Florida Criminal Lawyer Blog

As Miami-Dade drunk driving criminal defense attorneys, we were disappointed to read about the DUI arrest of Miami Dolphins running back Ronnie Brown. Brown, a native of Georgia, was arrested in that state March 20. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported March 25 that the Associated Press had a police report saying Brown’s blood-alcohol content tested at 0.158, using a breath test administered by a police officer in Marietta, Georgia. Brown, 28, was in town to attend an anniversary dinner for his parents. He has no previous arrest record, and the legal problems stemming from the arrest were not expected to stop him from playing in the NFL’s next season, or even in the offseason voluntary training that was slated to begin March 22.

According to the Miami Herald, Brown was stopped at 4:29 a.m. on March 20 for making a lane change without signaling. He and a cousin were reportedly coming home from an after-hours club. The newer Sun-Sentinel report said the officer observed Brown’s car drifting into oncoming traffic two times, one of which could have caused a crash. The officer also reported that Brown was driving at 50 to 60 mph in a 35-mph zone. Brown performed poorly on field sobriety tests and showed signs of intoxication, the officer said. Brown told the officer that he’d had foot surgery six weeks ago -- actually in November -- but had gone running the day before. The 0.158 BAC was the lower of the two readings he gave.

The report said Brown was upset about the arrest and had hired an attorney to help. As Fort Lauderdale DUI criminal defense lawyers, we think that was a very good idea. Although there is a BAC reading in this case, the other evidence in the case is weak. Despite their widespread use, field sobriety tests aren’t very reliable. Studies have shown that they can be difficult even for sober people, and when tests are considered accurate, they must still be administered properly. Similarly, the officer’s observation that Brown seemed intoxicated cannot be considered hard evidence because it is a subjective observation. The BAC test is indeed hard evidence, but the prosecution may not be able to use it if it’s tainted by poor handling or administration, or if the original traffic stop was not lawful. In short, there are many possible defenses open to an experienced attorney in a case like this.

Continue reading " Police Say Dolphins Player Arrested for Drunk Driving Had BAC Twice Legal Limit " »

One teenager is charged with attempted first-degree murder and another is charged as an accessory in the brutal beating of a third teen in Deerfield Beach, the Miami Herald reported March 22. Our Miami murder criminal defense lawyers were disturbed to read about the case of Wayne Treacy, 15, and Kayla Manson, 13, who are both facing serious criminal charges in the beating of 15-year-old Josie Lou Ratley. Ratley is hospitalized in critical condition, has had parts of her skull removed and is in a medically induced coma after Treacy allegedly kicked her in the head at least seven times. Manson is being charged as an accessory for pointing Ratley out to Treacy in a crowd of middle school kids waiting for buses.

The dispute started over text message. Treacy was dating Manson, who was a friend of Ratley. Treacy was not in school the day of the beating, but texted Ratley in order to reach Manson, who didn’t have a phone. The two traded messages back and forth until Ratley said something about Treacy’s older brother, who had committed suicide last year. Treacy’s public defender said Treacy was the one who found his brother hanging from a tree. According to Broward sheriff’s deputies, Treacy got angry, put on steel-toed boots and bicycled to the school. He texted several people that he was going to kill Ratley. When he arrived, he tried to attack another person until Manson stopped him and pointed out Ratley waiting for the bus. He rushed over and knocked her over, banging her head into the concrete or his shoes at least 12 times. A teacher broke it up, and Ratley was airlifted to the hospital.

As Fort Lauderdale murder criminal defense attorneys, we'd like to discuss the extremely serious charges in this case. The article says Treacy may be charged as an adult with attempted first-degree murder, and Manson as an accessory to that crime. Based on our extensive experience with those offenses, if we were their attorneys, we would start by advocating strongly to keep both of them in the juvenile justice system. By staying out of adult court, the two can avoid facing penalties of up to life in prison if they are convicted. If Treacy were tried as an adult anyway, we would still move to have him treated as a Youthful Offender. This status allows the court to hand down a sentence less severe than the adult penalties for attempted first-degree murder. In the past, we've been successful with this approach, which involves complex research and a clear understanding of the juvenile and adult justice systems.

Continue reading " Deerfield Beach Teens Charged With Attempted Murder in Girl’s Beating " »

The Fort Lauderdale DUI defense attorneys at Balliro are proud to announce that we are a sponsor of the annual Swamp Stomp Miami. Held on Virginia Key, the concert is an eclectic collection of some of South Florida's finest bands. Just like with our previous concert sponsorship, we believe it's important for concert-goers to have a great time -- but avoid drinking and driving.

Our Miami narcotics criminal defense lawyers were sorry to see a story of what may have been a drug raid gone wrong. The Miami Herald reported March 14 that Broward Sheriff’s Department employees shot a 52-year-old woman last weekend after breaking into her home just after midnight. Police say Brenda Van Zwieten refused to drop her handgun when sheriff’s deputies ordered her to. The officers broke into her home after midnight on suspicion that it was a “drug den” after neighbors complained. In the raid, police found several drugs and and three other firearms, along with some cash. Van Zwieten’s boyfriend, 47-year-old Gary Nunnemacher, was taken into custody without complications on a misdemeanor marijuana charge.

