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Florida sex crime cases often raise questions about the mental health of the person charged with a crime. That’s why judges in many of these cases will hold a hearing to determine whether a defendant has the competence to understand the charges against him, consult with counsel, and participate in the trial. If not, the person may be sent to a facility to receive mental health treatment and later re-evaluated. In a recent decision, Florida’s Second District Court of Appeal explained that judges are free to base competency determinations largely on the input of mental health experts.A defendant was charged with various crimes stemming from an incident in which he allegedly filmed and took photos of young girls while they were sleeping. “Questions quickly arose concerning his competency to proceed” at trial, the court said. The trial judge ordered a competency hearing and appointed two mental health experts to evaluate him. Both experts eventually concluded that he was sufficiently competent to stand trial.

The experts’ reports were admitted into evidence during the competency hearing, but no witnesses were called. Although the judge ordered the defendant’s lawyer to prepare a draft order finding the defendant competent to stand trial, the Second District said any such order wasn’t included in the record brought to the appeals court. The defendant eventually pleaded guilty. He was convicted and sentenced to 15 years in prison, followed by 15 years of probation.

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State law allows the Florida government to ask a judge to force someone deemed a “sexually violent predator” to be committed to a secure facility without his or her consent, even if the person has finished serving a jail sentence for a Florida sex crime. A recent case out of the Fourth District Court of Appeal is a good example at how courts look at these requests.

State prosecutors in 2015 initiated proceedings to have a defendant involuntarily committed as a sexually violent predator. He had been convicted of various sex crimes after a 1992 incident in which he assaulted one woman and attempted to assault another, according to the court. The cops used DNA evidence to link him to two rapes from the previous year. In one of those incidents, he allegedly followed a restaurant employee to her home and raped the woman. Two days after that incident, he accosted a woman who was leaving a spa, pulled her down on an embankment, and held a knife to her throat while he sexually assaulted the woman, the court said. The defendant was released from prison in 2003, but he was sent back to jail four years later when he was caught peeping and masturbating outside a woman’s window.Prosecutors based the civil commitment case primarily on the testimony of one psychologist, Dr. Rapa. The psychologist told the trial court that the defendant had since the 1980s “cruised” around looking for people as objects of masturbation, engaged in voyeurism, and fantasized about rape. Dr. Rapa also asked the defendant 10 questions designed to determine whether he was likely to commit additional crimes if released. Based on his age, his criminal history, and his responses to the questions, Dr. Rapa said his chance of committing another offense was 28 percent in the next five years and 43 percent over the next 10 years. She said the defendant suffered from voyeuristic disorder and anti-social personality disorder and recommended that he be placed in a secure facility, or otherwise he would be likely to commit new crimes.

Although the defendant presented his own expert, who said he was unlikely to reoffend, the trial court tagged him as a sexually violent predator and ordered him to be committed.

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There are several stages to a criminal prosecution and therefore several different opportunities to limit the impact of a conviction. Even if you are convicted of a crime, it is important to fight aggressively at the sentencing hearing to try to reduce jail times, fines, and other penalties. For instance, one question that may come up for a person convicted of multiple offenses is whether any jail time imposed for each offense should be done concurrently (at the same time) or consecutively (one after the other). Florida’s Second District Court of Appeal recently looked at that question in a Pinellas County gun crime case.A defendant was charged with aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer with the use of a firearm, stemming from an incident in which Pinellas County police officers were attempting to arrest him on separate charges. The cops were after him for a number of robberies, one of which allegedly happened with the use of a stolen gun. He was eventually convicted of aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer and sentenced to 20 years in prison for that crime. The judge said the prison time was to be served consecutively, or after the defendant finished his time on the robbery charges.

The judge rejected the defendant’s argument that the sentences should be concurrent (at the same time) because the incident with the police was part of the same criminal sequence as the robberies, which happened a day earlier. The judge said he was required under the law to impose consecutive sentences.

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In order to arrest a person without a warrant, police officers must have probable cause to believe that he or she committed a crime. If they don’t, anything the person says while under arrest – and any evidence obtained as a result of the arrest – must be excluded from the case against the person. Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeal recently explained how the probable cause requirement works in a sex crime case.A defendant was charged with lewd or lascivious molestation, sexual battery, and lewd or lascivious conduct, following an incident involving a girl under the age of 12. The victim’s aunt held a party at her home on the night in question and woke up to the sound of her niece screaming at 3:00 a.m. When the aunt went to where the victim was sleeping, she saw a man get up from next to the victim and take off running. She described the person as a black man in his 20s with dreadlocks.

The officers who arrived on the scene gave conflicting information about whether the aunt knew the suspect. One officer said she repeatedly referred to him by the defendant’s first name, while the other said she wasn’t sure who the person was. Both said the woman and others told them the man had been at the party and lived next door. The officers went to the next door house, where the owner allowed them to come in. They found the defendant sleeping on the couch and arrested him.

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Search and seizure laws offer important protections to anyone suspected of or charged with a Florida drug crime or another crime. These laws set the ground rules for when police officers can stop a person on the street, pull over a car, or enter a home without a warrant. They also set strict limits on when the cops can search a person and his or her car and home. In a recent ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court bolstered the privacy expectations that are at the center of many of these protections. The justices limited police officers’ ability to search rental vehicles.The defendant was driving a rental car when police officers stopped him outside Pittsburgh. The woman who had rented the vehicle gave the defendant the keys to the car, even though his name wasn’t on the rental agreement, and he wasn’t authorized to drive the vehicle. State troopers searched the car’s trunk, where they found 49 bricks of heroin and some body armor. They turned that evidence over to federal authorities, who charged the defendant with various drug crimes.

