second time this year, a Florida appellate court has ruled against environmentalists fighting to enact a widely supported local clean water measure.

The Fifth District Court of Appeal ruled Thursday that although 83% of voters in Titusville approved a 2022 initiative establishing the right to clean water, the city in Brevard County couldn’t enact it because of a 2020 state law preventing local government from giving rights to bodies of water, plants, and animals.

[stuckinnet]

such incredible work by op

[yandere-daydreams]

most of the time living in florida sucks hard, but sometimes you go see the miami city ballet's take on a midsummer night's dream and the only substantial changes they've made to the story are that nick bottom gets turned into a manatee instead of a donkey and hippolyta (the amazon queen) how has an elongated sequence where she hunts human-sized sea horses in the woods. ground breaking shit.

i couldn't find clips of the sea horses but there IS manatee proof. this is literally my reaction to seeing a manatee without a lovespell but whatever ig.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Greedflation, but for prisoners

I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me TOMORROW (Apr 21) in TORINO, then Marin County (Apr 27), Winnipeg (May 2), Calgary (May 3), Vancouver (May 4), and beyond!

Today in "Capitalists Hate Capitalism" news: The Appeal has published the first-ever survey of national prison commissary prices, revealing just how badly the prison profiteer system gouges American's all-time, world-record-beating prison population:

https://theappeal.org/locked-in-priced-out-how-much-prison-commissary-prices/

Like every aspect of the prison contracting system, prison commissaries – the stores where prisoners are able to buy food, sundries, toiletries and other items – are dominated by private equity funds that have bought out all the smaller players. Private equity deals always involve gigantic amounts of debt (typically, the first thing PE companies do after acquiring a company is to borrow heavily against it and then pay themselves a hefty dividend).

The need to service this debt drives PE companies to cut quality, squeeze suppliers, and raise prices. That's why PE loves to buy up the kinds of businesses you must spend your money at: dialysis clinics, long-term care facilities, funeral homes, and prison services.

Prisoners, after all, are a literal captive market. Unlike capitalist ventures, which involve the risk that a customer will take their business elsewhere, prison commissary providers have the most airtight of monopolies over prisoners' shopping.

Not that prisoners have a lot of money to spend. The 13th Amendment specifically allows for the enslavement of convicted criminals, and so even though many prisoners are subject to forced labor, they aren't necessarily paid for it:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/02/captive-customers/#guillotine-watch

Six states ban paying prisoners anything. North Carolina caps prisoners' pay at one dollar per day. Nationally, prisoners earn $0.52/hour, while producing $11b/year in goods and services:

https://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2024/0324bowman.html

So there's a double cruelty to prison commissary price-gouging. Prisoners earn far less than any other kind of worker, and they pay vastly inflated prices for the necessities of life. There's also a triple cruelty: prisoners' families – deprived of an incarcerated breadwinner's earnings – are called upon to make up the difference for jacked up commissary prices out of their own strained finances.

So what does prison profiteering look like, in dollars and sense? Here's the first-of-its-kind database tracking the costs of food, hygiene items and religious items in 46 states:

https://theappeal.org/commissary-database/

Prisoners rely heavily on commissaries for food. Prisons serve spoiled, inedible food, and often there isn't enough to go around – prisoners who rely on the food provided by their institutions literally starve. This is worst in prisons where private equity funds have taken over the cafeteria, which is inevitable accompanied by swingeing cuts to food quality and portions:

https://theappeal.org/prison-food-virginia-fluvanna-correctional-center/

So you have one private equity fund starving prisoners, and another that's gouging them on food. Or sometimes it's the same company. Keefe Group, owned by HIG Capital, provides commissaries to prisons whose cafeterias are managed by other HIG Capital portfolio companies like Trinity Services Group. HIG also owns the prison health-care company Wellpath – so if they give you food poisoning, they get paid twice.

Wellpath delivers "grossly inadequate healthcare":

https://theappeal.org/massachusetts-prisons-wellpath-dentures-teeth/

And Trinity serves "meager portions of inedible food":

https://theappeal.org/clayton-county-jail-sheriff-election/

When prison commissaries gouge on food, no part of the inventory is spared, even the cheapest items. In Florida, a packet of ramen costs $1.06, 300% more inside the prison than it does at the Target down the street:

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24444312-fl_doc_combined_commissary_lists#document/p6/a2444049

America's prisoners aren't just hungry, they're also hot. The climate emergency is sending temperatures in America's largely un-air-conditioned prisons soaring to dangerous levels. Commissaries capitalize on this, too: an 8" fan costs $40 in Delaware's Sussex Correctional Institution. In Georgia, that fan goes for $32 (but prisoners are not paid for their labor in Georgia pens). And in scorching Texas, the commissary raised the price of water by 50% last summer:

https://www.tpr.org/criminal-justice/2023-07-20/texas-charges-prisoners-50-more-for-water-for-as-heat-wave-continues

Toiletries are also sold at prices that would make an airport gift-shop blush. Need denture adhesive? That's $12.28 in an Idaho pen, triple the retail price. 15% of America's prisoners are over 55. The Keefe Group – sister company to the "grossly inadequate" healthcare company Wellpath – operates that commissary. In Oregon, the commissary charges a 200% markup on hearing-aid batteries. Vermont charges a 500% markup on reading glasses. Imagine spending decades in prison: toothless, blind, and deaf.

