South Florida Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog

Probation violations are the area of law where many people get confused and confounded. If you understand the steps by which a violation becomes an arrestable offense, you can deal with them. The first question is: Were you properly informed of the terms and conditions of your probation: It must be in the sentencing order, or the statute, spoken to you in open court by the judge, or read to you by the probation officer. Step one is the State has to prove up the probation terms were communicated by one of the above methods. Probation officers cannot invent terms and conditions. Step two: Once you’re on probation the probation officer as to monitor and supervise. If the probation officer believes you have violated any condition of probation he cannot arrest you unless the violation occurs in front of him or the act itself is an arrestable offense. The probation officer writes up a violation of probation report and sends it to your judge. The judge reads it. Only if the judge believes, based on the probation officers report, that the violation is both WILLFUL and SUBSTANTIAL will he/she sign the document. When the judge signs the document it becomes an arrest warrant. Once the violation report, reviewed by the judge, becomes a warrant then you will be brought before the judge. The Judge must determine after a hearing whether the facts alleged in the report are true. At this point you need your South Florida Criminal defense attorney to either get you out of jail before the hearings, or represent you at the final evidentiary hearing.

In South Florida, as in most states; criminal responsibility for the vast majority of crimes requires intent. A person who is under a mental disease or defect, or is incompetent to stand trial, has the defense to criminal charges of competency or insanity. In South Florida, Fort Lauderdale, and Miami, very few successful insanity defenses have been litigated in South Florida criminal courts. The reason is insanity has fallen in disfavor with the legislature and most judges and juries. A South Florida criminal defense attorney can explain the trends in the charging and prosecuting of drug crimes, burglaries, robberies, and violations of probation, where the defense of incompetency or insanity has been rejected. Do not confuse insanity with competency. Insanity is the inability to form the requisite criminal intent due to mental disease or mental defect. Competency goes to an individual’s current state at the time of the prosecution: if a person under arrest and facing a criminal trial in South Florida cannot effectively assist counsel, and is unaware of the function and role of the judge, a criminal defense attorney, and a jury, then the defense of incompetency to prosecution is raised by the criminal defense attorney. Incompetency merely delays the prosecution for up to two years, during that time the state has the duty to assist in the restoration of competency. For more information call or e-mail your favorite South Florida criminal defense attorney, or contact my office.

THE BRADY BUNCH IN FEDERAL COURT
The friendly antics of the Brady Bunch family and TV land has nothing to do with the realities, the cold realities of criminal proseuctions in federal courts. In the public view federal courts are where our civil and constitutional rights are preserved. It is even more common for people to believe that federal court is where state court abuses are corrected. True a generation ago but not true today. Florida State criminal courts have championed fair trial rights, and left the federal courts in the dust, mingled in the dust of the lost souls who were convicted in federal criminal courts, in many cases wrongly. Florida criminal courts, Miami Fort Lauderdale West Palm Beach, give criminal defendants the right to see evidence that exonerates them. If you are arrested for drug trafficking, or any serious felony and come before a Florida criminal Court you have the right to compel the government to turn over to you evidence that might prove your innocence. Florida criminal courts find the legal basis for these rights in a federal case called Brady versus Maryland. In it a federal court ruled that defendants have the right to information that would aid in their defense, information in the possession of the state of Florida must be turned over. Any South Florida criminal defense attorney will tell you that in Florida criminal courts you will receive a discovery package in which the government turns over to you any information they have which might aid in your defense. In federal court the Brady case has been largely forgotten and ignored by the federal rules of criminal procedure. Ask your South Florida criminal defense attorney for more information about a defendant’s rights in Florida criminal courts

No. A police officer can only make a search or your person (your body, your clothes, your personal space) under one of the following three circumstances:
1. You agree to the search. Your consent cannot be forced or the product of a submission to a show of force. It must be freely given, and not the product of police bullying.
2. Officer safety. But that means a real and provable reason. It can be said that police work is always dangerous and that police officer safety is always a top and legitimate concern. True enough. But a sleeping grandma or a three month old baby are not a reasonable threat and cannot be searched. Likewise, even a fully grown adult male can’t be searched for office safety unless he does something that would create a reasonable (attach a reason) to be a threat. Officer safety must be proven before a judge will allow the things found during a non-consensual search to be used to convict you.
3. Lastly (thirdly?) After a lawful arrest.

Florida criminal lawyers live and breathe by the hundreds of cases that clarify and are fact specific to the above three paragraphs. Don’t think by understanding the basic rules you can be correct in your evaluation of a fact pattern surrounding a search. Speak with a local criminal defense lawyer before you stick your foot in your mouth, or worse, get in trouble with the law. There is no substitute for knowledge and experience and there is no end to woe from ignorance and stupidity. Ask and know. Or, better still; buy a copy of my book “CAN THE POLICE LIE TO ME?” you can buy it on amazon.com for $18.95.

In Florida you must be 21 years of age to purchase alcoholic beverages. Once 18 it has long been 21. Of course you can serve in the Army at 18 but you can’t drink until you are 21. Some young people in Florida run afoul of the criminal laws by obtaining “fake” ID. Don’t. It is an arrest able offense; it can even be a felony!

In South Florida (Fort Lauderdale, Pompano, Miami, Davie, West Palm Beach) you can be charged with a misdemeanor if you have a fake set of identification. If you have someone’s driver’s license it is felony. A felony carries a five year prison sentence and a lifetime of grief. If you use someone else’s identification you can both face criminal charges: You can be arrested for possession of a false or fraudulent drivers’ license and your friend (brother? Sister?) can be charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor. What to do? DO NOT display fake ID. Cool down with an ice tea, not Long Island ice tea. Life is too short and cops are too mean, thinks first and then don’t do it!