A Florida man has been arrested by the FBI on federal charges for allegedly making Facebook threats against the LGBTQ community at events in both Wilton Manors and nearby Fort Lauderdale, according to The Sun-Sentinel. Fifty-year-old Craig Jungwirth is accused of violating federal statutes on interstate commerce when he reportedly…
The Florida Supreme Court has sided with state prosecutors over a criminal defendant in a due process dispute that created conflict between Florida appellate courts. In the case of Patterson v. Florida, the state high court sided with the 1st District Court of Appeals, which found no due process violation in a case…
Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that people sentenced to life in prison as minors deserve to have their cases reviewed to determine whether there is any chance they may in fact be eligible for parole. Now, the effect of that retroactive split 6-3 decision is that courts…
The study of predicting which criminals are more likely to commit future crimes has been one of great interest for many years, and it’s given birth to computerized systems in the U.S. known as “criminal risk assessment tools.” Criminologists say there is a public interest in recognizing which individuals may…
The death penalty in Florida may be on its last leg. Recently, the Florida Supreme Court nixed the state’s practice of having a judge – rather than a jury – decide a person’s fate in a death penalty case. Then there was the judge in Miami who struck down Florida’s…
South Florida Defense Attorney Richard Ansara of The Ansara Law Firm successfully defended a client charged with manslaughter following a 2013 fatal shooting in Boca Raton. As The Sun-Sentinel recently reported, Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Glenn Kelley dismissed the second-degree felony case against 25-year-old client Joshua Henry of Pompano Beach.…
Following a scathing report criticizing treatment of mentally ill defendants who languish sometimes for years in the criminal justice system (and six times longer than a person with comparable charges in regular court , the Broward State Attorneys Office devised a partial solution: A mental health diversion program that would get…
A man from Boca Raton who was acquitted last fall of felony stalking charges involving a neighbor is now facing additional stalking charges involving a former business partner. Ahmad Dastjerdi, 55,was found not guilty of third-degree felony stalking in September after leaving about five dozen profanity-laced voicemail messages on his…
It should come as little surprise that persons who are mentally ill comprise a significant portion of the incarcerated population. A recent report by the Treatment Advocacy Center indicated that American prisons and jails house an estimated 360,000 inmates with mental illness – or about 10 times the number of…
Most criminal lawyers will tell you eye witness testimony is incredibly unreliable. There are often many ways to successfully challenge eye witness accounts in court. However, it can be much more challenging when the “witness” is a camera. In this digital age, where everyone has a smartphone, surveillance cameras are…