Dania Beach State Dating Laws

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Dania Beach State Dating Laws 2019

State Denies Targeting Gays in Busts at Park Beach

Online Chat & Dating In Dania Beach (United States, Florida) 2021-01-21T18:10:12Z C: Ref CHGEDGE1918 B: Ref 75133C9F6787464A9B7EA7E088241EF8 A: Ref. Things to Do in Dania Beach, Broward County: See Tripadvisor's 26,036 traveler reviews and photos of Dania Beach tourist attractions. Find what to do today, this weekend, or in February. We have reviews of the best places to see in Dania Beach. Visit top-rated & must-see attractions. State Denies Targeting Gays in Busts at Park Beach. Miami Herald, July 25, 2003 1 Herald Plaza, Miami, FL 33132 Fax: 305-527-8955 or 305-376-8950 Email: HeraldEd@herald.com. By Diana Moskovitz, Herald Writer. Dania Beach (Dania until 1998) is a city in Broward County, Florida, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city's population was 29,639. 9 It is part of the South Florida metropolitan area, which was home to 5,564,635 people at the 2010 census.

Miami Herald, July 25, 2003
1 Herald Plaza, Miami, FL 33132
Fax: 305-527-8955 or 305-376-8950
Email: HeraldEd@herald.com

By Diana Moskovitz, Herald Writer

Relaxing, breaking in his new, white bathing suit and working on his tan—that’s all Fort Lauderdale resident Tracy Faulkner had in mind, he says, when he visited the beach at John U. Lloyd State Park in March.

He left with an order to appear in court. The charges: two counts of indecent exposure. Officers said his swimming suit was not sufficiently “opaque.”

“The whole situation was absurd,” said Faulkner, who won a dismissal of the charges after showing the suit to a judge.

Faulkner is one of several men, some of them gay, who say officers at the park, just north of State Road A1A in Dania, ticketed them simply for enjoying a park maintained with their tax dollars.

They have consulted with a lawyer, Russell Cormican, about a possible legal challenge. The Express Gay News, a gay-oriented Fort Lauderdale newspaper published by Cormican’s law partner, Norm Kent, has joined the outcry.

State officials overseeing park security make no apologies. They say they are enforcing laws aimed at preserving a clean, family-type atmosphere at the park. They deny targeting gays, saying their officers have no way of knowing who is gay or who is straight.

“We are enforcing the law with everyone that is there,” said Lucia Ross, chief of executive affairs for the Department of Environmental Protection’s law enforcement division.

Because it is secluded and often sparsely used, particularly on weekdays, John U. Lloyd is a park known as a place where illicit activities can occur.

Among those activities are public sex.

“On a daily basis, we’re cleaning up such things as used condoms in areas where people have obviously been having sexual activity,” Ross said.

However, Faulkner and several others who have received tickets believe they are being targeted for imaginary offenses, part of a strategy for discouraging gays from visiting the park.

Jose Mendoza, of Fort Lauderdale, said he stopped visiting the park after his encounter with the law.

On March 29, he was charged with sitting on the sea grass, according to the incident report, punishable by a maximum fine of $500 fine and/or jail time.

Mendoza was lounging 25 feet from the water on two large beach chairs with a friend when he was ticketed and told to leave the park, he said.

His friend received a warning, Mendoza said.

When Mendoza arrived for his June 23 court date, he says he was told the state had dropped the charges.

“If they are really doing their job to protect the area and the environment, they can say ‘Hey, please move there,’ and we can move,” Mendoza said.

Michael Salazar, a Fort Lauderdale attorney, said he represented four men charged with similar infractions. The first two ended with the state dropping charges. The other two are pending.

Around the country, concerns have been raised about the selective enforcement of laws against gays.

“We get calls all the time from folks who are in this position where there is a law that, good or bad, the law is only being applied to gay folks and not other folks,” said David Buckel, a senior staff attorney with Lambda Legal, a legal defense group for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people and those living with HIV and AIDS.

Gay activists rejoiced when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down an anti-sodomy law in Texas, which many gays felt were used to selectively target homosexuals.

‘The high court said what we always called the ‘gay exception’ to the law is dead,” Buckel said.