Then there's the religious items. Bibles and Christmas cards are surprisingly reasonable, but a Qaran will run you $26 in Vermont, where a Bible is a mere $4.55. Kufi caps – which cost $3 or less in the free world – go for $12 in Indiana prisons. A Virginia prisoner needs to work for 8 hours to earn enough to buy a commissary Ramadan card (you can buy a Christmas card after three hours' labor).

Prison price-gougers are finally facing a comeuppance. California's new BASIC Act caps prison commissary markups at 35% (California commissaries used to charge 63-200% markups):

https://theappeal.org/price-gouging-in-california-prisons-newsom-signature/

Last year, Nevada banned any markup on hygiene items:

https://www.leg.state.nv.us/App/NELIS/REL/82nd2023/Bill/10425/Overview

And prison tech monopolist Securus has been driven to the brink of bankruptcy, thanks to the activism of Worth Rises and its coalition partners:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/08/money-talks/

When someone tells you who they are, believe them the first time. Prisons show us how businesses would treat us if they could get away with it.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/20/captive-market/#locked-in

[taylortruther]

London betrayed it, it broke her, she felt like she had nowhere else to go to the point where Florida didn’t seem like a humid swamp (which it is) but an enticing escape she worked for. It’s the perfect metaphor to encompass fresh out the slammer and so long London - I deserve this, you left me with no choice.

i personally think the humid swampiness is part of the appeal of escape in the song. a lawless land where hurricanes can wash you and your sins away, where you can kill your husband, where you can kill your past self (literally or figuratively)... where you're breaking down in a bathroom, getting drunk, surrounded by creepy fellow murderers... it's very southern gothic to me

[rotisseries]

my graduation is looking like it's halfway to being a family reunion for some reason 😭😭😭 I am loved etc etc yay but also lmfaoooo

[josiahcarr]

Tampa Exterior Inspiration for a mid-sized tropical white one-story vinyl house exterior remodel with a shed roof

[unkindhands]

it's still so fucked up that we don't have a zodiac sign much less a birthdate for Jolyne and we also have no idea what her hometown was

Hirohiko Araki You litte F**ker

You made a shit of piece with your trash Jojjo It’s f**King Bad this trash manga I will become back my money I hope you will in your next time a cow on a trash farm you sucker

[isabellharrison]

Tampa Exterior Inspiration for a mid-sized tropical white one-story vinyl house exterior remodel with a shed roof

[freakingpeepseverywhere]

me: dude you gotta write all this down you gotta turn this into a full on fanfic it’ll help your writing skills, we can blow up, WE CAN BE BIG IF WE JUST TRY

also me: hehe spammy is a feral ipad guy and i fucking love him :3

[fieriframes]

[So when I first heard about Florida, one of the terms I heard was snowbird. I said, "What's a snowbird?"]

[vamptastic]

i mean this in the nicest way possible but can we stop being quite so dramatic and angsty about the othering nature of being transgender. i mean i get the feeling and it sucks but personally it makes me want to hit people not write poetry about how im digging myself out of a grave or im basically a cryptid or whatever. all power to you if that's what you like but i am sick of it. i find being transgender is pretty cool once you get past the part where it sucks and is awful. for example i don't hate how my face looks or how my voice sounds anymore. and being sad about how i used to not like how my face looked or how my voice sounds is not fun for me. idk. to be fair posts about how being trans is some inherently healing spiritual experience also annoy me. im just transing my gender it's nothin special.

[lawofficeofryansshipp]

Eviction Services In Martin County, Florida - Law Office of Ryan S. Shipp, PLLC

Martin County Eviction Lawyers Are you a landlord facing tenant issues in Martin County, Florida? Do you require legal assistance with residential or commercial evictions? Look no further than Law Office of Ryan S. Shipp, PLLC. Our experienced team concentrates our practice in navigating the complexities of landlord-tenant law and ensuring swift and effective resolution of your eviction…

[bonafidehero]

“As we are sure you are aware, we are living through a time of inflation unlike we have seen in 40 years. As such, market rental rates have greatly increased since your last lease rate was offered.”

DOESN’T MAKE ME WANT TO PAY YOU ANY MORE I DON’T FEEL BAD FOR YOU LANDLORD DIE DIE DIE

[andrewjbernhard]

Bernhard Law Firm Takes on Six Business Appeals Across Florida

This month, Bernhard Law Firm has been engaged to represent businesses, their officers, and investors in Tampa, St. Augustine, and Miami in their appeals. This is positive milestone in the appellate practice of the firm; a testament to our commitment to our clients, and to see cases through to finality. If you have any questions about business and real estate appeals in Florida, please contact…