Jacksonville Criminal Lawyer Blog

In Florida, if a person is convicted of certain sex crimes involving minors, that person is required by law to become a sex offender which means that he/she must comply with the sex offender registration requirements and other rules for the rest of his/her life. These are very burdensome and distressing requirements that typically do not go away. In a criminal case involving sexual conduct with a minor, everything is negotiable, and it is possible to reach a resolution that eliminates the sex offender label with an adjusted criminal charge. However, this stipulation is often a deal-breaker with prosecutors in all but the most minor cases.

We get a lot of calls from people who have been sentenced as sex offenders and want to try and remove the sex offender status. This is unlikely to happen. However, the Florida legislature did add an exception to the sex offender requirement for the applicable consensual sex crimes involving a minor. Under the law, a person may be eligible to have the sex offender or sexual predator status removed if the person has just one qualifying sex crime (whether he/she was convicted or adjudication of guilt was withheld), the sex offender or predator registration requirement is necessary solely based on that one case, the person was not more than four years older than the victim of the crime and the victim was between the ages of 14 and 17 at the time of the crime.

If the person meets these requirements, he/she can file a motion with the court to remove the requirement that the person register as a sex offender or sexual predator. At that point, it is up to the judge to determine if the requirement will actually be removed. But keep in mind that the court will likely strictly interpret the four year age difference requirement. In a recent case near Jacksonville, Florida, a person met all of the requirements for the sex offender exception above except he was four years and three months older than the victim. Because he was more than four years older than the victim, the court denied his motion to remove the sex offender registration requirement.

If you have been convicted or sentenced for a sex crime that requires registering as a sex offender or sexual predator and meet the eligibility requirements discussed above, feel free to contact us for a free consultation to see if the sex offender or sexual predator registration requirement can be removed in your case.

In Florida, in a lewd or lascivious molestation or battery case, or a sexual battery case, the credibility of the victim's testimony is often the most critical factor in the case. In many of these cases, the victims are children who may be less predictable in the things they say and may not appreciate the importance of telling the complete truth in a legal proceeding. In any case, but particularly in lewd or lascivious molestation or battery cases, the criminal defense lawyer's job is to question the victim to determine the accuracy of the victim's statement incriminating the defendant.

However, the criminal defense lawyer does not have free reign to ask the victim any questions and bring out bad things the victim may have done in the past. One area that would seem to be critical to determine the credibility of the victim would be prior, similar false accusations. For instance, if the victim is saying the defendant in the present case sexually assaulted her, should the criminal defense attorney have the right to inform the jury that the victim made a similar accusation of sexual assault against the defendant's brother two years earlier that proved to be false? It would seem like this would be important information for a jury to know about the victim. However, a recent Florida Supreme Court case said that such information would likely be inadmissible at a trial. The general rule is that the criminal defense lawyer may not bring out evidence about the victim's prior bad acts, including similar but false accusations about another person.

The criminal defense lawyer can attack the credibility of the victim, but he/she is limited in his/her methods. The criminal defense attorney can bring out the fact that the victim has a prior conviction(s) for a felony or a misdemeanor crime that involved dishonesty. For instance, if a person made a similar, false accusation of a sexual assault about someone else and was arrested and convicted for false report of a crime, the criminal defense lawyer would be able to inform the jury that the victim has a prior conviction. However, that is rare when dealing with young victims. The criminal defense lawyer also has the right to bring out any facts that tend to show the victim's testimony is biased or the victim has a motive to be untruthful. Therefore, if the victim has multiple false accusations against other people or one prior, false accusation against this defendant, that evidence should be admissible at the trial to show the victim is biased towards the defendant or has a motive for lying in this context.

According to the Florida governor's newly proposed budget, significant cuts will be made across many state agencies, including law enforcement. One of the departments that may be eliminated is the state's cyber-crime unit, according to an article on News4jax.com. This would apparently include 19 cyber-crime detective jobs and 15 internet agent positions with the state attorney general's office. The logical conclusion to be drawn from this is that people who commit crimes using computers and the internet will be less likely to get caught. Of course, the governor's budget does not affect city, county and federal law enforcement agencies that also conduct cyber-crime investigations. However, the state attorney general's office did make a large number of arrests with their cyber-crime unit.

