Pinellas County Florida Criminal Lawyer Blog

I thought I should write about how the Department of Juvenile Justice has changed the way juvenile crimes are prosecuted in the past year.

Last year an appellate case came out, basically transferring the power to sentence juveniles from the Court and judges, to the Department of Juvenile Justice.

Here's how it used to work:  When a child was accused of a crime, he was arrested and the judges had the discretion to hold the child in a juvenile facility pending court, or to release the child. 

Now, when a child is arrested, DJJ makes a reccomendation, based upon their procedural guidleines -  DJJ now has the power to decided who gets released and who stays. 

Additionally, when a child is convicted of a crime - DJJ now has the power to say what the sentence should be, not the judge and not the prosecutor. 

When a child is arrested, the parent and child meet with a probation officer from DJJ, BEFORE ANY CHARGES ARE FILED, for an assessment. If a parent appears to have control over his or her child, the child's grades and school behavior are good - DJJ will often reccomend a non-judicial sanction. 

However, if a parent tells the probation officer that their child is out of control, DJJ's reccomendation is often significantly more harsh. 

If your child has been arrested - call me.  your initial consultation is free. 

One of the many pieces of advice that I have received from my mother over the years is that there are no free lunches.  (along with never drink anything that looks like aqua velva or comes with an umbrella - it will give you a wicked hangover)

In Pasco County this week there are two cases where the defendant's have been charged with grand theft and people were looking for a "free lunch".

In the first case, a man became friendly with the parents on his kids sporting teams and swindled money out of them for alleged investments.  Unfortunately, there were no "investments."(St. Petersburg Times 3/25/11)  But the defendant was so convincing that one vicitm cashed in on his retirement because he was told he would make so much money that the tax penalty wouldn't be an issue.  Word to the wise:  if you take money out of your retirement savings, the tax penalty is HUGE and I can think of no LEGAL investment to overcome that penalty. Needless to say, the victim is out all of his money, and probably on the hook for the tax penalty. 

In the second case, the defendant, a paralegal, was looking for a free lunch by stealing the money of the lawyer's clients.(St. Petersburg Times 3/24/11)  The lawyer, who was a co-defendant, has since been sentenced to prison, the paralegal remains free if she can come up with $7500 in RESTITUTION by the end of April.  This raises a question - If someone is charged with theft and they pay back the restitution owed to the victims, can they get out of the charges?  Generally the answer is NO.  However, paying back the restitution can often mitgate a sentence.  For example, in the above case, the paralegal paid back $20,000 in restitution already.  Her attorney and the State must have worked out a deal with the victims who would rather have their money back than have her sitting in jail.  But she'll still have years of probation and felony charges on her record. 

In the first case, even if somehow the defendant was able to pay back all the money he'd stolen, he's most likely looking at prison time.  If you have been charged with a theft offense - call us - we'll give you a free consultation - how's that for a free lunch?

For those of you that think you couldn't possibly have a warrant for your arrest - think again.  We're seeing more and more cases in the last 3 months from people who have warrants for their arrest that are 5 or 10 or even 20 years old.  Usually the people have been stopped coming back into the country, getting off a cruise ship, or it comes up in a background check for a new job.  And the people never knew the warrants were out there - nor did the police it seems. 

This week in Trinity, Florida a completely productive citizen was ARRESTED and put in JAIL for a 20+ year old traffic fine.  Although this is rarely done anymore, when the guy failed to appear in court back in 1986 (that's not a typo), the judge issued a warrant for the amount of the fine along with a penalty for failing to appear which was 15 days in jail.  Interestingly, the guy had been stopped for traffic tickets at least 4 times in the last 25 years.  Why didn't anyone see the warrant then? Perhaps it's Sheriff White's new way of increasing revenue for his office. 

Here's a link to the Pasco County Sheriff's office warrants division.  Note that most of the warrants are over 10 years old and for chld support and petty crimes  Now check out the MOST WANTED page.  Interestingly the first guy on the most wanted list - Bertram - has been allegedly hiding out in Holiday for the past 3 months and was just arrested - in ORANGE COUNTY - not in Holiday where the majority of the Sheriff's budget allegedly goes.  If they can find the traffic violators - why can't they find the bad guys?

A prosecutor in California resigned after his superiors learned he was working - and practicing law- with a warrant for an unpaid speeding ticket and driving while his license was suspended.  How his superiors could have missed this, and how the California Bar missed it, is unclear. 

Interestingly, if you pull up the guy on the  Bar of CA website, he's active to practice law. In fact he's been active since 1997 with a minor suspension in 2008 for not doing his Continuing Education Requirement.

I'm not a member of the California Bar, however, if it works anything like the Florida Bar, it relies on self reporting.  If a lawyer has been arrested or convicted of a crime, it is up to that person to tell the Bar about it.  If they don't - they usually can remain free of reprucussions from the Bar.  Thus, like this lawyer, they can continue to practice law. 

If the Bar decides to suspend this guys license, they can do it restrospective to the date when his warrant was issued.  If they do, I wonder what will happen to all the cases he was prosecuting -  will they be dismissed because of his misconduct?  I'll keep you posted. 

Let's face it - anyone who reads this blog knows I'm no lover of police. But the recent events in St. Petersburg, particularly the murder of 3 police officers in less than one month flies too close to home and I feel ready to say something about it.

 I lived in St. Pete for 15 years. When I moved there, the Vinoy was full of birds, prostitutes and homeless people, and the only bar downtown that was even a little safe was Mastry's. After the riots in 1996 I was hired, through a federal grant, to help develop businesses in the south side of the town. I've owned 4 different houses and an office building in St. Pete. I still own one house and the office building although I rarely go there anymore.

 I realize that St. Pete has changed alot over the past 5 years economically. But politically and racially, nothing has changed. The recent murders of the police, especially the most recent, by a 16 year old kid, and today's firing of Goliath Davis - who at one point was the chief of police -clearly evidence the lack of change. Rarely do I agree with government decisions and even less rarely do I think the police are right - however, I must admit that in this case, they are right. (watch for the snow, hell might freeze over!)

Goliath Davis is a very well educated black man from St. Petersburg - if I remember correctly I think he has a masters and a PhD. I know he was the chief of police, although I don't recall the circumstances which led to his demotion. However, he was still working for St. Petersburg Police at a realitively high level and he chose not to attend the funerals of any of the fallen members of his team??? The word disrespectful comes to mind, although that may be too nice. It was clearly a politcal move for his own motives whatever those may be. But in a city like St. Petersburg which is so racially divided, he could have been the calm in the midst of the chaos.

 I'm still unclear about the "message" he was trying to convey by not going to the funerals. Neither of these murders were racially charged. The fact that both of the murderers were black and the cops white isn't the reason they were killed. Both of the murderers were killing because they got caught and didn't want to go back to jail. I don't think it would have matter what color the cops were - they still would have been shot. So now Mr. Davis is holding a press conference to let anyone and everyone know he was fired and why. Rather than being the calm he could be - he's an instigator. Might as well join Joe Waller and his Uhuru movement, perhaps he already has.