The men ticketed at John U. Lloyd are fighting much smaller legal skirmishes, but they too are prevailing.

To get his charges dismissed, Faulkner showed up in court representing himself, swimsuit at the ready. Broward County Judge Lee Jay Seidman had the registered nurse hold the suit up to the light with his arm and wristwatch inside, to determine whether or not the suit was “opaque.”

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The verdict: not guilty.

Police say they will continue ticketing, dismissals or no, as they feel necessary. Officers on patrol only need probable cause to issue a citation, said Greg Gibson, a captain with the DEP law enforcement division, while courts require a higher level of proof, beyond a reasonable doubt, to find a person guilty.

“That does not make it an inaccurate charge,” Gibson said.

Since March, 47 people have been ticketed for trespassing-type offenses at John U. Lloyd and another state park facility, Hugh Taylor Birch in Fort Lauderdale.

“One officer was in a convenience store, and when they told someone they worked at John U. Lloyd, the person gave them a look and said they would never take their kids there again,” said Lucia Ross, the DEP spokeswoman. “This is so people can feel free to go to the park again.”

Not Mendoza, who gave up his visitor pass to the park after seven years.

“The problem with this,” said Cormican, “is they weren’t arresting the people doing something wrong.”

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States’ statutory rape offenses detail the age at which an individual can legally consent to sexual activity. This section focuses on laws addressing sexual intercourse.¹⁰Table 1 summarizes, where applicable, each state’s:

Age of consent. This is the age at which an individual can legally consent to sexual intercourse under any circumstances;
Minimum age of victim. This is the age below which an individual cannot consent to sexual intercourse under any circumstances;
Age differential. If the victim is above the minimum age and below the age of consent, the age differential is the maximum difference in age between the victim and the defendant where an individual can legally consent to sexual intercourse; and
Minimum age of defendant in order to prosecute. This is the age below which an individual cannot be prosecuted for engaging in sexual activities with minors. The table notes those states in which this law only applies when the victim is above a certain age.

As the first column in Table 1 shows, the age of consent varies by state. In the majority of states (34), it is 16 years of age. In the remaining states, the age of consent is either 17 or 18 years old (6 and 11 states, respectively).

Table 1:
State Age Requirements
State	Age of consent	Minimum age of victim	Age differential between the victim and defendant (if victim is above minimum age)	Minimum age of defendant in order to prosecute
Note: Some states have marital exemptions. This Table assumes the two parties are not married to one another.
Alabama	16	12	2	16
Alaska	16	N/A	3	N/A
Arizona	18	15	2 (defendant must be in high school and < 19)	N/A
Arkansas	16	N/A	3 (if victim is < 14)	20 (if victim is e 14)
California	18	18	N/A	N/A
Colorado	17	N/A	4 (if victim is < 15), 10 (if victim is < 17)	N/A
Connecticut	16	N/A¹¹	2	N/A
Delaware	18¹²	16	N/A	N/A
District of Columbia	16	N/A	4	N/A
Florida	18	16	N/A	24 (if victim is e 16)
Georgia	16	16	N/A	N/A
Hawaii	16	14	5	N/A
Idaho	18¹³	18	N/A	N/A
Illinois	17	17	N/A	N/A
Indiana	16	14	N/A	18 (if victim is e 14)
Iowa	16	14	4	N/A
Kansas	16	16	N/A	N/A
Kentucky	16	16	N/A	N/A
Louisiana	17	13	3 (if victim is < 15), 2 (if victim is < 17)	N/A
Maine	16	14¹⁴	5	N/A
Maryland	16	N/A	4	N/A
Massachusetts	16	16	N/A	N/A
Michigan	16	16¹⁵	N/A	N/A
Minnesota	16	N/A	3 (if victim is < 13), 2 (if victim is < 16)	N/A
Mississippi	16	N/A	2 (if victim is < 14), 3 (if victim is < 16)	N/A
Missouri	17	14	N/A	21 (if victim is e 14)
Montana	16	16¹⁶	N/A	N/A
Nebraska	16	16¹⁷	N/A	19
Nevada	16	16	N/A	18
New Hampshire	16	16	N/A	N/A
New Jersey	16	13¹⁸	4	N/A
New Mexico	16	13	4	18 (if victim is e 13)
New York	17	17	N/A	N/A
North Carolina	16	N/A	4	12
North Dakota	18	15	N/A	18 (if victim is e 15)
Ohio	16	13	N/A	18 (if victim is e 13)
Oklahoma	16	14	N/A	18 (if victim is > 14)
Oregon	18	15	3	N/A
Pennsylvania	16	13	4	N/A
Rhode Island	16	14	N/A	18 (if victim is e 14)
South Carolina	16	14	Illegal if victim is 14 to 16 and defendant is older than victim	N/A
South Dakota	16	10¹⁹	3	N/A
Tennessee	18	13	4	N/A
Texas	17	14	3	N/A
Utah	18	16	10	N/A
Vermont	16	16	N/A	16
Virginia	18	15	N/A	18 (if victim is e 15)
Washington	16	N/A	2 (if victim is < 12), 3 (if victim is < 14), 4 (if victim is < 16)	N/A
West Virginia	16	N/A	4 (if victim is e 11)	16, 14 (if victim is < 11)
Wisconsin	18	18	N/A	N/A
Wyoming	16	N/A	4	N/A