Two of the more common crimes committed by people using computers and the internet involve child pornography and enticing children for sexual acts. The state attorney general's office's cyber-crime unit played an important role in tracking down people in possession of child pornography on their computers and sharing those pictures over the internet using services like Limewire. They would also pose as children on the internet to catch people who were looking to anonymously contact children and set up meetings with them.

A Florida man was arrested after Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) agents found child pornography pictures when searching his bag before a flight. In this case, the man checked a bag at the airport and proceeded to wait for his flight. Without his knowledge, TSA agents apparently randomly selected his luggage and searched it for explosives or other dangerous materials. The TSA agent found a folder in the suitcase and looked through it. Inside the folder, the TSA agent found several child pornography pictures. The police were called, and they obtained a search warrant to search the suspect's computer, flash drives, camera and other items found in his suitcase. A total of 196 child pornography pictures were found as a result of the search.

The defendant's criminal defense lawyer filed a motion to suppress the evidence of child pornography claiming that the TSA agent's search of his suitcase and the folder went beyond the scope of what is appropriate for a search for explosives and other dangerous materials in an airport. In other words, the criminal defense attorney argued that the TSA agent went beyond the scope of what the Fourth Amendment allows when he opened the suspect's folder and looked at the pictures so any evidence found in that search and the subsequent searches should be thrown out.

This kind of search, a routine search performed by a non-police officer government employee, is considered an administrative search and is governed by different laws than searches conducted by police officers. When police officers search someone, they typically need either permission, a search warrant or specific facts indicating the person is committing a crime. There is more leeway for administrative searches such as this one as there is a significant interest in making sure air travel is safe and people do not bring dangerous materials onto airplanes. Government agents are allowed to search people and their belongings in airports without a search warrant or probable cause as long as the search is reasonable and conducted for the limited purpose of making sure the person is not a danger to others. This does not give government employees the right to go through a person's luggage and search every inch of it. Additionally, relatively unobtrusive technology exists that can search for weapons so TSA agents may be further limited in the searches they can conduct on their own.

In this case, the TSA had a policy of sending all luggage through a machine that detects explosives but also manually searching random suitcases. Normally, the TSA agents swab the luggage to test for explosives residue, but they also have discretion to search through papers and photographs. The court found that this search was legal. The court based its decision on the fact that the TSA policy permitted a random search, and the quick search of the folder in the luggage for explosives was not overly intrusive. As a result, the court found the search was not legal.

This case must have been a close call. It is a stretch to think that government agents can look through one's paperwork and claim it is a search for explosives. Of course, appellate courts are not quick to let people walk in close cases after they have been found with almost 200 child pornography pictures.

People carrying child pornography pictures onto a plane and having their bags randomly searched is a fairly rare scenario. However, it is not uncommon for people to bring a small amount of drugs or pills for which they do not have a prescription onto a plane. Cases like these give the government more authority to look through a person's private effects and use the excuse that they are searching for explosives or weapons as a basis for an intrusive search.

In a recent criminal case near Jacksonville, Florida where the defendant was charged with lewd or lascivious molestation for allegedly showing his penis to a 5 year old and enticing her to touch it, the state's conviction of the defendant was reversed because the state improperly introduced evidence of the defendant's marijuana use. Apparently, the victim's dad and the defendant used to smoke marijuana together in the same house where the alleged lewd or lascivious molestation occurred, and this testimony came out at the trial when the prosecutor was questioning the victim's dad. The defendant was not charged with possession of marijuana; he was only charged with the sex crime.

The jury convicted the defendant of lewd or lascivious molestation, but the conviction was reversed on appeal. The evidence of the defendant's marijuana use was not relevant to the case and whether the defendant committed lewd or lascivious molestation. Evidence of the defendant's marijuana use was considered impermissible character evidence and should not have been heard by the jury. In other words, the purpose of that testimony was to attack the defendant's character because whether the defendant had used marijuana in the past had nothing to do with whether he committed the sex crime for which he was charged. Sometimes when there is an error in a trial, a conviction is not necessarily reversed if the error is considered harmless, i.e. the mistake did not appear to affect the jury's guilty verdict. However, when the jury hears of other crimes committed by the defendant that have nothing to do with the crime that is the basis of the trial, this will almost always result in a conviction being reversed.

There are several crimes in Florida where, if you are convicted, the judge is required to place you on sex offender probation. For other crimes, the judge normally has discretion whether to put a defendant on probation and if he/she does, the judge has discretion as to which terms of probation to impose.

