In this edition of The Lawfather Podcast, William Franchi of Franchi Law, delves into Florida’s latest legal landscape, exploring the intricacies and implications of the state’s new laws, covering a wide range of topics from gun carry laws to immigration laws, while providing insightful analysis and expert perspectives for listeners seeking to navigate the legal framework in the Sunshine State.
Brought to you by Franchi Law, a trusted personal injury law firm committed to protecting your rights and securing the justice you deserve. Join us as we explore fascinating legal cases, discuss important legal developments, and share practical advice to empower you in your legal journey. Whether you’re facing a personal injury accident in Riverview or simply curious about the intricacies of the legal system, The Lawfather is here to inform, educate, and advocate for you.
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Transcript:
Welcome back to the Law Father Podcast. As always, we are here and Law Father Studio is right here within Law Father Headquarters. Big shout out to Jason and all the radio influence, uh, people and shows and producers. Uh, big thank you to you all for putting on the Law Father podcast. And, uh, I know we’re well over a hundred episodes, so we are just going strong here. Hopefully you all enjoy it. And, uh, maybe goal for 2023 is to get four listeners up from three, right? I think that’s a good goal for the year. Those of you don’t know. And like mma, I always like to plug Jason’s podcast. I don’t plug it every week because, well, sometimes I forget about plugging other people’s shows, but I think it’s the nice thing to do. Go listen to Jason’s MMA show. Uh, it’s, it’s really cool and it’s really good.
Um, so all along the line of other shows, I got a couple other guest appearances coming up on other shows, so keep an eye out for those. Please rate your view and subscribe to this podcast and maybe check us out on social media. Those of you on Instagram live, welcome. If you have a question and you’re on live, please drop your question in. Uh, I’d prefer if you bought a badge when you asked your question. Jason monitors all those. And, uh, so it’s kind of tough for me to watch the screen and know what’s going on on the screen and, you know, pay attention to what I’m talking about. Sometimes people put funny stuff in there. Um, sometimes people put smart Alex stuff in there, which is also funny. Um, so it takes me o outta my train of thought. So Jason follows it and, uh, just kind of goes from there, right?
Um, I know we talked a little bit about, we, I talked about the, some of the changes in Florida, the, the law changes, and we did, I did a big kind of overview of it, talking about several different changes that are coming. Uh, but I wanna highlight too, today, and, uh, I, I want the first one is really important because I think people are, are taking it and, and turning it into something that it’s not okay. And so, so I think it’s really important that we understand that because if you do this the wrong way, you’ll get arrested. And quite frankly, when you’re getting arrested, you’ll probably be getting arrested with a gun in your back. So we’d probably like to avoid that. I’m sure the deputies and, and police and the law enforcement officers would prefer not to have to take people down at gunpoint if they don’t have to.
Um, sometimes bad things happen when that happens. Um, so keep in mind that starting July 1st, you no longer need a permit to carry a concealed firearm in the state of Florida. Okay? Think about this for one second, and listen exactly to what it is. You no longer need a permit to carry a concealed firearm in the state of Florida, okay? That does not mean that you can open carry your firearm. Understand that, okay? I know, I know I’m gonna get calls. I know people are gonna call me on July 1st and go, I was open carrying my firearm and I got arrested, and oh, by the way, they put a gun on my back. Yeah. Um, you’re not allowed to do that. Okay? Other big key to this, if you were not allowed today, like today is before, and I took my watch off and I don’t have it on.
So I don’t know what today, today’s June 5th, right? Okay. As we sit here, June 5th, if you’re not legally allowed to carry a firearm, okay? Meaning it is illegal for you two. Meaning if the cops came to your house and saw you with a firearm, you would get arrested for it, right? Starting July 1st, you will still get arrested for it, okay? What the law did not do, the new law did not change the parameters for who can own a firearm. If you’re a felon, you still cannot carry a firearm, no questions asked. If you’re a felon, and you have, I, I’ll put the caveat in here, if you have not had your rights restored, so if you’re a felon and you have not had your rights restored, you cannot carry a firearm if you fall in a class of people who cannot carry a firearm. Uh, mental health is one of the reasons why you may not be able to carry a firearm, right? You still cannot carry a firearm on July 1st, okay?
