Jacksonville Criminal Lawyer Blog

At Shorstein & Lasnetski, LLC in Jacksonville, Florida, we represent people who are being investigated or have been arrested and charged with crimes relating to pain clinics and pain management practices, whether they are doctors, owners or employees. Over the last several years, we have seen a significant increase in state and federal investigations of pain clinics in Florida and Georgia. State and federal law enforcement officials take the position that many of these pain clinics are so-called "pill mills" that prescribe addictive pain medication to people as quickly as possible and without performing the proper examinations. While there are some pill mills out there, many pain management clinics are operating properly and legally, yet they are still the subject of criminal investigations. Clearly, there are many people with chronic pain who are greatly benefited by pain management doctors but who are not fortunate enough to have adequate insurance.

Another example of law enforcement going after pain clinics was seen in South Florida recently. Thirty-two people, including doctors and owners of pain clinics, were charged with crimes relating to the distribution of pain pills last week. They were calling this the largest illegal pain clinic operation in the country and alleged that 20 million pain pills were distributed for a profit of approximately $40 million between 2008 and 2010. Oxycodone was the primary prescription drug that was issued to the patients.

According to the Attorney General's office, Florida leads the nation in illegal pain medication distribution. Articles like this one about the police shutting down a pain clinic and arresting multiple doctors, owners and employees are not uncommon.

There are approximately 300,000 deportation cases currently pending in immigration courts across the country. The United States government has recently signaled a change in the way it intends to handle those cases. The government has indicated that it will focus primarily on those illegal immigrants who have criminal records or are otherwise considered a threat to national security. Those illegal immigrants with pending deportation cases who do not have criminal records or pending criminal cases will likely be allowed to remain in the country and apply for a work permit. Other factors to be considered in a deportation case will be how long the person has been in the country and whether the person has relatives who are U.S. citizens.

If you are not a United States citizen and have a deportation or immigration issue, or have been arrested and are facing deportation, the law firm of Shorstein & Lasnetski, LLC handles all criminal and immigration matters in state and federal courts. Feel free to contact us for a consultation about your rights within the criminal justice system and the immigration process.

As criminal defense lawyers in Jacksonville, Florida and the North Florida area, we see the trends in criminal law as they occur. One obvious trend over the last several years is the shift away from more traditional drug crimes involving marijuana, crack, cocaine and heroin towards drug crimes involving prescription drugs like Oxycontin, Hydrocodone and Oxycodone. Florida police and lawmakers are also aware of this trend and have responded by making prescription pill crimes and punishments more serious and making more arrests in this area.

A recent article on News4Jax.com will not do anything to stem the tide of stricter laws and more arrests involving prescription drugs. According to the article, deaths from prescription drugs increased by 9% in 2010, despite increased efforts by law enforcement to crack down on the illegal distribution of these prescription drugs. Governor Scott noted that the government has strengthened laws and regulation as well as budgeted more money for police in an effort to address the rise in prescription drug related crimes and deaths. Of course, throwing more money into regulation and enforcement has never seemed to reduce drug crimes in the past; it only seems to result in more money and resources needed in the criminal justice system and the prison system. Among the drugs most responsible for the increased deaths from prescription drugs, Oxycodone was the number one drug. According to the article, there were almost three times as many deaths in Florida from Oxycodone than cocaine.

Florida is the leading state when it comes to the illegal purchase of prescription drugs. As a result, law enforcement officials have gone after pain clinics alleging they are providing prescription drugs to countless people without following the required medical protocol. We have represented several doctors, pain clinic owners and employees who have been charged with serious felony crimes related to various pain clinics. You can be sure that whenever law enforcement makes a certain crime a priority, they cast a wide net to try and address the issue, and many people who are innocent or only tangentially involved will get caught up in it.

Many people believe that a person can only get arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, i.e. DUI, if he/she is actually driving the vehicle while impaired. However, this is not the case. In Florida, the DUI laws cover a person operating the vehicle or "in actual physical control" of the vehicle. This latter phrase covers incidents where a person is in control of the vehicle and has the capability of driving it, even if he/she is not actually driving it at the time. One common example is where a police officer approaches a person who is sitting in the front seat of the vehicle with the keys in the ignition. If the person is drunk or otherwise impaired by alcohol or drugs, the police officer can arrest him/her for DUI. This situation often arises where a person parks his/her vehicle and falls asleep or passes out in the front seat with the keys in the ignition.

However, in a recent DUI case south of Jacksonville, Florida, the police received a call of a person passed out in his vehicle. When the police officer arrived, he saw the person passed out in the back seat of the vehicle. The keys were in the front seat. The police officer determined that the person was drunk and arrested him for DUI. The DUI charge was ultimately thrown out. Because the defendant was passed out in the back seat, there was no evidence that he was capable of operating the vehicle even though the keys were inside the vehicle. The state could not prove that the defendant was in actual physical control of the vehicle so the DUI charges could not stand.