That is not the case with certain sex crimes and sex offender probation in Florida. If a defendant pleads guilty or no contest to one of the relevant sex crimes or is found guilty after a trial, the judge must sentence the defendant to sex offender probation. As part of that probation, the judge must impose certain terms such as a curfew, a requirement that the defendant not live within 1,000 feet of where children congregate, to have no contact with children except under certain circumstances, to enter into and complete a sex offender treatment program, to submit DNA, to comply with certain internet restrictions, to take annual polygraph tests and other requirements. Since sex offender probation is so restrictive, and the penalties for a violation of sex offender probation are so serious, a defendant should make sure he/she understands exactly what he/she is doing before resolving the sex case with a plea or trial.

Many of the crimes we see that involve computer or networking technology and criminal activity of a sexual nature deal with people in possession of child pornography on their computers. Law enforcement officials are able to track these photos and videos and find them on just about any computer. People need to understand that connecting a computer to the internet is like opening a door to the harddrive through which the government can freely walk, with the appropriate search warrant or permission, of course.

However, another crime we are starting to see more often in Florida deals with a new term called sexting. Sexting, which is derived from the word texting, involves sending sexually suggestive, and sometimes illegal, picture via text messages, which can be done on most cell phones these days. Some kids may think that sending a naked picture to a friend of similar age is a joke. In fact, sending a sexually suggestive picture of a minor to another person over the internet or via text message can be a serious crime in Florida. Police in the Jacksonville area are receiving more complaints about such activity and following up with arrests. When a person uses a cell phone or computer to send such a picture, it can be a federal crime. One twenty-four year old kid was recently sentenced to twenty years in federal prison for violating federal criminal laws by sending naked pictures of a minor over the internet and by cell phone. Everyone should be aware, and adults should tell their kids, that it can be a very serious crime to send nude and other sexually suggestive pictures by text message or over the internet, regardless of how harmless it may seem.

As the Internet becomes more popular and more accessible through portable and handheld devices, more people are sending sexually explicit pictures in violation of state and federal laws. These pictures are also being sent as attachments to text messages to and from cell phones. What one person thinks is a harmless or funny text or email may actually be a serious felony crime.

Federal law enforcement authorities have noted an increase in such online criminal behavior. One area that is specifically of note is the crime of sexual extortion. Sexual extortion may result when a teenager sends a naked or suggestive picture of herself over the Internet, and someone threatens to expose her behavior to family or friends unless she sends more such pictures or more sexually explicit pictures. One federal criminal affidavit labeled this kind of crime as sextortion, according to an article on SFgate.com. The article provides several examples of recent, high-profile cases involving sexual extortion over the Internet, and the punishments some of these defendants are getting are severe, including lengthy prison sentences. Some people, particularly young people, may assume that sending sexually suggestive pictures over the Internet or via text message is fun or a harmless prank. However, depending on the circumstances, state or federal law enforcement officials may consider it a serious crime with serious consequences. And emails and text messages are often easy to trace back to the sender. The best course of action is to not post any suggestive pictures of oneself or anyone else on the Internet or send them via email or text message to anyone. Once they get posted or sent, they can end up anywhere.

There are certain crimes in Florida that require the defendant to register as a sex offender for the rest of his/her life after a conviction. This sex offender status confers fairly rigid requirements on a person, and failure to comply can lead to an additional serious felony criminal charge in Florida. For instance, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement will likely send an annual letter to a person's registered address asking the person to verify that he/she still resides there. If the letter is not answered in time, the police may come looking for that person. If the police determine that the person has changed his/her address, permanently or temporarily, without notifying the proper authorities, that person will likely face a new third degree felony charge.

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.

Everyone should know that prostitution is a crime, not necessarily in certain parts of Nevada and other countries, but certainly in Jacksonville and the rest of Florida. However, as criminal defense lawyers in Jacksonville, another crime we see that often comes along with a prostitution charge is the crime of deriving proceeds from prostitution or even transporting a person for the purpose of prostitution.

Escort services are advertised all over the internet, and there is a fine line between legal behavior, such as dancing or moedling, and illegal prostitution. Police officers in Jacksonville go onto those websites trying to make arrests for prostitution and related crimes. They set up a meeting in a hotel room and record the encounter. As soon as they feel like they have evidence of prostitution, they will arrest the woman and anyone who came to the hotel room with her.

