Palm Beach County Grandmother Jailed 15 Days by Mistake
Our West Palm Beach traffic ticket defense attorneys were appalled by a news report about an elderly woman who was in jail over Thanksgiving because she failed to respond to a DHSMV letter. BrowardBulldog.org reported Jan. 11 that Gabrielle Shaink Trudeau, 78, was held in Broward County Jail for 15 days and given $2,000 bail for traffic charges. Trudeau had no previous criminal record when she failed to appear in court on charges of driving with a suspended license. She was arrested and appeared in court wearing heavy chains, prompting a sharply worded speech from the judge who released her.
Shaink Trudeau’s license was suspended in late August because she failed to respond to a letter from the DHSMV about undisclosed medical issues. A few weeks later, she was pulled over for driving too slowly and issued a ticket for driving on a suspended license. However, in mid-September, she received a letter saying her license was reinstated. Believing that letter resolved the ticket, she didn’t appear at an early October court hearing. The judge in that case issued a bench warrant for her arrest, and Broward County deputies eventually showed up to arrest her in her own kitchen.
Pretrial workers found Shaink Trudeau a good candidate for release without bail, and some were on duty during her bail hearing. But neither they nor the two public defenders on duty advocated for her or suggested that her case needed special handling. As a result, the magistrate simply set a predetermined amount of bail and zipped on to the next defendant. After the bail was set, Shaink Trudeau said she made a confused gesture to her neighbor, but nobody saw. She said she never paid the $2,000 bail during the next two weeks she spent in jail because someone kept telling her it wasn’t necessary. Finally, at her Dec. 2 arraignment, prosecutors dropped the charges because they incorrectly believed her license hadn’t been suspended when she got the ticket. It was reinstated afterward -- but suspended again while she was in jail because she failed to obtain a medical reevaluation.
We wonder how many other Gabrielle Shaink Trudeaus are out there. This case underscores multiple important problems with Florida’s justice system: overly harsh traffic laws, confusing communications and court workers who are too busy or too disinterested to notice when a case requires special attention. Many of our clients, like Shaink Trudeau, don’t realize their licenses were suspended until after they have been pulled over and ticketed. From there, it takes very little to end up arrested and jailed -- all over something small like a speeding ticket or a medical examination requirement. Without a Fort Lauderdale traffic offense criminal defense attorney or another advocate, these drivers could end up jailed indefinitely, and not all of them are as sympathetic as a 78-year-old woman.
The criminal attorneys at Balliro Seltzer LLC represent clients who face serious legal trouble because of traffic infractions. Our clients include people who are seeking to nip trouble in the bud by settling a large number of traffic tickets or defending a ticket that could otherwise suspend their licenses. We also represent people who have been caught in the legal system like Shaink Trudeau and need help right away. Our Miami-Dade traffic ticket defense lawyers can appear at the first hearing on the morning after an arrest and argue for a reasonable bail. Later on, we can negotiate a fair deal with prosecutors or aggressively defend our client in court.
If you’re in legal trouble because of traffic tickets or crimes, don’t wait to call Balliro Seltzer LLC. We’re available 24 hours a day and seven days a week, because we know arrests don’t just happen during business hours. To set up a free consultation, you can call us toll-free from anywhere in Florida at 1-866-ARRESTED or contact us online.
