Articles Posted in Violent Crimes

Kidnapping is a very serious crime in Florida. Kidnapping can be committed in several different ways, but the most common method of kidnapping may be defined as forcibly imprisoning a person against his/her will with the intent to harm the person or commit a felony. In Florida, kidnapping is a first degree felony punishable by up to 30 years in prison, or even life in prison if the victim is under 13 years of age and is abused or injured during the crime. From movies and television, many people may think that kidnapping requires some prolonged confinement of a person against his/her will. However, kidnapping only requires fairly minimal confinement or imprisonment to complete the crime.

In a recent criminal case near Jacksonville, FL, the defendant became angry with the victim, hit her with a chair, dragged her by her hair into the next room, beat her until she was unconscious and dragged her outside and continued to beat her. The entire incident lasted approximately seven minutes. The defendant was charged with and convicted of kidnapping and attempted second degree murder. The criminal defense lawyer for the defendant tried to have his conviction for kidnapping reversed based on the fact that the movement of the victim was not independently significant to the attempted murder charge and was only slight and incidental to that charge. However, the appellate court disagreed and found that these facts were sufficient to establish a kidnapping conviction.

Kidnapping is a very serious charge with significant penalties in Florida. In order to be convicted of kidnapping, the state does not have to prove the defendant confined the victim for a long period of time. If the confinement or movement of the victim is truly slight and incidental to another crime, the evidence may not be sufficient to support a kidnapping conviction. However, even a few minutes of holding a person down or moving the victim to another area against his/her will can be enough for a kidnapping conviction and a long prison sentence.

In Florida, the crime of child abuse is committed when a person intentionally causes physical or mental injury to a child or does something that could reasonably be expected to cause a physical or mental injury to a child. Assuming the child is not seriously injured, child abuse is a serious third degree felony that carries a maximum penalty of three years in prison in Florida. Police and prosecutors take these crimes very seriously, as one might expect when children victims are involved.

However, there is a question as to what exactly constitutes the crime of child abuse in Florida. Some police will make arrests and some prosecutors will file criminal charges for conduct that was considered normal, or even encouraged, not too many years ago. Cases in Florida have attempted to clarify what conduct can be considered criminal abuse of a child. In Florida, an actual injury is required for the conduct to be criminal. This means something more than just causing discomfort to the child. It would seem to require actual objective evidence of any injury such as a sprain, broken bone, burn, puncture of the skin or at least a bruise. If a person causes some harm to a child but none of those objective findings are present, it is likely that the crime of child abuse was not committed, and any charges for child abuse should be thrown out.

The lesser third degree felony child abuse charge also contemplates a crime where a person causes a mental injury to the child. In such a case, the state would likely have to establish some sort of impairment to the child’s ability to function mentally that was caused by the act of child abuse and was not previously present.

In Florida, when a defendant is charged with a violent crime, such as battery, aggravated assault or murder, the defendant’s criminal defense lawyer may present evidence at the trial that the victim had a reputation for violence in the community. Normally, such evidence about a victim’s character is not admissible at the trial. However, in some cases, the victim’s character may be admissible. One example is in a self defense case. However, there is a condition that must be met before that evidence of the victim’s violent reputation is admissible. The defendant must first establish that the victim committed some violent or threatening act around the time of the incident that caused the defendant to act as he did. Once that foundation for a self defense claim is laid, the defendant can then present evidence of the victim’s reputation for violence.

Under Florida law, the reason for allowing a criminal defense attorney to present evidence of the victim’s reputation for violence in a self defense case is to support the defendant’s claim that the victim was the initial aggressor and the defendant was justified in using force in self defense. The evidence of the victim’s violent reputation helps prove that the victim acted consistently with his reputation in this case. Therefore, there is no requirement that the defendant prove that he/she actually knew of the victim’s violent reputation before that reputation evidence can be admitted into evidence.

