More than 20 new state laws take effect today, ranging from increased criminal penalties for restraining and abandoning animals during natural disasters to a ban on the sale and use of license plate flippers.
Laws can take effect immediately upon being signed, on July 1 with the start of the state’s fiscal year, on Oct. 1, or even on Jan. 1.
Many of the laws that take effect today change the state’s criminal or civil statutes.
Here are some of the more interesting statutory changes the Legislature passed in the spring and Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law that take effect today.
SB 150 Trooper’s Law
The story of how Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Orlando Morales found an abandoned dog along Interstate 75 as Hurricane Milton advanced tugged at heartstrings and made headlines. The Leon County Humane Society, where the rescued dog was transferred, named the bull terrier “Trooper” to honor Morales, who found the dog after responding to a report of an animal in distress.
“It took several loops, but I thank God that He gave me the right time and right place of where to be, and after the second or third loop, I was able to find a dog clearly in water, in distress,” Morales said. “And it was a horrific moment to be in.”
Sen. Don Gaetz (Photo: Florida Senate) Trooper’s owner, Giovanny Aldama Garcia, 23, was arrested on Oct. 14, 2024.
Sen. Don Gaetz, a former Senate president, moved quickly to file the legislation (SB 150) that makes it a third-degree felony to restrain and abandon an animal during a natural disaster.
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SB 168 the 'Tristin Murphy Act'
Among other things, this new law requires the state’s Northwest Regional Data Center to develop a behavioral health care data repository to create, collect, and analyze existing statewide data related to behavioral health care in the state. The results are intended to clarify the scope of and trends in behavioral health services, spending, and outcomes. plus the relationship between behavioral health, criminal justice, and incarceration.
The center is required to collaborate with the state Commission on Mental Health and Substance Use Disorder to develop and submit to legislative leaders by Dec. 1 a data collection and analysis implementation plan and proposed budget for the work. The center is required — beginning Dec. 1, 2026 — to annually submit a report to the governor and legislative leaders on the trends it finds.
HB 253 No flippers in Florida
Florida has joined the likes of Texas, Washington, and Tennessee in making it illegal to sell or manufacture license plate flippers, devices that allow drivers to obscure or conceal their license plates at the press of a button. While they were traditionally used at auto shows, allowing cars to switch between custom and decorative plates, the flippers can also be used to hide license plates from law enforcement, toll systems, or automated speed cameras.
Possessing a license plate flipper is a second-degree misdemeanor under the new law while selling or manufacturing a flipper is a first-degree misdemeanor.
HB 437 Electronic monitoring
Dan Daley. (Photo: Florida House) Rep. Dan Daley’s legislation increases the criminal penalties for tampering with electronic monitoring devices and mandates termination of pretrial release for anyone who interferes with their electronic monitoring device.
Daley, a Democrat from Coral Springs, is an assistant state attorney in Broward County. On the House website, Daley says he filed the legislation to “enhance the integrity of our criminal justice system.”
“By removing these devices, offenders could disappear and potentially commit more crimes while avoiding accountability,” Daley’s statement says.
The new law also alters the penalties a court can impose upon adults for intentionally removing, destroying, or tampering with an electronic monitor, tying the level of the new offense to the severity of the underlying crime.
HB 693 Capital felonies and the death sentence
Beginning today, juries can take into consideration whether a crime victim was gathered with one or more persons for a school activity, religious activity, or public government meeting as an aggravating factor in determining whether a defendant who has been convicted of a capital felony is eligible to receive a death sentence.
The list of aggravating factors before the changes in the new law required the jury to make one or more of eight findings, stemming from the capital felony being committed by a convicted felon, to the defendant knowingly creating a great risk of death to many people, to a capital felony being committed for pecuniary gain.
HB 757 Lewd lascivious images/child pornography
Possession of a lewd or lascivious image with intent to promote the image now is a second-degree felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison, 15 years of probation, and a $10,000 fine.
Possession of a lewd or lascivious image without the intent to promote it is now a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.
The new law makes it a third-degree felony to solicit child pornography. It adds to the list of third-degree felonies willfully generating an altered sexual depiction, soliciting an altered sexual depiction, and possessing any altered sexual depiction with the intent to maliciously promote without the consent of the identifiable person.
The identifiable persons who didn’t consent to their image being promoted can now sue for damages up to $10,000 or actual damages incurred, as well as reasonable attorney fees and costs.
SB 948 Rental rights
Landlords are now required to give tenants and prospective tenants information regarding flood risks and past flooding of their rental properties. Tenants who do not receive the mandated disclosures who suffer substantial damages due to flooding can terminate their leases and are entitled to a refund of their deposits under the new law.
HB 1121 Drones and contraband
Taking a page out of Georgia’s experience with a drone-based contraband operation at prisons, the Florida Legislature passed a bill this spring that increases penalties for a person who operates a drone over or near a critical infrastructure facility or operates or possesses a drone with an attached weapon or firearm.
Specifically, the new law increases the penalty from a second-degree misdemeanor to a third-degree felony if the drone is operated over a critical infrastructure facility, including detention centers, unless the operation is authorized in compliance with Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations.
Bill sponsor Rep. Jennifer Canady says on the House website that Georgia arrested 150 people in the Operation Skyhawk sting, which focused an alleged drone-based contraband operation in Georgia prisons.
“Every type of contraband, from cellphones and drones to drugs and weapons, were confiscated. Florida needs to be forward-thinking in the oversight of technology that can be used for harm.”
The new law prohibits a person from possessing or operating a drone carrying a weapon of mass destruction or a hoax weapon of mass destruction. A violation is punishable as a first-degree felony.
“By enacting these changes, Florida will take a proactive stance in curbing the misuse of unmanned aircraft systems, helping to safeguard critical infrastructure, improve prison security, and protect the public from potential domestic threats,” Canady’s statement says.
HB 1351 Sexual predators, offenders, and reporting requirements
Sexual predators and offenders now have to report where they work and their work phone numbers under a new law that takes effect today. The law requires local law enforcement officers to verify a sexual predator’s address four times a year and once per year for sexual offenders.
There is no definition in statute of sexual offenders but there are legislative findings that describe repeat sexual offenders and sexual offenders as people who prey on children and who present an extreme threat to the public safety.
“Sexual offenders are extremely likely to use physical violence and to repeat their offenses, and most sexual offenders commit many offenses, have many more victims than are ever reported, and are prosecuted for only a fraction of their crimes. This makes the cost of sexual offender victimization to society at large, while incalculable, clearly exorbitant,” the statutes say.
Utility workers on the job on May 13, 2024, repairing damage caused by tornadoes in Tallahassee’s Myers Park neighborhood. (photo by Michael Moline/Florida Phoenix)
SB 1386 Protecting power workers
Florida residents know hurricanes can bring power outages and that can make folks overheated and angry. To protect line workers and others from irate residents, regardless of whether it’s hurricane season, the Legislature passed SB 1386. The law reclassifies criminal charges for knowingly committing an assault or battery against a utility worker while he or she is engaging in work.
The staff analysis of the new law notes there “have been several reported instances of assault or battery against a utility officer in Florida over the past few years.” They include a Hillsborough County resident who in a fit of anger “backed his vehicle into the utility pole and then threatened to shoot the utility workers who attempted to prevent him from fleeing the scene. Another instance took place in February 2025 involving a woman from Polk County who released her dogs on two utility workers who were investigating possible utility theft.”
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