A federal district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit rejected the defendant’s argument that the evidence should be excluded at trial because it was obtained in an unlawful search. But the Supreme Court eventually sided with the defendant.

“The mere fact that a driver in lawful possession or control of a rental car is not listed on the rental agreement will not defeat his or her otherwise reasonable expectation of privacy,” the justices explained in a unanimous decision.

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A Florida appeals court recently took up a unique case about a fairly common occurrence:  a call to the Department of Children and Families ending in an arrest.A defendant was charged with battery on a law enforcement officer and resisting an officer with violence, stemming from an incident in his backyard in Santa Rosa County. His wife had called the Department of Children and Families earlier in the day, saying that she feared for the safety of herself and her five-year-old child. Although DCF officials would normally respond to the call, they requested police assistance because of DCF’s previous history with the defendant. DCF had been called to the house multiple times, according to the court, and he had threatened to harm them. During the latest call, the court said the defendant wife told DCF he said he’d dismember them if they entered his home.

Here’s how the court described what the cops and a DCF employee encountered when they went to the house: “The home was a fortress. [The defendant] had erected a number of barriers, including a sharp, padlocked, picket-style fence around the front yard. He had equipped the home with customized locking doors and opaque, inoperable windows.”

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The burden of proof required in any Florida criminal case is an important protection for people charged with sex and other crimes in the Sunshine State. Prosecutors bear the burden at all times of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that you committed the specific crime with which you have been charged. A simple hunch that you committed the crime – or even evidence showing that it’s more likely that not – is not enough to secure a conviction.In a recent case out of Florida’s First District Court of Appeal, the court explained that there are some facts that prosecutors may not need to prove. In a child sex case, the court said the specific date on which the alleged crimes happened is one of them.

The defendant was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of two counts of capital sexual battery against two children under the age of 12. He later appealed the decision, arguing that the victims were unable to say when the alleged abuse happened. He also said the prosecutors were unable to show that he actually committed the crimes during the time alleged in the criminal complaint:  April 2010 to April 2012 for the first victim and December 2011 to April 2012 for the other victim.

The First District disagreed. It pointed out that both victims told investigators that the offenses took place while they were five years old and living with the defendant. The court said there was no requirement that the victims identify a specific day on which the crimes occurred. “The two-year date ranges alleged by the State were proper,” the court explained.

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The rule against double jeopardy generally bans judges from convicting a person multiple times for the same crime. A recent case out of Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeals provides some interesting insight into how the double jeopardy protection applies in Florida DUI and reckless driving cases. That includes cases in which the person charged with the crimes was involved in a car accident. As the court explains, a driver can be convicted of both DUI and reckless driving, but he or she can’t be convicted of multiple counts of DUI or reckless driving if the crash involves only one victim.A defendant was charged with several crimes related to his involvement in a car accident that left one person severely injured, according to the court. He pleaded guilty to five offenses, including DUI with serious bodily injury, DUI with property damage, reckless driving with serious bodily injury, and reckless driving with property damage. At a later sentencing hearing, the trial judge rejected his argument that he couldn’t be convicted separately on the various charges because of double jeopardy protections. The judge sentenced him to an unidentified period of time in jail, followed by probation.

On appeal, the Fourth District agreed with the defendant that the trial judge violated the double jeopardy rule. The court began by explaining that multiple DUI convictions can stem from the same accident when there are multiple victims injured in the crash. But the court added that “there can be but one conviction for each victim, regardless of whether that victim sustains property damage, serious bodily injury, or both.” That’s because both charges are essentially varying degrees of the same offense. In other words, the court said the defendant could not be charged with both DUI with serious bodily injury and DUI with property damage when the same person is the victim of both the injury and the property damage.

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Witness evidence is often key in Florida sex crime cases. In a recent case out of Florida’s First District Court of Appeal, the court examined some of the common legal questions that come up related to witness credibility.The defendant was charged with sexual battery on a victim less than 12 years old. The charge stemmed from an incident in which he allegedly molested a family friend. The court said the defendant was close with the victim’s family and often visited her home. He told a judge that on the morning in question, he arrived at the home high on drugs and lay down next to the victim in the living room. The victim’s father testified that he entered the living room and saw the victim with the defendant’s penis in her mouth.

The defendant told the judge that he fell asleep on the couch and woke up to find that the victim was performing oral sex on him. He said the victim’s father walked in just as he woke up. The victim gave a different account of the incident. She told the judge that the defendant woke her up, grabbed her by the head, and forced her to put his penis in her mouth. But the victim told her mother only that her father walked into the room and saw the victim with the defendant’s penis in her mouth. She didn’t tell her mother that the defendant forced himself on her. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. The jury returned the verdict in 12 minutes.

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Florida gun crime cases often involve charges of multiple criminal offenses. When a person is convicted of more than one offense, courts may be called on to decide if prison time should run concurrently (at the same time) or consecutively (one after the other). A recent case out of Florida’s First District Court of Appeal provides some insight on the limits on consecutive sentences for cases involving gun crimes.A defendant was charged with robbery with a firearm and attempted robbery with a firearm, stemming from an incident in the parking lot of a Mexican restaurant in Pensacola. He was carrying a firearm when he allegedly approached six people and demanded money from them. He then moved toward one of the people, pointed the gun inches from the man’s head, and again demanded money. He allegedly approached each person in the group in the same manner and struck one of them with the gun, but he did not fire the weapon. He was convicted and sentenced to consecutive 10-year sentences, for a total of 20 years behind bars.

The defendant later appealed the decision, arguing that the trial court erred by sentencing him to consecutive sentences for two separate offenses that were part of the same criminal episode. The First District agreed.

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