In a recent drug case near Jacksonville, Florida, the police obtained a search warrant to search the defendant’s house for ecstasy pills (MDMA). The search warrant authorized by the judge was a knock and announce search warrant. A knock and announce search warrant is fairly self-explanatory. When the police officers…
A common scenario in Florida occurs when the police pull over a driver for a traffic violation and suspect the driver has drugs in his/her vehicle and finds a way to search the vehicle. For possession of marijuana or trafficking in marijuana cases, the police report often indicates that the…
In Florida, police officers are allowed to search a person or his/her property in limited circumstances. One situation where a search is usually legal is when the owner of the property or the person with authority over the property gives the police consent to search the property. However, a person…
People in Florida have very strong privacy rights in their homes, and police can only enter a person’s home in limited circumstances. Normally, the police will either need a valid search warrant, consent from an authorized person or an emergency making it necessary to enter a person’s home when there…
In Florida, if the police want to search a person’s home for drugs or other incriminating evidence, they would normally need a search warrant that can only be validly obtained if the police have probable cause to believe drugs or other evidence is in the home. The police can always…
The general rule in Florida is that a police officer cannot search a person’s belongings unless an established legal exception applies. Examples include: consent, a search warrant, a search incident to an arrest and probable cause to believe incriminating evidence is present and exigent circumstances. However, if a person abandons…
Police in Flagler County, St. Johns County and Putnam County, Florida arrested 103 people who were allegedly involved in illegally trafficking prescription pills, according to an article on News4Jax.com. As we have discussed several times on our website, over the last few years police throughout Florida and Georgia have been…
As we have discussed on our criminal defense lawyer blog in the past, the federal sentencing guidelines, which play a significant role in the ultimate sentence a federal criminal defendant will receive, used to be much more severe for crack cocaine cases as opposed to powder cocaine cases. They still…
Florida Governor Rick Scott issued an order in March of 2011 which would allow the state to drug test its employees randomly and without any suspicion of drug use or improper conduct. The order has been challenged as a violation of a person’s right to be free from unreasonable searches…
Under search and seizure law in Florida, the police need to have reasonable suspicion that a suspect is involved in criminal activity before he/she can briefly detain the suspect for further investigation. A detention does not necessarily consist of a police officer telling a person to stop or stopping a…