In Florida, there are different types of battery crimes that have different ramifications for people charged with those crimes. A battery charge in Florida can be a misdemeanor, punishable by no more than one year in jail, or a felony, punishable by more than a year in prison, depending on the circumstances of the crime. A regular battery is very broadly defined. Technically, a battery can be committed by doing much less than actually striking a person. In Florida, a battery is simply defined as intentionally striking or even touching another person against his/her will. A regular battery is a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail. However, if a person has any kind of prior battery conviction, a second battery can be charged as a third degree felony that carries a maximum punishment of five years in prison. A first time regular battery can also be a felony if the battery causes serious harm to the victim.

A battery becomes a domestic battery if the victim has a certain relationship to the defendant. A domestic battery charge carries the same penalties as a regular battery, but prosecutors often take them more seriously and recommend harsher sentences that can include jail time and attendance in programs designed to teach people about domestic violence. A battery can become a domestic battery if the defendant and victim are related, live together or have children together.

One significant difference between a regular battery charge and a domestic battery charge is the effect it can have on a person's criminal record. On a regular battery charge, if the defendant decides to plead guilty or no contest, the criminal defense lawyer can negotiate a sentence where the judge withholds adjudication. This is not considered a conviction under Florida law and the criminal defense attorney can file a motion to have the defendant's criminal record sealed if he/she has no other convictions. However, Florida law does not allow a person to have a domestic battery charge sealed when the judge agrees to withhold adjudication on that charge. If a defendant pleads guilty or no contest to a domestic battery charge, it is likely to stay on his/her criminal record permanently.

In Florida, a common scenario in drug cases occurs when the police pulls a driver over and suspects the driver has illegal drugs in his/her vehicle. The piolice officer may ask for consent to search the vehicle for drugs, or the police officer may bring a drug dog, or K9, to the scene to sniff the area around the vehicle for the odior of illegal drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methaphetamine. The drug dog is presumably trained and certified to detect to the odor of illegal drugs and indicate a particular signal to the police officer handler who recognizes the signal as an indication that there is an odor of illegal drugs coming from the vehicle. In some jurisdictions, when the drug dog alerts, this is sufficient problable case to justify a search of the vejhicle by the police.

However, in Florida, the state has the burden of proof that a search of one's vejhicle for illegal drugs is based on probable cause, and merely presenting evidence that a trained drug dog alerted to an odor of illegal drugs does not meet this burden. The state must prove that the drug dog, and the police officer handler, were sufficiently trained and certified to detect the odor of illegal drugs. However, this is the beginning of the analysis, not the end. The state must provide details of the drug dog's training and the drug dog's performance during training. The state must also present evidence of how often the drug dog gave false alerts in training and in the field after training. The court should also look at instances where the drug dog alerted to a residual odor of illegal drugs, i.e. where drugs were not found in the vehicle but evidence sugests they were previously in the vehicle.

In some cases, the courts have been satisfied with a drug dog's reliability to detect an odor of illegal drugs as long as the state has shown the drug dog had the proper training and credentials. However, Florida law requires a much more detailed huistory of the training, success and failure of a drug dog's ability to actually detect the presence of illegal drugs.

for example, in a recent cocaine and marijuana case south of Jacksonville, Florida, the evidence of the cocaine and marijuana, and the possession of marijuana and cocaine charges, were thrown out because the trained and certified drug dog had a success rate of just over 25% in detecting the presence of actual illegal drugs in the field in almost thirty attempts.

In Florida, police officers are not allowed to seize a person without a reasonable belief based on specific facts that the person is engaging, or is about to engage, in criminal activity. If police officers do seize or detain a person without the required reasonable suspicion, any evidence found on the person, such as illegal drugs or guns, will be inadmissible and thrown out of court. This seizure does not necessarily require a physical detention or even a command directed at the person. If the action of the police officers indicate a show of authority without direct commands or a physical seizure, it can still be considered a "seizure" under the search and seizure laws in Florida.

For instance, in a recent marijuana case south of Jacksonville, Florida, the defendant was sitting on the steps of an apartment complex. Several police cars drove up and six police officers approached the area where the defendant was sitting with bullet proof vests and guns drawn. The police officers were there to raid one of the apartments. They had no knowledge the defendant was involved in criminal activity. None of the police officers touched the defendant or even addressed him specifically. When he saw the police officers approaching him, the defendant threw down a few bags of marijuana. He was then arrested, and the police officers found more marijuana in his pocket. He was charged with felony possession of marijuana.

His criminal defense lawyer filed a motion to suppress the evidence of the marijuana arguing that the defendant was seized when the officers approached him without any reasonable suspicion since the defendant was merely sitting on the steps. The court agreed to throw out the evidence of the marijuana. In determining whether police action constitutes a seizure, the court must determine whether a reasonable person would feel like he/she was free to leave the area under the circumstances. If the court determined that a reasonable person would not feel free to leave given the actions of the police, this constitutes a seizure that is illegal unless the police officers can show specific evidence of the defendant's criminal activity. The court found that when several police officers approached the defendant in full uniform with guns drawn, the defendant did not reasonably feel like he could leave. This was a seizure under Florida law without legal justification so the evidence of the marijuana found during the illegal seizure was inadmissible.

