Everyone has the right to be tried by a jury of their peers, and for that trial to be fair. The many protections enshrined in Florida law to protect a criminal defendant’s right to a fair trial exist to ensure justice; in other words, to make certain an accused person…
Many procedural details go into the pretrial, trial, and post-conviction phases of presenting a defense. It is important to have a Tampa Bay criminal defense lawyer who is fully immersed in the knowledge of all of these details, as any one of them may be the key you need to…
There are many ways in which law enforcement officers can overstep or misstep in conducting a warrantless search pursuant to a traffic stop. When they do, those errors may mean the search was unconstitutional and you are entitled to suppression of the proof they found. This blog post will look…
A lot of criminal prosecutions — especially ones related to firearms or drug crimes — involve evidence seized as a result of a warrantless search. If that’s you, one of the most important parts of your defense is contesting the legality of the search and the admissibility of evidence seized…
Here in Florida (and around the United States,) you have the right to be free of intrusive interactions with the police unless the officers have a reasonable basis for detaining you. If the police confront you without the proper reasoning for doing so, then any incriminating evidence they seized in…
Many criminal cases, including those here in Florida, begin not with a police search executed pursuant to a valid search warrant, but with a traffic stop. In a significant percentage of those cases, that initial stop was unlawful, which means that all the evidence obtained as a result of that…
Many people assume the police are more particular about arresting violent offenders than those who are involved in drug-related crimes. Surprisingly, the opposite is true. In 2016, the FBI estimated that there were 1,572,579 arrests throughout the United States for drug-related crimes. Whether you are arrested for having heroin,…
The State of Florida has some of the harshest drug laws of any state in the country. Depending on what charges the state brings against you, you may be facing extended jail time dictated by mandatory minimum sentencing laws. Given how profoundly harmful, or even life-changing, a drug conviction can…
There are several things that can happen in your drug crime trial that can make the process unfairly tilted against you. Things like a prosecutor’s misstatement of the law in closing arguments may confuse and/or prejudice the jury, thus entitling you to a reversal if you’re eventually convicted. However, it…
Many people may be familiar with the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution and its protection against illegal searches and seizures. Fewer people may be familiar with is the “exclusionary rule.’ This rule is something that may help you to get harmful evidence thrown out in your case if the police…