Van Zwieten had no criminal history involving violence or drugs. She did have a license for the handgun deputies found her brandishing. Her brother, Bill George, said she had been threatened recently by someone accused of stealing from her house, and that she’d had an alarm system installed the week before. Deputies say they announced themselves several times before breaking a sliding glass door to get into Van Zwieten’s house just after midnight on Saturday. In the course of their search, they found 40 tablets of Xanax, about three ounces of marijuana, one gram of heroin, four grams of cocaine, $550 in cash and three other firearms. Van Zwieten’s son, Rob Singleton, produced a prescription for the Xanax. He insisted that his mother was not a drug dealer, but a grandmother active in the PTA and political campaigns.

The article notes that the incident is under investigation, and our West Palm Beach drug crimes defense attorneys hope that investigation is thorough and unbiased. Judging purely from the facts in the article, Van Zwieten may very well have mistaken the deputies for criminals breaking and entering her home. This could be especially likely if she was asleep when the raid started and didn’t hear deputies announcing themselves outside. This would be true even if Van Zwieten was guilty of dealing drugs, but the evidence for that is not strong. The cash and guns could have numerous legal explanations, and most of the drugs were either legally prescribed or found in such small amounts that they’re below the cutoff in Florida law for a charge of intent to sell.

Continue reading " Relatives Accuse Police of Shooting Innocent Woman in Midnight Drug Raid " »

As West Palm Beach drunk driving criminal defense attorneys, we are extremely interested in the ongoing debate throughout Florida about the use of a particular brand of breath-testing machine in DUI cases. Some of our fellow defense attorneys contend that the Intoxilyzer, a machine used by Florida law enforcement, is unreliable and should not be used, or that the machine’s manufacturer should be forced to release source code so that defense attorneys can understand how evidence against their clients is reached. Several counties have already ruled on the Intoxilyzer’s admission, and now, Palm Beach County is considering it as well. On Feb. 23, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported that a panel of seven criminal judges is considering whether to throw out Intoxilyzer records for nearly 500 defendants with active DUI cases.

Most interestingly, the two private attorneys and one public defender in the case say that some Palm Beach County prosecutors are intentionally turning off machines when it looks like they are going to fail inspections. Intoxilyzer machines must be inspected routinely to ensure that the evidence they produce is reliable. A Florida Department of Law Enforcement employee was fired last year for doing this in Miami-Dade County. The defense attorneys claim the fired employee had told at least four others how to do this as well, and an outside forensic expert said he found evidence that certain inspectors had a pattern of doing this. However, one police officer said he sometimes turns off machines because they “freeze.” The defense lawyers also argue that the specific model of Intoxilyzer at issue must be approved by the federal government to be used in Florida.

A ruling in favor of the defense attorneys would require prosecutors to throw out all of the cases against their nearly 500 clients. It would also invalidate the use of the Intoxilyzer in Palm Beach County, though not necessarily in neighboring counties. As Miami DUI criminal defense lawyers, we hope the judges come to a decision that is fair to DUI defendants whose test results may have been skewed by the inspectors’ malfeasance. The blood-alcohol concentration test result is essential in a drunk driving case, because it usually makes up the only direct evidence against the driver. If that test is off by even 0.01, innocent people can be criminally charged with drunk driving (and guilty people can go free). Tampering with that test result is essentially tampering with justice.

Continue reading " Palm Beach County Judges Consider Admissibility of Intoxilyzer Machine in DUI Cases " »

Our Fort Lauderdale sex crimes criminal defense attorneys have long believed that sex offender registration laws and residency restrictions are not good laws. This is in part because they create homelessness and obstacles to rehabilitation, but also because they don’t allow flexibility for special circumstances. We believe that flexibility may have been called for in the case of a homeless man recently profiled in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. The newspaper ran an article March 1 following up on a Feb. 25 profile of Gary Kerpan, 60, who is a sex offender because of his conviction for raping and killing a 12-year-old girl in Illinois. He is also a Vietnam veteran with paranoid schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Kerpan confessed in 1990 to the 1977 rape, stabbing and murder of a child in the Chicago suburbs. He was released from prison in 2006 and came to Florida, in part because his mother lives here. However, he was arrested in early 2007 for failure to register as a sex offender and imprisoned until August of 2009. At that time, he started living on the streets in Fort Lauderdale. Because of his sex offender status, he is not allowed to stay with his mother or in Broward County shelters. After the newspaper profiled him, he was arrested Feb. 26 for failing to report his address as “transient” to the state as part of his sex offender obligations. The Department of Veterans Affairs said it could help Kerpan with housing and mental health services if a judge agreed. However, the Broward State’s Attorney’s office has not yet decided whether to prosecute him.

This article doesn’t emphasize Kerpan’s schizophrenia or post-traumatic stress disorder. However, our West Palm Beach sex offense defense lawyers suspect that these are the primary causes of his homelessness. Even the mentally ill who are lucky enough to have loving families and financial resources can end up on the streets. Their illnesses make it nearly impossible to meet basic obligations like holding down a job and paying rent. In Kerpan’s case, his mental illness may also make it difficult to remember, and follow through on, his obligation to register. Holding offenders like him to their obligations may still be necessary, but the state should do so with realistic expectations, and possibly by providing help when necessary. If that’s not possible, the least police and prosecutors should do is show some mercy to people like Kerpan, who now faces his second felony failure-to-register charge.

Continue reading " Mentally Ill Sex Offender Arrested for Failing to Report Address as Homeless " »