You cannot drive your car with your firearm on your seat. Guess what? That’s open. It’s not concealed. Really easy to think about. If the firearm is not, if you can see it, it’s not concealed, right? It’s out in the open Florida law, even when it changes, does not allow open carry. You’ll go to jail, okay? Now, the reality is it kinda depends on who you run into, right? Depends on what cop you run into. Now, if you’re walking down Kennedy Boulevard with a 45 on your side, right? On your waistband, open carry, you’re probably gonna get arrested, and it’s probably gonna be a gun point, right? Probably what’s gonna happen, right? But if you’re driving down the street and say, I was the one that was a cop back when I was a deputy, and I stopped you, and you had a firearm, and it was not concealed, right?
Just out in the open, probably what’s gonna happen is I’m gonna get back up to come. We’re gonna take that gun, we’re gonna unload it, we’re gonna stick it in your trunk, and we’re going to ex I would explain to you, right? You cannot carry it like that, okay? There’s reasons why may or you may or may not go to jail. I may or may not have had, uh, one of my most violent encounters with somebody in a very, very similar situation that really would’ve just ended with a, Hey, we’re gonna take this, we’re gonna put it in your trunk and we’re gonna send you on your way. But keep in mind, you can’t carry it like that. Instead, uh, yeah, there’s a little battery on law enforcement, a little fight, a little felony, uh, go to jail. Um, yeah, so whole big thing. Don’t do that. Don’t do that. Hey, while we’re on the topic, Jason, you know what? I think it’s a really good time to mention that you know it, if a cop asks you to do something at a traffic stop, maybe you should do it, right? It it
Just live the fight another day. And I don’t mean that necessarily from like the live or die perspective. I mean that more from the less literal perspective of like, there’s other ways to fight it, right? But the Supreme Court does say if the cop asked you, you get outta the car, you have to do so, um, but if they ask you to on the ground, do it. Because guess what, on the flip side of it, they don’t know what you know, right? They don’t know what you have, they don’t know you. So keep that in mind, okay? Um, I think we could avoid a lot of potential issues. There hasn’t, you know, there hasn’t been a, an issue, there hasn’t been a big nationally publicized issue in a while, so it’s kind of nice, okay? Kind of like peace if you will. Um, so let’s keep it that way, all right?
Um, I, I, I, you know, people send me videos every once in a while. People just act in a fool in a traffic stop. And it just doesn’t make any sense. Like, who do you think is going to win that battle? It does it really matter if you’re a hundred percent right? Right? You’re still not going to win that battle, right? So just live to fight another day and try not to go to jail, right? I mean, that at the end of the day, um, don’t create a situation where there’s no choice but to take you to jail. Anyway, um, it’s my, my thought on that, and, and I come to that from this person who had an open, who was openly carrying their firearm, didn’t have to go to jail that day, wouldn’t have gone to jail that day, um, but instead decided that he wanted to fight me.
Um, not just verbally, like actually physically fight me. Um, so, um, I can tell you who won that battle, and it was not him. Um, so anyway, um, side note also, Jason, on that, um, the night before that, I had gone out with my wife for the first time. So she calls me, she’s, she’s at a USF football game. She calls me, this guy’s in the backseat of my car, just railing on the Cajun back. And I’m like, yeah, um, it’s good talking to you. I’m glad you called me. Uh, a little busy right now. I’m gonna have to call you back, right? So anyway, um, fun, little fun little story. Um, I dunno, there’s, there’s, I guess always some positive in every negative. Um, I think that that holds true, I think for everything. But anyway, that is the new firearm law in Florida.
