Recent Blog Posts
Are You Guilty Of Theft If Someone Else Forced You To Steal?
Motives matter in many criminal cases. In some cases, you can be convicted of a crime if you accidentally injure someone, but the penalties are much less severe than they would be if you had intentionally injured the person. In the case of financial crimes, what you were thinking at the time of the… Read More »
Drug Possession Charges Are Much Worse When A Child Is Present
Drug possession with intent to sell is a much more serious charge than simple possession. When defendants get charged with possession with intent to sell, defense lawyers are sometimes able to arrange plea deals that reduce the charges to simple possession if the quantity of drugs found in the defendant’s residence or car was… Read More »
Will The Court Give You A Lighter Sentence Because Of Your Family Caregiving Obligations?
Artistic representations sometimes personify justice as a blindfolded woman, but when it comes to imposing sentences in criminal court, judges see the person, not just the crime. Some offenses have mandatory minimum sentences, but except for those requirements, judges have some leeway in determining the sentences of defendants who plead guilty or are convicted… Read More »
Understanding Your Right To A Speedy Trial
When you first get arrested, the most important of your Constitutional rights as a defendant is your right to remain silent and to avoid self-incrimination. Once you have met privately with a lawyer and discussed the strategy for your case, though, you start to appreciate the importance of the right to a speedy trial,… Read More »
Federal Government Considers Removing Cannabis From Schedule I Controlled Substances Category
Controlled substances are drugs considered dangerous enough that the law subjects their sale and consumption to more restrictions than it does with ordinary consumer products. The Controlled Substances Act classifies controlled substances into five different categories, known as schedules. Schedules II through V are pharmaceutical drugs with approved medical uses, but which also have… Read More »
Two Broward Men Face Charges In UberEats Scam
If you or I were to try to scam UberEats, we would probably claim that we never received our food, so that UberEats would send us a replacement meal and not make us pay for it, or else it would give us a refund, so we could get our next delivery meal free. If… Read More »
Retired Lawyer Pleads Guilty To Financial Crimes Related To An Investment Scheme
All defendants in criminal cases have the right to plead not guilty and go to trial, but more than 90 percent of defendants plead guilty. It is not only the defendants who cannot afford their own lawyers and are represented by public defenders who plead guilty; some of this number includes wealthy defendants who… Read More »
Florida Woman Pleads Guilty To Financial Crimes After Living Under False Identity For More Than A Decade
In the movie Identity Thief, Jason Bateman plays a nebbish named Sandy Patterson who realizes that he has unknowingly revealed his identifying information to a scam artist, played by Melissa McCarthy. Throughout most of the movie, McCarthy’s character convinces almost everyone she meets that she is the real Sandy Patterson. In real life, most… Read More »
What Is Sexual Cyber Harassment?
If you want the Internet to barf out large volumes of shareable content in a short span of time and people to share said content frantically with the members of their families who are most averse to clickbait, just put the prefix “sex” or “cyber” in front of a common word. Cyberbullying? Yikes! Sexting? … Read More »
Driving An Oldsmobile In The 80s Is Not A Crime
In the summer of 1988, Anissia Johnson and Vincent Wright were robbed at gunpoint by two men. After the robbery, the robbers got into an Oldsmobile that quickly sped away. The driver of the Oldsmobile never got out of the car, and the victims did not see him from up close. Several weeks later,… Read More »
