Source: https://www.crawforddefense.com/apps/blog/?view_type=0
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 01:03:02+00:00

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If you are arrested in Pinellas, Hillsborough, Manatee, or Sarasota county, the case is then transferred to the State Attorney's Office to make a decision on whether formal charges will be filed. A few weeks to a month after your arrest, a prosecutor is assigned to your case. He or she will conduct an investigation into the allegations and may even call in witnesses to testify under oath. Frequently, people who are arrested for an alleged crime will sometimes think that nothing will happen and it is best to just wait and hope that the prosecutor will not file charges before hiring an experienced defense attorney. This is a BIG MISTAKE.
You should hire a defense attorney immediately after your arrest. First, an attorney can help review the facts with you, review the charge(s) with you, and develop defenses by locating favorable witnesses and evidence. Second, an attorney can contact the State Attorney's Office to find out which prosecutor has been assigned to your case, make contact with prosecutor, and ask him to hold off filing charges until such time as favorable evidence can be presented. Third, after an attorney has found out which prosecutor has been assigned to your case, he can then present to the prosecutor favorable facts, witnesses, law and evidence to hopefully prevent charges from being filed.
Relatively speaking, it is much easier for an attorney to prevent a prosecutor's initial filing of charges than to ask a prosecutor to dismiss a charge that has already been filed. If you wait and assume that a prosecutor will not file charges, then the prosecutor will only have one version of what happened...what law enforcement and/or what an alleged victim said. Essentially, he or she will only have one side of the story without your side being properly presented. This is why is it so important to hire an experienced defense attorney immediately after your arrest.
“Whether a communication caused substantial emotional distress should be narrowly construed and is governed by the reasonable person standard.” David v. Textor, 189 So. 3d 871, 875 (Fla. 4th DCA 2016). “In determining whether substantial emotional distress occurred, the courts look to the standard of a reasonable person in the petitioner's shoes.” Florida Statutes § 784.048(1)(b) defines "course of conduct" as “a pattern of conduct composed of a series of acts over a period of time, however short, which evidences a continuity of purpose.” The terms do not include constitutionally protected activity such as picketing or other organized protests. In reviewing the validity of a cyberstalking injunction, the appellate courts have been especially sensitive to two issues: constitutionally protected activity implicating the First Amendment and conduct directed at a particular person.
Angry social media postings are now common. Jilted lovers, jilted tenants, and attention-seeking bloggers spew their anger into fiber-optic cables and cyberspace. But analytically, and legally, these rants are essentially the electronic successors of the pre-blog, solo complainant holding a poster on a public sidewalk in front of an auto dealer that proclaimed, “DON'T BUY HERE! ONLY LEMONS FROM THESE CROOKS!” Existing and prospective customers of the auto dealership considering such a poster made up their minds based on their own experience and research. If and when a hypothetical complainant with the poster walked into the showroom and harangued individual customers, or threatened violence, however, the previously-protected opinion crossed the border into the land of trespass, business interference, and amenability to tailored injunctive relief. The same well-developed body of law allows the complaining blogger to complain, with liability for money damages for defamation if the complaints are untruthful and satisfy the elements of that cause of action. Injunctive relief to prohibit such complaints is another matter altogether.
When reviewing cyberstalking injunctions, courts and attorneys should pay particular attention to whether the conduct in question is protected by the First Amendment and whether such conduct is actually “directed” at a particular person.
Attorneys practicing criminal law should be extremely careful when representing foreign citizens in criminal cases, even minor misdemeanors. Even if your client has been a legal permanent resident for decades, a conviction for a specified offense could pose serious immigration problems. Once a conviction becomes final, it is extremely difficult to get it vacated. The following article details the unique procedural hurdles that a family had to endure and illustrates an extreme example of this process.