So just, just keep that in mind. It, it’s, there’s nothing earth shattering about the change, right? The only big thing that has changed is you now don’t, that’s, that’s awesome, Darryl. Great. Good job. Um, so anyway, uh, those of you who are not on the live, my wife just commented that she was just thinking about that story, so, uh, that’s awesome. Anyway, um, the law doesn’t change a whole, other than that, you now don’t have to pay money to the state to get a, an ID that says you’re allowed to carry a firearm. So, uh, you know what would be interesting? And I, every time we talk about it, Jason, I never, I always like, I should go read the actual, like, full text of the law because your concealed permit is actually a concealed weapons permit. So, and which I have one, right? I have one, I got it when I, uh, left the sheriff’s office, right?
And it is not a concealed firearms permit. It is a concealed weapons permit. And what I’m, what I’m thinking is because the constitution of the United States doesn’t give you the right to carry, um, a taser doesn’t give you the right to carry a knife, right? It gives you the right to carry a firearm, right? To own and, and bear arms. Now, what this new law does is, is, and all of the press has been about the firearm aspect to it, I suspect, and, and I’m gonna give you an update. I will update you, I’m gonna read the law and I’m gonna update you on that, whether or not it applies to knives, tasers, stun, guns, those types of things. My guess is it doesn’t, because the other name for not having a permit is constitutional carry, which leads me to believe that the, the carry, the, the, the right to carry a concealed weapon is based in the constitution, the United States Constitution, right?
Um, so it, if you want to carry those other things, my guess is, and like I said, I’m gonna update you on this, that you’ll still have to have this concealed weapons permit, which is sometimes good. Uh, I mean, if you’re carrying a gun, you should probably also carry a knife. Just, I, I mean, maybe that’s my years in law enforcement speaking, but I can tell you that, uh, if you’re an enemy, I probably have both on me. Um, so I’m gonna be pretty well protected as is the family. So anyway, um, that’s that. Now let’s switch gears a little bit to another, probably, uh, equally as hot button of a topic. Uh, when we’re talking about some of the new laws, I know we, we have a plethora of hot topic new laws here in Florida, probably I’m gonna, I’m gonna make the leap here.
Now that he is officially, uh, running for president, I’m going to assume a lot of these new laws are a result of DeSantis our governor in the state of Florida running for president. And the, the, the need to, or the, to really solidify, uh, a voting base, right? My guess is a lot of these laws are, are gonna be, are really a way to do that, right? To be able to go look at what I did in one of the largest states in the country. Um, you need to read, I’m gonna pause real you the definition of arms and weapons both include firearms, but swords, pikes, arrows, daggers, mace, et cetera, any weapon. I am not sure that that’s the Florida definition. Um, so, but as I did mention, I’m gonna update you on that, right? So I’m gonna read the law and I’m gonna update you on what other weapons apply.
It doesn’t usually come up because there’s a lot of other exceptions. And, and quite frankly, people don’t walk around carrying tasers, right? Cops do. Uh, I can’t tell you the last time I’ve heard Jason, have you ever heard of, when was the last time you’ve heard of an incident in the news because someone was carrying a concealed taser? Yeah, none. Neither one of us can think of any, okay? So we’re talking about guns. We’re talking about firearms, okay? That’s the main purpose. That’s what we’re focused on right here. Quick aside though, right? When the state wants to prove a felon in possession of a firearm, right, they actually have to prove that the firearm’s functional. So keep that in mind. If you have an antique, it’s actually, you can’t, you’re not considered a felon in possession of a firearm because it cannot be fired. So anyway, and if you get arrested for federal charges with firearms, they have to prove interstate commerce.
And they do that because the guns are manufactured and transported through states. Anyway, uh, I don’t know, really not pertinent to the new law, but interesting nonetheless. So, uh, next law is the immigration law. So Florida has passed, I dunno, there, there are other laws that we could talk about that would be equally as, um, controversial, I guess. Um, I can tell you, I’m not gonna touch it. I am, I am not gonna touch the other really controversial one. Um, Jason’s giving me a blank stare. It’ll come to me. He’ll go, aha. Um, yeah, he’s still giving me a blank stare. I’ll tell him off, off camera, off live in camera. Uh, so anyway, uh, immigration law, you know what? There’s, ah, haha, there it is. He finally got it. All right. So there is a new immigration law in the state of Florida that, and you know what, Jason, if I say it just like that, you know what the comments will be?
