Tampering With, Harassing, or Retaliating Against Court Officials
S1838 expands Florida’s criminal laws protecting court personnel and related participants in the justice system. The bill amends the existing threats-and-harassment statute to add administrative assistants and to expressly cover threats or harassment directed at judges, justices, magistrates, clerks, clerk personnel, court employees, and elected officials, as well as their family members in the threat provision. It also creates new definitions for use in the court-official tampering provisions, including “court official,” “harass,” “misleading conduct,” “official investigation,” and “official proceeding.”
The bill creates a new offense for tampering with a court official, modeled on Florida’s witness-tampering framework, and a new offense for harassing a court official in a way that hinders or attempts to hinder attendance, fair verdicts, or juror conduct. It also creates a separate retaliation offense for threats of bodily injury or damage to property made because of a court official’s participation in an official investigation or proceeding, with enhanced penalties if bodily injury results. The measure updates related racketeering, criminal-activity, and sentencing-code statutes so these new offenses are included in Florida’s RICO and punishment provisions, and it takes effect October 1, 2025.
The bill broadens criminal liability under chapter 836 and chapter 918 of the Florida Statutes by adding new protected categories, new offense definitions, and new felony and misdemeanor penalties for conduct aimed at court officials. It also conformingly amends the state’s racketeering and criminal punishment code statutes to treat the new court-official offenses as predicate criminal activity and to assign them offense-severity rankings. In practical terms, prosecutors would gain additional tools to charge threats, harassment, tampering, and retaliation involving judges, jurors, clerks, and other court personnel, while court officials and their families receive expanded statutory protection.
The available voting history shows strong and unanimous support in committee, with 9-0 votes in Senate Criminal Justice and the Senate Appropriations Committee on Criminal and Civil Justice, followed by a 19-0 vote in Senate Fiscal Policy. No committee transcript objections are provided, and the bill’s progression suggests broad bipartisan agreement that court personnel need stronger protections. Overall, the sentiment appears favorable and largely noncontroversial within the committees that considered it.
No formal opposition is reflected in the provided voting record, but the bill’s main policy issue is the expansion of criminal penalties for conduct directed at court officials and related participants. Potential points of concern include the breadth of the new harassment and tampering definitions, the inclusion of elected officials and family members in the threats provision, and the use of felony penalties for conduct that may involve speech, intimidation, or nonphysical interference. The bill also narrows an applicability carveout by stating the section does not apply to attorneys acting in the performance of their duties, which may be relevant to how aggressively the new offenses are enforced against courtroom advocacy or litigation conduct.