In 2004, after spending their working years in New York, Bernard and Josephine Storey, decided to move to Clearwater, Florida and retire near the beach. Bernard, a legal permanent resident of the United States for over forty years, a father, and grandfather, developed bipolar disorder after suffering a head injury sustained during a car wreck. In 2005, after Bernard suffered a psychological breakdown, he was arrested in Clearwater, and subsequently placed on probation. Almost a year and a half later, in 2007, Bernard violated his probation with a new misdemeanor charge. Without the benefit of his medication and thinking there was no immigration issue, he pled to the misdemeanor and admitted his probation violation. The circuit court sentenced Bernard to a year and a day in jail. Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) put a hold on Mr. Storey, which mandated his deportation once he completed his sentence. According to ICE, Bernard was now convicted of an aggravated felony and deportable since the original charge was aggravated assault and his sentence was over a year, literally one day over. Once he was transferred from the Pinellas County Jail to the Department of Corrections, correctional officers noted Bernard acting strange and he was sent to the Crisis Stabilization Unit and given injections of psychotropic medication.
Faced with the possibility of her husband’s deportation, Josephine retained counsel and a legal battle that would take almost a decade began. First, we filed motions for postconviction relief in the circuit and county court and argued amongst other things that Bernard’s pleas were involuntary due to the lack of his medication and his mental health. After the motion was partially denied without a hearing, I appealed the denial to the Second District Court of Appeal. The appellate court reversed and remanded Bernard’s case back to the trial court for an evidentiary hearing on his motion. Storey v. State, 32 So. 3d 105 (Fla. 2d DCA 2009). The trial court denied the motion a second time after a hearing despite hearing expert testimony from a forensic psychologist confirming Bernard’s psychosis at the time of the admission to the violation of probation, the basis for his removal from the United States.
For a second time, I appealed Bernard’s case to the Second District Court of Appeal, which became extremely complicated. After complete briefing, oral argument, and while the appeal was pending, immigration decided to deport Bernard back to his native country of Trinidad, away from his wife, Josephine, his children, and grandchildren, all of whom were American citizens. Six months after the oral argument, the Attorney General’s office found out about the deportation and filed a motion to dismiss the appeal, which was granted without an explanation. The admission to the violation of probation and the resulting sentence, the basis of the appeal, was the sole reason Bernard was deported. Despite pointing this out to the appellate court, it denied a motion for rehearing and motion for rehearing in banc. Bernard was banished to Trinidad and Josphine’s health seriously deteriorated requiring multiple hospitalizations, including visits to the intensive care unit.
We determined that the proper procedural remedy was to file an extraordinary writ, a petition for a writ of mandamus, in the Florida Supreme Court, SC12-2504. In the petition, we argued that it was improper for an appellate court to dismiss an appeal merely because defendant was deported, when the sole basis for the deportation was the issue on appeal. The Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Catholic Charities Legal Services filed amicus briefs in support of Bernard’s position. After a year, the Florida Supreme Court agreed and ordered the Second District Court of Appeal to rule on Mr. Storey’s case. On May 24, 2014, the Second District reversed the denial of Bernard’s motion, found that his plea was involuntary, and remanded the case back to the circuit court. Storey v. State, 139 So. 3d 448 (Fla. 2d DCA 2014). After some negotiation, the State Attorney’s Office elected not to pursue Bernard’s probation violation and the state conviction that gave rise to his deportation was dismissed.
Even though the state conviction that gave rise to Bernard’s deportation was reversed, his case still had to go before the immigration court in Miami. Thankfully, in March 2016, He was able to visit Josephine in the hospital and they currently live in Clearwater.
Have you ever had a client come to you with the idea of secretly recording a conversation? Or worse yet, bring you a tape they surreptitiously made? Florida Security of Communications Act, Chapter 934 of the Florida Statutes, recognizes that oral, electronic, and wire communications are private, unless both parties consent, and cannot be recorded, absent a specific statutory exception. The legislative intent behind this statute is to safeguard the privacy of innocent people to prevent unauthorized interception of these communications. Fl.St. § 934.01(4). The purpose of this article is to familiarize practioners with a basic overview of this statute, its exceptions, and criminal penalties associated with its violation.
