Several sociologists, psychiatrists and law school professors have in recent years sought to answer the question of whether a defendant’s perceived matters in criminal cases. For example, the “Capital Jury Project in South Carolina,” by researchers of law at Cornell University delved into the issue of remorse in capital murder…
Dozens of cases linked to allegedly racist former ex-Fort Lauderdale police officers have been dropped by prosecutors, according to recent news reports. As of this writing, 12 felonies, 19 misdemeanors and one juvenile case had been dropped, while another 20 were being analyzed. Each of these cases had one thing…
There are tens of thousands of Floridians currently under community control – also known as probation – following conviction for a crime. The standard terms of this control usually involve some type of regular meeting with a probation officer, no contact order with the victim, potentially a restitution order, routine…
Most people view domestic violence as a kind of misdemeanor crime that can fairly easily be overcome in court, as the accusations are largely he-said-she-said. Sometimes, this is true. And it’s also true that a lot of allegations get overblown as a result of statements made in the intensity and…
A criminal grand theft case against former rapper Vanilla Ice (AKA Robert Matthew Van Winkle) has been dropped in a plea deal recently approved by a Palm Beach County judge. Police in Latana had arrested the former “Ice Ice Baby” rapper after it was alleged he had stolen a pool…
We typically don’t think of speeding as an infraction for which one could face jail time, let alone an extended prison term – especially if the offending driver wasn’t drunk or under the influence of drugs. And yet, that is what’s happening in a recent case in Boca Raton, in…
A Boca Raton woman was arrested on charges of domestic violence – but only after she called police alleging she had been the victim. According to the Sun Sentinel, a 53-year-old woman called 911 following an argument with her husband. She alleged in the phone call that her husband struck…
In criminal prosecutions in Florida, the state has to establish a “chain of custody” for certain kinds of evidence in order for it to be admitted. Prosecutors have to show that what they are offering into evidence is exactly what they purport it to be. For example, the drugs being…
The Florida Supreme Court recently ruled all Florida juveniles convicted of homicide and sentenced automatically to life imprisonment must now be resentenced under a new law passed last year. The ruling addresses the issue of retroactivity for Miller v. Alabama, which was a U.S. Supreme Court decision that barred life…
In the recent case of Green v. Florida, a man convicted of trafficking cocaine appealed on several grounds, most notably for the fact the court allowed officers to testify he was arrested in a high-crime neighborhood. Although the Fourth District Court of Appeal upheld conviction, it wrote to address this…