A recent court decision, Wilson v. State, 43 Fla. L. Weekly D715a (Fla. 2d DCA 2018), resulted in the reversal of a conviction and the suppression of a confession in a case involving illegal and outrageous police conduct. This opinion is a scathing indictment on the tactics used by law…
In Florida and other states, when the police arrest a a person they suspect is guilty of DUI (driving under the influence), the police will almost always ask that person to submit to a blood alcohol test. First, as many people are unaware, this request and the actual test in…
In our last blog post, we discussed the problems and dangers of government abuse that come with mandatory minimum prison sentences for various crimes. In this blog post, we will review a recent report from the United States Sentencing Commission which discusses the effects of mandatory minimum prison sentences from…
In criminal cases in state and federal courts, one major landmine in getting cases resolved and trying to get fair results is crimes that carry mandatory minimum prison sentences. There are few greater injustices in the criminal system than the advent of the mandatory minimum prison sentence. Additionally, they are…
One of the most misunderstood issues in criminal law is hearsay. People often confuse he said/she said evidence with hearsay. Many people believe that the State cannot prosecute a person based on he said/she said evidence. This article seeks to clear up any misunderstandings regarding what hearsay is and…
Criminal defense attorneys in Florida often struggle to answer questions related to what is and what is not considered child abuse in the State of Florida. The reason is that the child abuse statute is so very broad and covers such a wide array of actions, some of which do…
There has been a lot of talk about new legislation regarding firearms, but what is the current status of the law as it relates to guns? Criminal defense lawyers know that there are plenty of firearm statutes with extreme high range of punishments already on the books in Florida. These…
As every criminal defense lawyer knows, there are some very draconian minimum mandatory sentences in Federal criminal court. There are federal minimum mandatory sentences for certain drug offenses, firearm offenses, and for defendants who have certain convictions. There are two ways to break the minimum mandatory sentence, which then allows…
When can a police officer stop and search you? This is a question often asked to criminal defense lawyers, but can rarely be answered with any degree of specificity. Why? Because whether a police officer has illegally stopped and searched you is a mixed question of fact and law. Rarely,…
We often get calls from frantic family members asking how we can help if their loved one was just arrested. There are several ways a criminal defense lawyer can help. For example, the criminal defense attorney can challenge whether there is probable cause in the case. But the biggest area…