University of West Florida boasts stringent hazing policies, plans activities for Hazing Prevention Week
TALLAHASSEE, Florida -- Before Dante Martin, Caleb Jackson and Robert Champion became household names, there was Michael Morton.
In the spring of 2006, Morton had it all.
Weeks from graduating from Florida A&M University with a degree in engineering on a full-ride scholarship. Job offer at Pepsi's Dallas plant in hand. A child on the way.
That all changed in 2007, when Morton, then 23, and his fellow Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity brother, Jason Harris, were the first two people sentenced under Florida's tougher 2005 hazing law after an initiation beating that landed a pledge on a surgical table with a broken eardrum.
The stricter law made hazing that leads to serious bodily injury a felony, regardless of a victim's consent. The two men, who had been viewed by many as models of FAMU's student success, spent two years in prison before an appeals court overturned their convictions and freed them in 2009. They pleaded no contest to felony hazing and were sentenced to time served.
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