A common misperception about statutory rape is that state codes define a single age at which an individual can legally consent to sex. Only 12 states have a single age of consent, below which an individual cannot consent to sexual intercourse under any circumstances, and above which it is legal to engage in sexual intercourse with another person above the age of consent. For example, in Massachusetts, the age of consent is 16.

In the remaining 39 states, other factors come into play: age differentials, minimum age of the victim, and minimum age of the defendant. Each is described below.

Minimum age requirement. In 27 states that do not have a single age of consent, statutes specify the age below which an individual cannot legally engage in sexual intercourse regardless of the age of the defendant (see the second column in Table 1). The minimum age requirements in these states range from 10 to 16 years of age. The legality of sexual intercourse with an individual who is above the minimum age requirement and below the age of consent is dependent on the difference in ages between the two parties and/or the age of the defendant.

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In New Jersey, the age of consent is 16, but individuals who are at least 13 years of age can legally engage in sexual activities if the defendant is less than 4 years older than the victim.

Age differential. In 27 states, the legality of engaging in sexual intercourse with minors is, at least in some circumstances, based on the difference in age between the two parties (see the third column in Table 1). In 12 of these states, the legality is based solely on the difference between the ages of the two parties. For example:

In the District of Columbia it is illegal to engage in sexual intercourse with someone who is under the age of consent (16) if the defendant is 4 or more years older than the victim.
Although it is less common, the age differentials in some states vary depending on the age of the victim.
In Washington, sexual intercourse with someone who is at least 14 years of age and less than 16 years of age is illegal if the defendant is 4 or more years older than the victim. The age differential decreases in cases where the victim is less than 14 years of age (3 years), further decreasing if the victim is less than 12 years of age (2 years).

Minimum age of defendant in order to prosecute. Sixteen states set age thresholds for defendants, below which individuals cannot be prosecuted for engaging in sexual intercourse with minors (see the last column in Table 1).

In Nevada, the age of consent is 16; however, sexual intercourse with someone who is under 16 years of age is illegal only if the defendant is at least 18 years of age (the age at which the defendant can be prosecuted).

States that set a minimum age of the defendant also tend to have minimum age requirements for the victim. Often, the age of the defendant is only relevant if the victim is above the minimum age requirement.

In Ohio, sexual intercourse with someone under 13 years of age is illegal regardless of the age of the defendant. However, if the victim is above this minimum age requirement (13) and below the age of consent (16), it is only illegal to engage in sexual intercourse with that individual if the defendant is at least 18 years of age.

Some states define minimum age thresholds for defendants and age differentials.

In North Carolina, the age of consent is 16. Sexual intercourse with someone who is under the age of consent is only illegal if the defendant is: (1) at least 4 years older than the victim and (2) at least 12 years of age (the age at which the defendant can be prosecuted).

Dania Beach State Dating Laws 2019

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