The Bizarre Origin of Florida Man

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Sorry, occupational hazard: This is not legal advice, nor can I give you legal advice. I AM NOT YOUR LAWYER. Sorry! Everything here is for informational purposes only and not for the purpose of providing legal advice. You should contact your attorney to obtain advice with respect to any particular issue or problem. Nothing here should be construed to form an attorney-client relationship. Also, some of the links in this post may be affiliate links, meaning, at no cost to you, I will earn a small commission if you click through and make a purchase. But if you click, it really helps me make more of these videos! All non-licensed clips used for fair use commentary, criticism, and educational purposes. See Hosseinzadeh v. Klein, 276 F.Supp.3d 34 (S.D.N.Y. 2017); Equals Three, LLC v. Jukin Media, Inc., 139 F. Supp. 3d 1094 (C.D. Cal. 2015).

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[patrickw]

The rare instance of a LegalEagle question being answered with a “yes” instead of “it depends, ” and it’s completely correct.

[CharlieFoxtrot]

Having lived in Texas for a number of years, I can confirm that everyone going Yosemite Sam at the drop of a hat is not necessarily a stereotype.

[ashleyg]

As a native Floridian, I feel a responsibility to remind everyone that Floridians are, also, generally bizarre and prone to getting caught doing weird things.

[CaelanAegana]

My family's more a fan of the lesser-known meme, Kennewick Man. Long story short, Kennewick Man is a skeleton found along the banks of the Columbia River and initially reported as a homicide victim to the Kennewick city police. The bones were later established to be about 9, 000 years old and were, after long protracted legal battles and DNA analysis, remanded to related tribes for a culturally-appropriate burial. Being locals, my family often see headlines like today's "Kennewick Man Hit by Car could Face Charges". We're pretty impressed by his long rap sheet, considering how long he's been dead.

[CompletelyNormal]

I'd like to get a "sunshine law" passed in Washington state, but there's some difficulties, such as explaining to Washingtonians what sunshine is.

[tayzonday]

It began in the 1980s with the man on TV news reports walking knee-deep in a flood and holding an umbrella.

[TooLateForIeago]

The open records laws also give us a glimpse into the damage that can be done by undiagnosed and untreated mental illness, drug addiction, and starving public education.

[eeyorehaferbock]

You know, I’ve read about this before, but I gotta be honest with you: if Florida’s legal records transparency laws are, in fact, the main reason why you hear so many bizarre stories out of that state, then that really does create a horrifying implication that there are plenty of people like that in other states as well (I’m from Wisconsin btw), but unlike Floridians, we aren’t even aware of them for the most part.

[reganator]

I think the 'police started sending emails of arrest reports' is kind of indicative of why there's such a big difference between states. Dealing with the press is obviously STILL annoying for the police. But now they have no way to deny sending them, if a local journalist gets in touch once or twice, it's easier to just put them on the mailing list than have to deal with individual requests.

[ellahyland]

While I agree that we don't need anyone's eviction record necessarily, how the governor selects judges should absolutely be public information. A lot of fuckery goes on in that sphere.

[eggndle]

I feel like screaming at a bear until it leaves your kitchen is a very normal way to handle the situation. Like they're scared of loud noises, so it's not a bad way at all to get a bear to leave. Am I missing something here?

[jackihutch]

thank you for calling out desantis' attempts to gut the sunshine laws--laws we floridians on both sides of the aisle have long supported and are proud of! kudos especially for mentioning the college president hiring process, which became more opaque right before ben sasse was named president of uf. SUS

[gollygoshdarn]

My 9 year old daughter has been watching select episodes of Legal Eagle, and would like to grow up to be a Mandalorian defense lawyer. Like, defense lawyer for Mandalorians, but also Mandalorian herself. She reasons that Mandalorians have many specialties, like blasters, hand to hand, jet-packs, etc., so like the Vikings, lawyering should be in there somewhere. She is worried someone is going to hit them with a negligence charge for baptizing kids in monster water, and possibly also a charge for killing endangered species. She reckons her defense strategy for the last one would be to point out that they themselves are endangered, both physically and numbers-wise. Please advise on the gross negligence charge, thank you.

[CarlosRodriguez-ddsb]

There used to be a publication in Tampa (found at all top gas station convenience stores for $1) that would publish all the mug shots for the week. It was always fun to find your friends in the pages and give them the commemorative mug shot for their albums.

[Funnyvid]

As a Floridian, all these stories made me smile. All these stories are quite normal, I worked at a mobile gas station and would often buy gator meat from some hunters once a month. Good eating, would recommend!

[jeremytucker]

I've been thinking about the problem with "no reasonable person would . . ." coming out of the courts as reasons why the powerful shouldn't be held to account. The problem is that most people are not reasonable and that's why we have laws.

[kaijulicious]

I work in trucking, specifically hiring drivers and FL is a phenomenal state to have a driver from. Their Motor Vehicle Records are insanely detailed and transparent. It makes finding out details on commercial licenses and violations a breeze. Fun to realize why it’s like that.

[JohnSmithShields]

John Oliver did a fantastic piece on the stuff discussed at around 13:00 and how police statements are uncontested and sometimes incorrect.

[RamadaArtist]

I appreciate this video, because it actually calls attention to the fact that we only know about these cases *because* of a dedication to transparency. It also calls to mind the notion that most places are probably also like this, and we just don't hear about it.

[bitpix]

everyone asks what floridaman is doing, no one asks HOW floridaman is doing