The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in programs conducted by Federal agencies, in programs receiving Federal financial assistance, in Federal employment, and in the employment practices of Federal contractors.
Section 504 states that "no qualified individual with a disability in the United States shall be excluded from, denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under" any program or activity that either receives Federal financial assistance or is conducted by any Executive agency.
Section 508 now establishes requirements for electronic and information technology developed, maintained, procured, or used by the Federal government. Section 508 requires Federal electronic and information technology to be accessible to people with disabilities, including employees and members of the public.
In December 2000 the Federal Access Board issued final standards for electronic and information technology under Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. These were adopted and published in the Federal Registrar in April 2001 with enforcement to begin June 21, 2001.
While these standards currently apply to federal government, it is the direct responsibility of Florida state government agencies and their web designers and developers to become familiar with these accessibility guidelines and to apply these principles in designing and creating any official State of Florida website.
On July 1, 2006, the Florida Accessible Electronic and Information Act was implemented that requires Florida State Government web sites to comply with Section 508 to ensure the widest possible audience easy access to government information. Section 508 standards are based on access guidelines developed by the Web Accessibility Initiative of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
This website is on an accessibility-ready WordPress theme and is evaluated with a "web accessibility evaluation tool" by WebAIM. Using Microsoft Word, the linked documents on the "Info" page are first ran through Microsoft's Accessibility Checker and then converted to a PDF file retaining the document structure tags for accessibility.
The Law Offices of Robert Lockwood, Public Defender, 16th Judicial Circuit is committed to making the information on our website accessible to all website visitors and welcomes your comments and suggestions for improving the accessibility of information on our website. This website is always under construction with various changes, improvements and to maintain the accessibility. If you use assistive technology and the format of any material on our website interferes with your ability to access the information, we encourage you to notify us immediately.
Links to Third Party Websites:
This website contains links to third party websites not operated by the Law Offices of Robert Lockwood, Public Defender, 16th Judicial Circuit. Those websites may not adhere to ADA standards. The Law Offices of Robert Lockwood, Public Defender, 16th Judicial Circuit is not responsible for the content and accessibility of those websites, their partners, or advertisers.