Clemency proving elusive for Florida's ex-cons

[Judi Lynn]

Posted on Sun, Oct. 31, 2004



Shanteala Mash helps register voters in her job at
the North Lauderdale Library, but she can't vote
herself. A bad-check felony conviction resulted in the
loss of her civil rights. MARSHA HALPER/HERALD STAFF


A HERALD INVESTIGATION | CIVIL RIGHTS


Clemency proving elusive for Florida's ex-cons

For most felons in Florida, the hope of having their civil rights restored -- including the right to vote -- has been frustrated by an overwhelmed and troubled clemency system.

BY DEBBIE CENZIPER AND JASON GROTTO

[e-mail]


Shanteala Mash was dirt-poor with a 2-year-old son the day she pulled into a bank and tried to cash five stolen checks. The single conviction cost her jail time, a felony record and something else: the right to vote.

Now, she's a 28-year-old library assistant raising two children by herself on a salary of $26,000 a year. But as a convicted felon in Florida, she has been stripped of her civil rights. She can't vote. She can't run for public office. And she can't get a state license to be a nurse, an ambulance driver or even an insect exterminator. Earlier this year, Mash asked the Florida Clemency Board, headed by Gov. Jeb Bush, to restore her rights so she could vote Tuesday for the first time. She hasn't received an answer.

Nearly half a million felons statewide -- more people than live in the city of Miami -- face the same reality. All are tangled in Florida's secretive, laborious and often error-ridden clemency system, the only recourse for ex-cons who want their rights back.

Bush has drawn headlines nationwide for his promise to be more responsive to felons who want to vote again. But on the eve of the presidential election, in a state that bans more people from the polls than any other, the Clemency Board still blocks an overwhelming majority of applicants.
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