In Florida, when a person purchases a vehicle, he/she must register it with the state and purchase a license tag. When applying for a license tag, the person must provide his/her information as well as a description of the vehicle that remains in the state database. This includes the make, model and year of the vehicle as well as the color. Drivers are required to attach the tag to the registered vehicle when driving the vehicle. The police use the tag to access the state database and properly identify the vehicle and the owner. If the police officer runs a tag and finds the tag was registered to a Ford but is now attached to a Honda, the police officer can pull over the driver to investigate whether the vehicle and/or the license tag was stolen or the license tag was improperly transferred to another vehicle..

Are the police allowed to pull over a vehicle after running the tag and finding a less significant difference between the vehicle observed and the information in the state database? In a recent criminal case near Jacksonville, Florida, the police officer ran a license tag and everything matched except the state database indicated the vehicle was light blue when the vehicle was actually black. Based on this discrepancy, the police officer pulled the driver over to see if the car or the license tag was stolen or the tag had been transferred to a different vehicle. The driver provided a driver's license and registration that matched the vehicle. The driver indicated that he had recently painted the vehicle but did not inform the DMV. The police officer then asked for consent to search his vehicle, and the driver agreed. The police officer found marijuana and illegal pills in the vehicle, and the driver was arrested for possession of marijuana and possession of pills without a prescription.

The criminal defense lawyer challenged the legality of the stop. If the stop was not valid, the consent the driver gave the police officer to search his car would also be invalid, and the evidence of the drugs would be thrown out. The stop would only be valid if the police officer had reasonable suspicion to believe the driver was violating a traffic law or crime. The criminal defense attorney noted that a vehicle owner is not required to notify the state when he/she changes the color of a vehicle.

The court noted that improperly transferring a license plate is a second degree misdemeanor in Florida. The court found that the discrepancy with the color of the car gave the police officer sufficient reasonable suspicion to believe this crime may have occurred. Therefore, the traffic stop was valid, and the consent to search the vehicle was valid as well.

In Florida, there are separate crimes for theft, robbery and robbery by sudden snatching. Under the Florida criminal laws, a theft occurs when someone takes the property of another without permission either permanently or temporarily. This crime does not involve taking the property by force or threat. For instance, if the victim left her purse on her desk and the suspect came in and took it while she was gone, that would be theft. Theft can range from a misdemeanor to a first degree felony depending on the value of the property taken or other factors.

In Florida, a robbery occurs when a person takes the property of another without permission by use of force, violence or threat of violence. An example would be where a woman was walking with her purse and the suspect pushes her down and takes the purse or otherwise wrestles the purse away from her. Robbery is a second degree felony punishable by a maximum of 15 years in prison. However, if the suspect had or used a deadly weapon during the robbery, it becomes a first degree felony.

In Florida, robbery by sudden snatching involves taking property from another when the property is on that person and is aware of the taking. As example would be where the woman was walking with her purse in her hand the the suspect grabs the purse and runs away. However, if the purse was close to the victim but not on her person and the suspect took it without violence or a threat, it would likely just be a theft. Robbery by sudden snatching is a third degree felony punishable by up to 5 years in prison if no deadly weapon was possessed or used. If the suspect used a weapon, then the crime would be armed robbery and a first degree felony. If the suspect possessed a weapon during the robbery by sudden snatching but did not use it, the crime becomes a second degree felony.

In a recent criminal case in Jacksonville, Florida, the police were executing a search warrant at the defendant's home and found several guns throughout the house along with ammunition for some of the guns. The defendant had previously been convicted of a felony. In Florida, a convicted felon is not permitted to own or possess a firearm. Possession of a firearm by a convicted felon is a serious felony crime for which the state often recommends jail or prison time.

In this case, all of the guns and the ammunition were found in the same home (although in different places within the home) and during the same search. The state charged the defendant with multiple counts of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of ammunition by a convicted felon- one count of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon for each firearm and one count of possession of ammunition by a convicted felon for all of the ammunition.

A motion to dismiss the charges was filed alleging that the state was only permitted to charge the defendant with one count of possession of a firearm or ammunition by a convicted felon for all of the items found in the home. Based on the wording of this criminal statute, the state was not allowed to file multiple charges for the multiple firearms or even separate charges for the firearms and ammunition. The judge's ruling was mixed, and we eventually appealed to the appellate court.

The appellate court ruled for the defendant. The statute making it a crime to possess a firearm(s) or ammunition after having been convicted of a felony was written in such a way that the state is limited to charging just one count of either possession of a firearm by a convicted felon or possession of ammunition by a convicted felon in a situation where the polcie find multiple firearms and/or ammunition during a single incident.

This has at least two significant benefits for the defendant. The crimes of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of ammunition by a convicted felon are serious charges and carry maximum penalties of 5 years in prison for each count. Limiting the state to a single charge obviously limits the defendants exposure to a greater prison sentence. Also, when the state presents the jury with several gun and ammunition charges, it has the effect of prejudicing the jury and making the case and the defendant look worse than they really are. Therefore, limiting the state to one charge does not unfairly prejudice the defendant before the jury hears the evidence.