In Florida, the crime of prostitution is fairly straightforward. But as mentioned, a person can also be arrested for transporting someone for the purpose of prostitution. For this crime, the state would have to also prove that the person knew or should have known that prostitution would occur. For instance, if a person transports a woman to a party or a club or some other place without knowledge that she will be performing prostitution services there, that person would not be guilty of the charge of transporting a person for the purposes of prostitution. Absent evidence that any money changed hands between the alleged prostitute and the person transporting her, the evidence of this charge may be weak.

A person who is charged with any of these prostitution or prostitution-related charges faces a misdemeanor if it is the first time. However, for a third time or more, the charge can be a felony which can carry a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

As many people who follow professional football and sports in general may have heard, a woman accused Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger of sexual assault recently. The local police and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) have been investigating the claim, although no arrests have been made as of now. In a recent article, it was reported that the GBI has decided not to request a DNA sample from Roethlisberger.

One question that has been asked in response to this story is whether this is a good thing for Roethlisberger. The answer is: not necessarily. To understand that, you have to understand what is meant by the crime sexual battery which is often called sexual assault in the media and outside of the courtroom. Sexual battery in Georgia does not typically mean rape in the sense that most of us understand the word, i.e. sexual intercourse with someone against their will. Sexual battery can include just about any physical contact with the intimate parts of another person without that person's consent. A sexual battery crime certainly does not have to rise to the level of an actual rape, which is a separate crime in Georgia. So, a sexual battery can certainly occur without any DNA evidence being left on the victim or at the scene of the crime.

In Florida, the laws are similar. If someone rapes a person as most of us understand the term, that of course is a serious felony crime. However, if someone has unauthorized physical contact with a person's intimate part(s), but not nonconsensual intercourse, that is a crime as well.

So, to answer the question, it depends on what the woman is saying Roethlisberger did to her. If she is accusing him of having some sort of physical contact with her intimate part(s), then DNA may not be an issue. If that is the case, the GBI withdrawing their request for Roethlisberger's DNA may have no effect on the outcome of the case. If DNA is not an issue and Roethlisberger is ultimately charged with sexual battery or a similar crime, his likely defense will either be consent or that he just did not do it what the victim is alleging.

There have been more arrests and criminal charges for child pornography in the Jacksonville area recently, as noted by an article on News4Jax.com. Child pornography, whether a person receives it, creates it, distributes it or just views it on a computer at home, is a very serious crime that carries very stiff penalties. And there have been an increase in child pornography related arrests throughout Florida by both federal, state and local law enforcement officials.

As the article suggests, there are several reasons why we have seen more arrests for child pornography. First, state, local and federal law enforcement officials are initiating more investigations into the crime. Some crimes do not resonate with the public as much as others. For instance, not everyone can get behind spending a lot of money and resources to fight drug crimes. However, the public will always support officials who make child pornography a priority. Additionally, the technology is better today than it was in the past. This works both ways. People have more access to child pornography with computers and the internet. However, law enforcement officials have better technology to track and catch people who are viewing and sharing illegal pictures and videos.

Regardless of the reasons for the increase, when the police, FBI or other law enforcement agency make an arrest for child pornography, it is practically certain that the case will be treated very seriously by the prosecutors.

In a recent case near Jacksonville, Florida a defendant was charged with the sex crimes of lewd or lascivious exhibition and transmitting an image harmful to minors by an electronic device. The criminal charges stemmed from an undercover operation during which a police officer posed as a thirteen year old over the internet. According to the police, the defendant began communicating with the police officer in a sexually inappropriate manner. The defendant and the police officer were chatting on Yahoo Instant Messenger. At some point, the defendant set up a web cam and exposed his penis several times. The defendant was ultimately arrested and charged with the two sex crimes.

At trial, the defendant argued that what he wrote on Yahoo Instant Messenger and what he showed on his web cam were protected by the First Amendment right to free speech because it was done through a public website. However, the court found that communications over the internet directed to children are not protected by the First Amendment and the state has a compelling interest to protect children from harmful materials on the internet.

One question that comes up regarding the sex crime of lewd or lascivious exhibition is what the words "lewd" and "lascivious" mean. Unfortunately, these words are not defined in the criminal statute. So, there is no easy answer as to what conduct is criminalized under this law. Whether conduct is lewd or lascivious is decided first by the police and the prosecutor who decide to make an arrest and bring criminal charges, but ultimately by a judge or jury. The statute gives an example of lewd or lascivious conduct as follows: exposing one's genitals in a lewd or lascivious way. Of course, when the definition includes the words we are trying to define, that definition is not very helpful.