However, this last part is different in a self defense case where the criminal defense lawyer is seeking to introduce evidence of specific acts of violence committed by the victim prior to the incident in question. Prior specific acts of violence by the victim may be relevant to show that the defendant was reasonably in fear of the victim in this case and used force against the victim as a result. Because this evidence relates to the defendant’s state of mind, i.e. his/her legitimate fear of the victim, the defendant must establish that he/she was aware of the victim’s prior acts of violence before they are admitted at the trial.

In a recent attempted second degree murder case near Bartow, Florida (which is about 3 1/2 hours southwest of Jacksonville, Florida), a defendant’s attempted second degree murder conviction was reversed because the judge did not properly instruct the jury about the defendant’s right to defend himself.

In this case, the defendant, the alleged victim and two other friends were sitting in a park drinking. The defendant and the alleged victim got into some type of altercation, and the defendant ultimately stabbed him with a knife. When questioned by the police and throughout the trial, the defendant (and his criminal defense attorney) claimed that he stabbed the alleged victim because he thought the alleged victim was going to kill him.

In this attempted second degree murder case, the judge instructed the jury that a person cannot use deadly force unless he/she first reasonably tries to avoid the danger from the other person. However, the law has changed, and this is no longer an accurate statement under Florida law. Florida has since eliminated this so-called duty to retreat. Under current Florida law, as long as a person is not doing anything illegal and is in a place he/she has a right to be, he/she does not have to retreat, can stand his/her ground and can use any force reasonably necessary to prevent death, great bodily harm or a forcible felony.

A Jacksonville, Florida man was recently arrested for the crime of murder by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office (JSO) four years after he allegedly beat the victim, according to an article on News4Jax.com. Apparently, the suspect beat his girlfriend four years ago so badly that she was rendered a quadriplegic and forced to live in a nursing home for the past four years. The victim recently died, and the suspect was rearrested on murder charges.

Cases like this when the death occurs so long after the alleged incident are rare, but they do happen and the state is permitted to charge the suspect with murder years after the original incident occurred. This is because there is no statute of limitations for the crime of murder. In Florida, any capital felony, life felony or felony that results in a death may be charged at any time. There is no deadline. Other less serious crimes are subject to the statute of limitations. For instance, in Florida, a first degree felony that does not involve a death must be commended within four years of the incident. Other felonies must be commenced within three years of the incident date, and first degree misdemeanors must be commenced within two years of the commission of the crime.

The other prevailing issue in a case like this is whether the state can prove causation. In other words, in any murder case, the state has to prove that the victim actually died from the actions of the defendant. When there is a long period of time between the incident and the actual death, the criminal defense lawyer can always argue that the death was caused by something other than the defendant’s conduct, which is why so much time elapsed in between the incident and the death. In order to prove the murder charge, the state has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the victim died as a direct result of the defendant’s actions.

When a person is arrested and charged with a crime of violence such as assault, battery aggravated assault, aggravated battery or a murder charge, the criminal defense lawyer for the defendant may attempt to introduce evidence of the alleged victim’s prior history of violence. Is this evidence of the alleged victim’s prior violence admissible at the trial? Yes, when the defendant is relying on a self defense theory in the case.

In Florida, when the defendant is charged with a violent crime, self defense is a common defense. If it can be established that the victim has a history of violence and the defendant was aware of this violent history, the criminal defense lawyer can bring out that evidence about the alleged victim at the trial for the jury to consider. The idea is that a self defense claim asserts that the defendant had a reason to believe that he/she was in danger based on the violent and/or threatening conduct of the alleged victim. Where the defendant knows that the alleged victim has a history violent conduct, that is relevant to establish that the defendant had reason to believe that the alleged victim was being, or was about to be, similarly violent in this case. Such evidence is relevant to show the state of mind of the defendant and to justify the defendant’s reasonable fear of the alleged victim and the defendant’s use of violence to defend him/herself from the alleged victim.