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BODY:           Earlier this week, Palm Beach Post writer Susan Spencer-Wendel wrote an article entitled "She's guilty of murder, but shooter's free" in which she recounted how a young woman named Ashley Ramirez was convicted of robbery and first-degree murder with a firearm even though the jury who decided her case found that she did fire […]

          Yesterday, Palm Beach Post Capital Bureau writer Dara Kam wrote an article entitled "Lantana mother of sex-abuse victim joins fight against molesters."  In her article, Ms. Kam recounted the case of a man who was repeatedly molested when he was a young boy but who waited until after the statute of limitations expired to report […]

          Do current immigration laws in the United States encourage one spouse to falsely accuse the other spouse of domestic violence?  This became an important question in a recent case of mine in which my client, who was a permanent legal resident of the United States, was accused by his wife of domestic battery.              […]

         Earlier this month, Florida's governor, Charlie Crist, signed Senate Bill 2276 which permits the police to take a DNA sample from anyone who is merely arrested for a felony offense.              In an article entitled "Crist signs law ordering DNA tests for all arrested in felonies, raising privacy fears," Palm Beach Post staff writer […]

          In 2006, political commentator Rush Limbaugh was charged with committing the crime of Withholding Information from a Practitioner.  On May 1, 2006, Limbaugh entered into a Deferred Prosecution Agreement with the Office of the State Attorney.  According to that agreement, the State Attorney's Office agreed to drop his case if he successfully completed the […]

          It is an all-too-frequent occurrence in Florida's criminal courts that a judge will set a bond in a given case, yet the accused individual continues to remain in jail because he cannot afford to pay that bond.  That is precisely what happened in the case of Stallings v. Ryan which arose in Miami.             […]

          In the case of New Jersey v. T.L.O., the United States Supreme Court stated that "[u]nder ordinary circumstances, a search of a student by a school or other school official [is permitted] when there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that the search will turn up evidence that the student has violated or is violating […]

          On March 4, 2008, I wrote an article on this blog entitled "Are the Police Allowed to Lie to Get You to Confess?"  I answered that question by saying, "[Y]es, the police are allowed to lie to you to get you to confess.  The law in Florida is that the use of tricks or […]

         You have probably seen police roadblocks when you were out driving your car, and you may have even been stopped at one, but did you know that before the police are allowed to actually set up a roadblock they are first required to prepare written guidelines so that the officers conducting the roadblock do not […]

          Sometimes a person will be arrested, yet the case never actually goes to court either because the police do not file the case with the State Attorney’s Office or because the State Attorney’s Office decides not to prosecute the case. When that happens, there is a procedure whereby an individual can request that the […]