Well, it doesn’t take effect till July 1st. Yeah, okay. Exactly. It doesn’t take effect till July 1st. There’s the caveat. Doesn’t take effect till July 1st, but it’s coming. It’s coming, it’s coming hard. It’s coming fast. And you know, I, I really, truly believe that this is aimed at being able to use in the next step in, in the political career of DeSantis. And look, I I, I like most of what he’s done in the state, um, he didn’t write these bills. Some of these bills are really poorly written. They, they were just shoved through in such a way that there’s issues that are created. And, and this is one of those bills that created issues that the legislators didn’t really stop to go, I’m going to talk to somebody that works in this industry and knows immigration law, and go, how do we get this bill to kind of cover the basis that we are intending to cover?
Right? Those of you who listened, I’ve said the same thing about the new, uh, tort reform law that it, it, it’s just so poorly written. No one talked to either side. And so it, it leaves us in this scenario of, well, I think it says one thing. And, and the other side goes, well, I think it says this. Um, laws should be, if they’re written in a good way, that it’s, it’s really hard to go, well, I think it says this, um, and be reading and looking at the exact same paragraph, right? We should be able to look and go, I can do X, Y, and Z. I cannot do X, Y, and Z. And that’s where this new immigration bill really falls off. There’s, there’s a part of it that really falls off the, off the ledge there. And, and you, you look, and you go, a how is this gonna be enforceable?
And, and B, is this really d intended impact of it? Right? And, and, and I’ll start there, right? So I’ll, I’ll start with essentially the last part of the bill. And what it is, is you can’t, it’s a felony. It’s now a felon. You can go to prison, Jason, for a year or more, right? It’s a third degree felony to transport an undocumented immigrant. Okay? Think about that for a second, because did you know, I bet you didn’t know this, cuz I didn’t necessarily think it all the way through until I right now and go, that makes a ton of sense. You can be married, you can be a US citizen and marry somebody who is still an undocumented immigrant, okay? And then you’re driving in your car with your spouse and you can be arrested for felony. Now, do we really think that that’s what the Florida legislators had in mind?
Like, is, is that, is that really truly what, what we thought that this bill was meant to do was to make it a felony for a spouse traveling with another spouse who happens to be undocumented that they go to prison like that? It’s, doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, right? So, you know, the, the idea I think being is that, you know, we’re, we’re trying to, trying to cut down on illegal immigration, right? And look, I am from a family of immigrants, okay? I’m third generation born in the United States, right? My family, both sides of my family came from Sicily. So guess what, they went through Ellis Island, they, well, were Italian, so some of ’em didn’t have papers. So <laugh>, like legitimately, some of ’em were without papers. Yeah, those, some of you know what that actually spells out. So, um, yes, some of my family came to the United States without papers, um, but they all did it legally.
So I’m not saying that like immigration’s bad, but yeah, there’s a reason why it’s called illegal immigration. Like, let’s do it the right way. Let’s, let’s figure out a way that we can do it and, and have less people be illegal. May maybe it’s a flipping, right? Maybe the idea, and I’m getting a little bit off from the new law, but maybe it shouldn’t be, look at all these people trying to come into the country illegally. Maybe we as a country should flip it around and figure out how do we make the process better and in a way that we can turn around from having a big swath of illegal immigrants and making them legal, right? Whether that’s resident aliens, whether that is they become citizens, whatever that means, right? Maybe we just need to do better. Maybe we need some better processes. I don’t know.
Like I, that’s, you know, I’m not a politician. I don’t study border law, I don’t study any of that stuff, okay? But maybe we just need to do better, okay? But be that me, this is where we are. We have illegal immigrants in this country. Florida, especially in this area, I think probably pretty much all of Florida has a pretty high amount because most of Florida is agriculture, right? Whether it be ranching or whether it be, um, growing things. So strawberries, blueberries, corn, corn, Florida actually has pretty decent corn. Not as good as New Jersey corn. But anyway, um, and, and typically those are the workers that you see, right? You typically see illegal immigrants in those positions. Um, building, right? A lot of, a lot of building here in the state of Florida is done with, uh, immigrant labor. So the idea, the idea behind the law is to say, okay, let’s stop taking jobs from people who are in this country legally.
