Under the Florida career sex offender law, a person must register with the Department of Corrections within two days of establishing a permanent or temporary residence. The definition of a permanent residence might sound a lot like a temporary residence. A permanent residence is a place where the person "abides, lodges or resides" for 14 or more consecutive days. A temporary residence will include any trip of four days or more or just about any series of trips to the same location. A temporary residence is defined under the Florida criminal laws as a place where the person "abides, lodges or resides" for 14 days in the aggregate in any calendar year that is not his/her permanent residence or a place where the person "routinely abides, lodges or resides" for a period of 4 or more consecutive days or nonconsecutive days in any month which is not his/her permanent address. For example, if a person likes to visit a friend at the same location one weekend each month, that would qualify as a temporary residence and need to be reported.

Any time the person changes or establishes a permanent or temporary residence under the Florida law definitions above, he/she needs to report that information to a Florida driver's license office within two business days.

The residency definitions are very strict in terms of reporting. If a person goes on vacation for four days, technically, he/she has to report that address as a temporary residence. Basically, any time a person visits the same location for four consecutive days or spends four or more separate days at a particular location in a month, the safe thing to do is to follow the reporting requirements in order to avoid the additional felony charge.

Congress recently passed a law to help accomplish that goal, at least partially. The law does not equalize powder cocaine and crack cocaine sentences, but it significantly lowers the sentencing ratio. Now, all things being equal, 1 gram of powder cocaine is punished the same way as 18 grams of crack cocaine in federal criminal cases. Additionally, 28 grams of crack cocaine will trigger the 5 year minimum mandatory prison sentence while 280 grams of powder cocaine will trigger that 5 year minimum mandatory federal prison sentence.

Now, the question for many people who are serving sentences for crack cocaine crimes in federal prison, or have pending crack cocaine cases in federal court, is whether this new law applies to them. Can a person who is serving a sentence for a crack cocaine crime who was sentenced pursuant to the 100-1 ratio go back in front of a federal judge to get his/her sentence reduced? Can a person with a pending crack cocaine case be sentenced pursuant to the new 18-1 ratio? The new law does not address these questions, i.e. when the law becomes effective, or whether the law is retroactive. Normally, when a law does not address this issue of the effective date or retroactivity, it does not apply to prior or existing cases. Normally, it would only apply to cases where the date of the offense occurred after the date the law was officially passed. However, that issue will likely be argued and litigated in federal criminal cases going forward.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) recently announced that they are beginning their annual drunk driving (DUI) arrest campaign. More than 11,000 police and law enforcement agencies all over the country will take part in the effort to make driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs (DUI) arrests. That means there will be more DUI checkpoints, and police officers will be more inclined to conduct DUI investigations and make DUI arrests after traffic stops. The NHTSA pointed to a survey which showed that approximately 8% of all drivers polled admitted to driving drunk when they thought they were over the legal DUI limit last year.

Obviously, we can all agree that preventing drunk driving is important. However, the issue arises as to who is considered a drunk driver. As criminal defense lawyers in Jacksonville, Florida who have handled many DUI cases, we know how subjective DUI arrests can be. Basically, if a police officer pulls a driver over and believes the driver is intoxicated, the officer can make an arrest. Ninety nine times out of a hundred, that arrest report will say the officer smelled a strong odor of alcohol, was slurring his/her speech, had bloodshot, watery eyes and was swaying. Once a police officer draws the conclusion that the driver is drunk, that assumption will cloud all of the police officer's observations during the DUI investigation. If the police choose not to have a video camera at the scene, the police officer's observations cannot be verified objectively. The arrest is completely subjective. And when there are quotas or specific campaigns to arrest drunk drivers for DUI like this one, the line between a drunk driver and a driver who may have just had a couple of drinks with dinner and feels fine is blurred.

Of course, there are many ways to defend against a DUI charge that is based on the subjective opinions and statements of the police officer. If you have questions about DUI law in Florida or have been arrested for DUI, feel free to contact the law office of Shorstein & Lasnetski for a free consultation 24/7.

If there is a sober person at the scene, such as a friend or relative of the person getting arrested who has permission to take the vehicle, the police officer should let that person drive the vehicle away. If not, and there is no one available to drive the vehicle from the scene, the police can impound the vehicle. In those cases, the police are allowed to conduct what is called an inventory search. The official reason for an inventory search is to document any valuable items in the vehicle so they can be secured and returned to the suspect. However, police use that opportunity to search for drugs, guns and any other evidence in the vehicle

One other basis for searching a vehicle after an arrest is the search incident to an arrest. This kind of search has been limited fairly recently, but it basically allows a police officer to search a vehicle if the person arrested is close to the vehicle to make sure there are no weapons or anything else to which the defendant may have access. However, in most cases, when the police arrest someone, they place that person in handcuffs and safely in their patrol car. If that is where the suspect is, he/she obviously cannot reach anything in his/her vehicle. In that case, there is no basis for the police officer to search the vehicle.

In this cocaine trafficking case, the police received information that several individuals were manufacturing and selling cocaine from some apartments. The police found cocaine in one of the apartments but only drug paraphernalia in the second apartment. There was no evidence that the defendant had any ownership or control over the apartment with the cocaine. He did have control over the second apartment, but no actual cocaine was found there. When the defendant was arrested, there was no cocaine on his person or in his vicinity. The defendant did not make any statements admitting to possessing any cocaine.

