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Court to review initiative on sales tax exemptions

TALLAHASSEE - A citizen initiative that would force Florida lawmakers to periodically reconsider exemptions from the state's 6 percent sales tax will be reviewed by the Florida Supreme Court.

If the court approves the language, supporters of the proposed state constitutional amendment still must obtain nearly 440,000 voters' signatures by late August to qualify for the Nov. 2 ballot.

But Thursday's achievement - supporters collected more than 48,869 valid signatures, triggering court review - puts the measure in play for November, said former state Senate President John McKay, who is pushing the measure with two other Republicans, former state Comptroller Bob Milligan and former Palm Harbor state Sen. Jack Latvala.

Their group, Floridians Against Inequities in Rates, or FAIR, is counting on both paid and volunteer signature gatherers.

McKay launched the initiative drive after the Supreme Court in 2002 struck down a similar tax review ballot measure he pushed through the Legislature during his final year in office. The court said the language was confusing.

Under state law, the court reviews only two issues: whether the language sticks to a single subject and whether the wording is clear.

TALLAHASSEE - In a case once considered by the nation's highest court, the state Supreme Court on Thursday again rejected the appeal of a burglar who received a life sentence because he had a pocketknife when he broke into an empty restaurant.

A year ago the U.S. Supreme Court ordered Florida's high court to take another look at the case after Clyde Bunkley, representing himself, appealed his 1987 armed burglary conviction. He has claimed that Florida law exempts ordinary pocketknives from the definition of a weapon and he should have been charged with simple burglary.

The state's high court did, in fact, rule in 1997 in an unrelated case that a pocketknife with a blade of 4 inches or less is a "common pocketknife" exempted by law from the list of weapons that can elevate a plain burglary to armed burglary.

But in Thursday's rejection of Bunkley's appeal, it ruled, as it essentially did in November 2002, that when Bunkley was convicted a jury "could permissibly conclude that a folding knife with a 3-inch blade carried closed in a burglar's pocket was a "dangerous weapon.' " The court's vote was 4-2.

Armed burglary is a first-degree felony punishable by life in prison; simple burglary is third-degree felony punishable by up to five years.

Bunkley, 47, who had 15 prior convictions, broke into a closed Western Sizzlin' Restaurant in Sarasota in 1986.

TALLAHASSEE - Gov. Jeb Bush on Thursday signed the Lauren Book Protection Act (SB 1118), which requires courts to prohibit people convicted of sexual battery from contacting the victim during their sentence.

The bill was named for Lauren Book, who was abused by a domestic worker over several years as a teenager. After being sentenced, her abuser wrote her letters from jail, but faced no additional punishment.

BARTOW - A Polk County school official was charged Thursday with having an ongoing sexual relationship with a girl starting when she was 11 years old.

Karl Alan James, 44, of Winter Haven, dean of discipline at an alternative school for middle and high school students, was charged with capital sexual battery and was being held without bail.

Sheriff's reports said the victim, now 25, was a friend of the family and allegedly carried on a sexual relationship with James from the age of 11 until she was 16 or 17. She came forward recently.

James told a deputy the woman babysat for his family years ago, but he denied they ever had sex.

James has worked for the school district since 1995 and has been dean of discipline at the Donald E. Woods Center in Dundee, a school for troubled pupils in grades 6 through 12, since 2000, said David Lauer, an assistant superintendent. Lauer said James has been suspended with pay.

MIAMI - Four Florida beaches made the top 10 in Stephen Leatherman's 14th annual rankings of best United States beaches being released today by the Florida International University professor.

The four are Fort De Soto Park and Caladesi Island State Park, both in Pinellas County; Crescent Beach, near St. Augustine; and Cape Florida State Park, near Miami.

Leatherman, known as "Dr. Beach," put Hanauma Bay on the Hawaiian island of Oahu's eastern shore at the top of his list this year.