And let’s let those people who are in this country legally get those jobs. Now it is, is that really gonna be what happens? Who knows? Okay? Um, I guess only time will tell, right? Maybe it will, maybe it won’t. I, I’m not sitting here debating whether or not that’s good public policy, cuz it, it might be, and it might be terrible public policy. Um, but so here are some of the other ramifications. So you can’t ride with, you can’t drive somebody around. It’s considered human smuggling, right? So could you imagine you’re driving with your spouse and you get arrested for human smuggling, okay? Um, that’s, that’s a little, uh, little outlandish. I I think, um, also family member, right? Um, so, and, and actually there’s also, there’s no real carve out in the law for if you don’t know, like, I assume Jason is a US citizen, right?
But if he’s not, and let’s say they’re watching him, right? Let’s say the police are watching him and they know he’s undocumented and illegal and he rides in my car, right? I’m driving along, woo woo, stop me. Hey, you’re going to jail because you’re smuggling Jason and Jason’s an illegal alien. I I mean, theoretically that could go down with the way the new law is written. Um, so yes, it sounds a little bit crazy, but it’s very real life. And I think there’s certain industries that, you know, create the kind that are kind of ripe for that, right? I mean, think about you have, um, you know, you work in the service industry and, and you’re, you know, driving somebody home from work, right? Hey, yeah, this dude rides his bike every day. It’s raining. I’ll give you a ride. You could theoretically, you know, get, uh, arrested for a felony.
So that’s one of the aspects. Uh, another one, hospitals will now have to check. So any hospital that takes funding from Medicare will have to check immigration status. Okay? Um, another interesting one, if you have a license, so you are, let’s say an undocumented illegal immigrant that has a driver’s license from another state, right? You come into Florida and you drive on that license, that license is not valid anymore. You are actually operating a vehicle without a valid driver’s license and you can go to jail. But I have my license right here. Yes. However, unless you can prove citizenship, you go to jail, okay? I won’t make this stuff up. This is exactly how it’s written, all right? Uh, there are, um, they, oh, here we go. $2 million, $2 million is being earmarked. I think it’s 2 million, 12 million, sorry, 12 million is earmarked to removing illegal immigrants and moving them to essentially, for lack of better term, sanctuary cities and states.
So we’ve, we’ve earmarked $12 million to, uh, put people on planes and buses, send them off, okay? Um, and lastly, this is kind of what we started the show with, as Jason and I were talking, if you own a business that employs 25 or more people, you have to go through, it’s called E-Verify. So you have to verify that person that you’re hiring is allowed to work in the United States. And if you don’t, there are fines and penalties for that. Um, lots of loopholes in that. And, and I was joking about it earlier, but, but there are, like, there’s a lot of loopholes in 25 employees or more, right? Because literally all you would have to do is create a separate entity. Now maybe there’s carve outs in the, you know, large build that does that, but I, I mean, not that I’m aware of. So you could essentially go, Hey, I’m going to create dishwashers one llc, and you could hire, and I don’t, I pick on dishwashers, not because dishwashers, but, um, Jason works in the service industry, so, or has business dealings in the service industry.
So it’s just, it, it’s what we talk about, right? So, um, it’s just an easy, easy example. Um, so you can have dishwashers one llc, dishwashers two llc, and you can have 24 people in each. And guess what? Now you don’t have to go through the e-verify process because separate businesses, separate e i n numbers, separate payroll, separate taxes. Okay? So are there ways to get around it? Yeah. Does it sound sleazy? I, uh, <laugh> kind of does Jason’s saying yes. Um, it, yeah, I guess it is, but I mean, at the same time, you know, or, or do you go, Hey, I’m going to limit the amount of employees that I have to 24 and I’m gonna do whatever work I can do within 24 employees. Now, the problem is some of those jobs require transportation. Who’s ever driving that car? They’re going to jail <laugh>.