The state did present evidence that suggested the defendant was involved with cocaine, but no actual evidence linking the defendant to the possession of any specific amount of cocaine. As a result, the state could not prove actual or constructive possession of 200 to 400 grams of cocaine, and the drug trafficking charge against him was dismissed.

Less often, the police will get a call from a witness, perhaps another driver on the road, who reports that a driver is driving erratically and may be DUI. We have never heard of a situation where the call to police actually comes from someone in the same vehicle as the suspected DUI driver, and it is the driver's daughter, no less, as the article indicates.

When the police get a call from an anonymous caller that someone is committing a crime, whether it is a DUI, sale of drugs or any other crime, the police cannot just pull the car over or detain the person on the street when they find him/her. The police officer must identify the suspect and observe something concrete which supports the claim that the person is engaging in criminal activity. In the case of an anonymous DUI call, the police officer would have to at least observe some swerving or other traffic violation. When the call comes from an identified source and provides specific information about criminal activity, the police have more authority to make a stop based solely on the caller's information. In this case, if the daughter of the suspected DUI driver is calling and she is in the car, it is likely that the police had a legal right to stop the woman and initiate a DUI investigation.

Medicare or Medicaid fraud typically involves a doctor or other health care provider seeking reimbursement through the government program for medical supplies or medical treatment that was either unnecessary or never provided to a patient. In these recent cases, the subjects of the investigation are suspected of submitting false claims for physical and occupational therapy, home health care and other treatments. The federal government has recently discussed an increased focus on these cases and created a task force to investigate Medicare/Medicaid fraud in various states. Florida is reported to be one of the prime focuses of the task force. The government claims that health care fraud costs the country billions of dollars each year.

The Bureau defined identity theft as the unauthorized use or attempted unauthorized use of a credit card or other financial account or misuse of personal information. The most common type of identity theft is the unauthorized use or attempted unauthorized use of one's credit card. The average loss incurred by victims of identity theft was $1,830 in 2007 according to the report.

When a person gets a ticket for speeding or another moving violation, it can affect him/her in various ways. First, there is a fine that goes along with any traffic ticket. If the judge adjudicates the person guilty for the traffic violation, points will be added to the person's driving record. Insurance companies see these points and may raise insurance rates. Additionally, if a person accumulates too many points in a specific period of time, the DMV will suspend his/her driving privileges.

We receive calls from people who have received various traffic citations. We can schedule a hearing and request that the judge reduce the fine and/or withhold adjudication on the violation so no points are added to the driving record. If successful, a person can avoid the risk of a license suspension and increased insurance premiums that go along with points on a driving record.

In this case, the defendant, the alleged victim and two other friends were sitting in a park drinking. The defendant and the alleged victim got into some type of altercation, and the defendant ultimately stabbed him with a knife. When questioned by the police and throughout the trial, the defendant (and his criminal defense attorney) claimed that he stabbed the alleged victim because he thought the alleged victim was going to kill him.

In this attempted second degree murder case, the judge instructed the jury that a person cannot use deadly force unless he/she first reasonably tries to avoid the danger from the other person. However, the law has changed, and this is no longer an accurate statement under Florida law. Florida has since eliminated this so-called duty to retreat. Under current Florida law, as long as a person is not doing anything illegal and is in a place he/she has a right to be, he/she does not have to retreat, can stand his/her ground and can use any force reasonably necessary to prevent death, great bodily harm or a forcible felony.

In other words, in the past in Florida, before a person could use deadly force, he/she had to retreat or avoid the situation if reasonably possible. Now, if a person reasonably believes that he/she is about to be the victim of violence and/or a forcible felony, he/she can use reasonable force to prevent that from occurring without first determining if retreat is reasonable. And when a person does use deadly force under those circumstances and is charged with a violent crime, he/she can use the new Florida law as a complete defense to that use of force. Because the judge failed to tell the jury about this new law in this case, the defendant's conviction for attempted second degree murder was thrown out.

The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects people against unreasonable searches and seizures. We often see the Fourth Amendment come into play when police officers search people, their vehicles, their homes and other belongings. Of course, this protection applies to people as they work in government jobs, but it does not extend to searches conducted by private employers in the private sector.

In this case, the Court found that the search was reasonable because the search was for a legitimate work-related purpose. This opinion establishes that the Fourth Amendment does protect public employees from unreasonable searches and seizures by employers and supervisors. It also establishes that a search of one's allegedly private text messages or emails may be reasonable and valid if the employer has a policy against using a government-issue pager, cell phone or computer for personal reasons.

As criminal defense lawyers in Jacksonville, Florida, we can see how this ruling may have an effect on criminal cases. If a person works at a government job, that employee may be susceptible to having his/her computer, cell phone or pager searched if the employer suspects the employee of violating office policies regarding the use of those items. We have seen cases where such a search becomes the beginning of a criminal case depending on what is found on that equipment. If incriminating evidence is found and an arrest results, the criminal defense attorney can still file the appropriate motion to suppress to have any such evidence illegally obtained thrown out of court.