The article linked here discusses the various laws addressing sex crimes and dealing with sex offenders and the people who are required to register as a sex offender. The article makes several good points. One point is that the laws punishing "sex offenders" and the laws labeling someone a "sex offender" triggering the sex offender registration requirement are too broad. As a result, given the limited resources of the police and prosecutors, it makes it more difficult for them to monitor and focus on the truly dangerous sex offenders. For instance, the article notes that in some states, sex offenders include a woman who had oral sex with another guy decades ago when she was 17 and the boy was a couple of weeks shy of his 16th birthday, and they were in the same high school class. In other states, people were considered sex offenders for soliciting prostitutes, urinating in public and having consensual sex with a teenagers when they were teenagers themselves. As the article mentions, part of the problem is that when a sex offender law is proposed, even when it is over-reaching and includes people doing things that are far less serious than what one would normally consider a sex offense, it is always unpopular for politicians to vote against such laws. It is always popular with constituents to be tough on sex crimes, and no politician wants to risk being called soft on child molesters, even if he/she merely thinks a proposed law is too harsh on a 17 year old who has consensual sex with 15 year old. However, the best approach to sex crimes and sex offenders is to be tough but smart. Categorizing people as sex offenders who clearly do not deserve the label does not do anyone any good.

Florida has strict laws addressing what sexual conduct between people is considered a crime, some of which address sexual conduct between young people pretty close in age. Florida also has strict laws about when, where and how a person is required to register a sex offender, whether he/she is a resident of Florida or just a visitor. If you have questions about the laws dealing with sexual battery, registering as a sex offender and other sex crimes, feel free to contact us for a free consultation.

After a criminal conviction for certain sex crimes in Florida, the defendant will be forced to register with the local police department initially, and then periodically thereafter, as a sex offender. The registration process involves providing the police with identification and contact information about the person so the police know where he/she can be found at all times. If a person fails to register the first time, or fails to re-register thereafter, he/she may be charged with the crime of failing to register as a sex offender, which is a felony crime in Florida.

However, it is not clear from reading the failure to register as a sex offender statute whether the State has to prove that the defendant knew he/she was obligated to register. In other words, at trial, can the State simply present evidence that the defendant was a sex offender required to register and did not, or does the defendant's state of mind come into play? In some cases, the defendant can argue that he/she did not know he/she had to register or that he/she thought he/she did register. In most cases, when a defendant pleads guilty or no contest to a sex offense that requires registration, he/she will be forced to read and sign paperwork that explains the registration requirement. The probation officer will also explain it to him/her. However, if that is not done, the defendant can argue that he/she did not know about the registration requirement. Likewise, we read of one case where the defendant's probation officer came to see the defendant around the time he was required to re-register. Based on the comments of the probation officer during that visit, the defendant thought his re-registration requirement for that year was satisfied, and he did not go to the registration office. He was charged with failing to register as a sex offender and was able to use the evidence of the visit from his probation officer and those discussions as a defense to the charge based on his impression that his registration requirement was satisfied.

We believe that the prosecution of a failure to register as a sex offender case is not as simple as proving that the defendant was required to register and failed to do so. Where those elements are proven but there is an argument that the defendant did not know either that he/she had to register or that he/she did not register, there is a valid defense to the crime.

Law enforcement officials have been arresting more and more people for sexual solicitation of minors, according to an article on News4Jax.com. The article attributed the increase in arrests for sex crimes involving minors on greater enforcement efforts and better technology as opposed to more offenders. Arrests for sexually soliciting a minor over the Internet increased by five times when an undercover officer was posing as the minor, while arrests for the same crime increased by 21% when actual minors were solicited.

In Florida, the Attorney General's office has increased efforts to investigate cases involving the sexual solicitation of minors and considers the protection of children from sexual solicitations from adults over the Internet to be the office's top priority. According to the Attorney General's website, Florida ranks fourth in the country in volume of child pornography over the Internet. As a result, the Florida Attorney General's Office has established the Child Predator Cybercrime Unit to protect children and investigate cases involving child pornography and sexual solicitation and exploitation of minors in Florida. Florida also enacted the Cybercrimes Against Children Act in 2007 which increased criminal penalties for conduct such as possession of child pornography and soliciting children over the Internet.

In 2007, a large Cybercrime unit headquarters was opened in Jacksonville, Florida.