So there are some pitfalls to some of this. There are, you know, why I, the purpose of this, I couldn’t exactly tell you, right? Other than it’s a campaign piece to use in the presidential election that is coming up. Um, I’m sure it’s gonna come up in debates. I’m, I’m sure it’s gonna be interesting. Um, you know, I, I think him and Trump are gonna absolutely try to destroy each other. So, um, you know, DeSantis sometimes does dumb stuff. I like, I like him. Um, I, I actually saw him at church a couple months, a few months ago. Seems like a good guy. But he makes some dumb decisions like the U SF thing, like with the masks, kids in the masks. Like, dude, you’re the governor. Just like, be step above that I think. Don’t Ronnie d if you’re listening, yeah, see, we’re tight like that.
Him and I, uh, if you’re listening, don’t come down to his level. Stay up here. You’re up here. Stay up here. Right? Don’t come down to just, Hey, you played baseball and I’m directing this right to you, Rodney, cuz I know you’re listening. You’re one of the four people who listened to the law father podcast, okay? Just in life. Don’t come down to their level like playing baseball. It was, you don’t play down to your competition’s level, right? That leads to bad things. You know what that leads to? That leads to losing. It does. Uh, we, when I was at Western Carolina, we got beat by Virginia Military Institute who had not won a conference game all year. Uh, lemme tell you how well that went. Okay? And it was, it was your very typical, like playing down to their level with it was our last series or one of our last series against conference team.
They hadn’t won a conference game they did after that day, and it was not fun, right? Don’t play down to another person’s level. Ronnie d don’t play down to Trump’s level, right? You’re up here. He’s down here. Yeah. You know what he, I, I think, I think Trump has a little stick, right? Where he’s tries to act dumb, but I think he’s actually probably pretty smart. Um, which, you know, what’s the, uh, slide like a fox, right? Like just you, you, you play dumb a little bit and, and, but you’re actually kind of smart and you use that to your advantage. You kind of let and lull people in, right? So, you know, just kind of keep that in mind. But I, I think that’s what we’re going to see. I think we’re gonna see these new laws kind of put up on a billboard, if you will.
Not exactly a billboard. I don’t think he’s picking out billboards. Uh, I dunno, maybe John Morgan would if he did it, but, um, I don’t think Ronnie d is. Um, but I bet we’ll see it in campaign ads on tv. Oh, look what we did for the state of Florida. We stopped illegal immigration because of X, Y, and Z, right? We, you know, we gave all the people the ability to carry guns. We really didn’t change anything, right? As far as the guns go, we didn’t change it. We just, it, you know, what is mind boggling? At what point has the state ever said we’re gonna do something so we can collect less money? And that’s exactly, I mean, really, that’s all they really did. Like, we’re gonna do something that collected less money. Um, but if it’s for a political campaign, there you go. Could be, right?
So anyway, that’s, that’s kind of the thought process on there. I know there’s other laws that are big and controversial. Um, you know, if you wanna hear about them, let me know. Shoot me a dm. Um, may break ’em down. Maybe not. I’m only gonna break down some of the more controversial ones other than these two. Um, if there’s, if there’s people who want to want, wanna hear about it, okay? Other than that, there’s, there’s not really, I I, I’m just not gonna do it, right. I, it, it’s not, it can only lead to trouble. I try to avoid things that lead to trouble, right? So anyway, that is the Law Father podcast, those of you on the live, I appreciate you. Those of you on the live, you can stick around. Well, Jason breaks it down. I just stay on, answer some questions, do some things, okay. Those of you who are listening on the podcast, thank you very much. Please follow all of the social media out there. All you gotta do is check out at the Law Father, and, uh, just be ready for a couple more appearances on a couple other shows and get you up to speed on that, uh, as they come out. All right? That is the show for today. Thank you very much to Radio Influence and everything you guys do. Law father out.