Pinellas County Florida Criminal Lawyer Blog

Is there any rhyme or reason to the amount of bond a judge sets?  In Pinellas County there is a uniform bond schedule - a guideline for the judges to use when setting bond, but it doesn't seem to work. 

I see first time offenders get outrageous bonds of over $100,000 and repeat offenders with violent histories get bonds of $1000.  Sometimes it depends on the judge.  Take this most recent bond set by Pinellas County Circuit Judge Jirotka.  He was appointed in 2006 by Governor Bush.  His background is in civil law with a large firm.

He set the bond of Craig Wall, a man who had just been released from prison in 2008 after serviing 17 years for armed burglary, armed robbery and grand theft auto, at $1000.  Wall's most recent arrest was for violating a domestic violence injunction taken out by his girlfriend after the suspicious death of his 5 week old son. (read more about this story) Another circuit judge gave her a the injunction and served it on Wall, ordering Wall to stay away from her.  Wall disregarded the order of the court, was arrested, and the judge let him out on a $1000 bond.  For those of you not familiar with how bonds work - that's $100 to a bail bondsman.

The following day he murders the girlfriend. 

When deciding on bond amounts, the judge must consider several factors, the most important is the safety of the victim.  $100 in a case where the guy is a violent convicted criminal, and there's a suspicious death of his son, and the girlfriend has gone through the trouble to get a court order to keep the guy away from her, hardly seems reasonable. 

  So what does one do about situations like these?  They VOTE - judges should be elected, not appointed. And judges who sit on the criminal bench need to have some working knowledge of criminal law. 

It seems the public is starting to realize what all criminal defense attorney's already know -police reports are often not accurate.   

Last week, an off duty 6 foot sheriif's deputy, Mark Eastty,  handcuffed a 9 year old boy for fighting on the playground. (St. Petersburg Times, Feb. 12, 2010)  There are numerous witnesses who say the cop was over zealous in his actions.  One witness read the police report and said it was entirely untrue. The cop writes that the boy was going to hit another boy again, the witness says that's not true. The cop neglects to mention that he called the kid stupid - several witnesses hear this.

Anyone reading this blog is probably not surprised by this.  What interests me, is that the general public would be surprised that a police officer, when facing scrutiny from his superiors or the press, would embellish his police report to make himself look better.

Having practiced juvenile law for the majority of my career, I have seen many 8 and 9 year kids get arrested and taken to juvenile detention.  Which is almost just like the adult jail, except there's school.  Worse yet, when they kids are taken before the judge, they are shackled by their hands and feet and chain together around the waist.  Adults aren't.  There's been some talk in the legislature that the chaining of juveniles in court in inhumane.  Are they just now realizing this?

According to his parents, the child, is now scared to death of police.  It's an unfortunate lesson to learn at such a young age.