Criminal Defense

What constitutes "self defense" can vary from state to state. Florida is one state that does not impose on people a duty to retreat if they feel seriously threatened with harm by another; put another way, this state allows you to "stand your ground" in the act of...

People can have different degrees of involvement in crimes. Consider a scenario in which a group of people participates in various ways in robbing a jewelry store. One person pretends to be a customer before the event, and determines what kind of security the store...

There is a saying among attorneys that "The devil is in the details." Sometimes this can refer to the need to carefully read a statute, regulation or court case; the failure to properly understand how the law works can lead to unfortunate consequences for the client...

If you have been charged with a Florida state or a federal crime, and you are not interested in making a guilty plea, then there are two words in the English language that will become the focal point for your defense: "reasonable doubt". If you can establish enough...

People enter into Florida by air travel through several international airports. Your belongings can be subject to inspection when you go through customs, but the intrusiveness of those inspections need to be tempered by the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,...

Life is not a crime drama, in which the episode ends when the suspect is arrested. It is not even a crime documentary, in which the episode ends when the suspect is convicted at trial. If you have been accused of a crime in the real world, the justice system ensures...

A 36-year-old man sentenced to life in prison without parole when he was 15, and a 20-year-old man sentenced to 70 years in prison when he was 14 are but two of potentially hundreds of Florida inmates serving sentences that were imposed when they were juveniles who...

Crimes can be loosely categorized as being of two types: violent and nonviolent. Those in the latter category, which often consist of a variety of ways of depriving others of money or property, include the kinds of crimes colloquially known as "white collar" crimes....

Sometimes the U.S. Supreme Court addresses questions of law that are of monumental significance on their face, such as when a criminal suspect must be informed of his or her legal rights upon arrest. On other occasions, however, the importance of a Court decision is...

The Florida Supreme Court has ruled that drivers who get into an accident but who do not realize it cannot be convicted of leaving the scene of a crash.The case arose out of an accident that happened in Boca Raton in 2007, when a skateboarder accidentally fell into a...