Definitions contained within the statute are crucial to understanding the application of Chapter 934. The statute applies to oral, electronic and wire communications. Fl.St. § 934.03(1)(a). An oral communication means an oral statement made by a person exhibiting an expectation of privacy, and does not include statements made during the course of public meetings or events. Fl.St. § 934.02(2). For an oral communication to be protected under this statute the person making the statement must have a subjective expectation of privacy that society recognizes as reasonable, e.g. in a home. Jackson v. State, 18 So.3d 1016, 1029-1030 (Fla. 2009). Key factors in making this determination are the location of the conversation, the manner in which it is made, and the type of the communication. Stevenson v. State, 667 So.2d 410, 412 (Fla. 1st DCA 1996). A wire communication is any aural transfer made in whole or part through the aid of wire, cable or other similar connection between the “point of origin and point of reception,” including through a “switching station,” Fl.St. § 934.02(1). Wire communications are not covered by the statute if the communications were made to the public. Dorsey v. State, 402 So.2d 1178,1183 (Fla. 1971). Electronic communication means any transfer of signs, signals, writings, images, data, or intelligence transmitted in whole or part by “wire, radio, electromagnetic, photoelectronic, or photooptical” means. Fl.St. § 934.02(12). This does not include electronic funds transfers, a tone only paging device, or an electronic or mechanical device that follows the location of a person or object. Fl.St. § 934.02(12)(b)-(d). Interception is defined as the aural or other acquisition of any contents of the oral, electronic, or wire communications with electronic, mechanical, or other device. Fl.St. § 934.02(3).
Any person who intentionally intercepts, attempts to intercept, or hires another person to intercept an oral, wire, or electronic communication can be charged with a third-degree felony, punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000.00 fine. Florida Statutes § 934.03(4)(a). There are exceptions to the prohibition contained in Florida Statutes § 934.03. However, the two (2) most frequent will be discussed below. First, a party is not criminally liable if both parties consented to the recording of the conversation. Thompson v. State, 731 So.2d 819, 820 (Fla. 5th DCA 1999). For example, if a person leaves another a voicemail or if a business informs a person that “for quality assurance this call may be recorded.” Second, the legislature has recognized an exception for law enforcement officers in the investigation of criminal activity. § 934.03(2)(c). The two (2) most common applications of this exception are: (a) where a police informant or an alleged victim consents to the recording of their communication and makes a controlled telephone call to the target of the investigation, of the communications.
Not only is the unauthorized interception of communications illegal, but Florida Statues prohibits the contents of the communications and any evidence derived there from being used in any court proceeding, including a trial, a hearing, or a grand jury. Fl.St. § 934.06. A family law practitioner should be well aware of this privilege. For example, a spouse could not record his wife’s telephone communications made from the marital home absent consent or court authorization, and such recordings were inadmissible in a dissolution of marriage proceeding. Markham v. Markham, 272 So.2d 813,814 (Fla. 1973). However, accidental taping on a neighbor’s answering machine of a conversation between a mother and her child did not violate the statute or preclude the father from using it in a custody modification proceeding because there was no intentional recording. Otero v. Otero, 736 So.2d 771, 772 (Fla. 3d DCA 1999). Additionally, Florida Statutes § 934.10 creates a civil cause of action allowing an individual to sue any person or entity who intercepts, discloses, or uses intercepted communications. Civil damages can include, actual damages, punitive damages, attorney’s fees and costs, and equitable or declaratory relief. Fl.St. § 934.10(1)(a)-(d).
During the representation of clients through civil, criminal, or family law cases, a Florida attorney should be familiar with Chapter 934 of the Florida Statutes, its exceptions, and the criminal and civil ramifications from illegal interception of oral, wire, or electronic communications. Illegal recordings or interceptions could result in criminal penalties, a civil lawsuit, and exclusion from evidence.

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