''You've got to have a real narrow vision to congratulate the governor for signing a repeal of a statute that, as a result of a lawsuit we were involved in, the courts struck down as unconstitutional,'' he said. ''The legislature shouldn't have passed it in the first place.''

A judge in Palm Beach County Circuit Court ruled last year that requiring rape victims to publicize their names and sexual histories was an unconstitutional violation of privacy. And last month, a state appeals court ruled that it was also unconstitutional for the state to require women and under-age girls to disclose their sexual histories even in cases of consensual sex.

The Scarlet Letter law required women to run advertisements disclosing their names, ages, height, hair and eye color, race and weight as well as the child's name and birthplace and a description of the possible father.

It also required the women to provide details of the dates and places of sexual encounters that might have produced the child. Women were required to run the advertisements once a week for a month in the community where the child may have been conceived.

The publication requirement, which took effect in October 2001, was criticized by women's groups in Florida and nationally as draconian and humiliating.

''I had a woman come to me who had a child 10 years ago while in college and now her husband of five years wants to adopt her child and in order to do that she had to put her name, her daughter's name and all the men she slept with in college in her college newspaper,'' said Charlotte Danciu, a Boca Raton lawyer who represented four women and two minors in a suit against the law.

Though officials could not say precisely how many women placed such ads, women's advocates and lawmakers estimated that a couple of hundred had.