Articles Posted in Murder

Jury instructions are a key part of any criminal trial in Florida. The way that a judge instructs the jury about the evidence and the legal requirements necessary to return a conviction can make or break a Florida homicide or other criminal case. As a recent case out of the Florida Supreme Court shows, judges are also required to inform the jury if there are lesser offenses than those charged of which the person charged could be convicted instead.A defendant was charged with attempted second-degree murder, possession of a firearm, and other crimes stemming from an incident in Duval County in which she allegedly shot a woman during a drug transaction gone awry. The victim testified at trial that her cousin got into a verbal argument with the defendant during a marijuana sale. She said the defendant pulled the gun after the argument escalated. The victim punched the defendant in the face when she saw the gun. The victim then raised her hands to protect her face when the defendant pointed it at her. The defendant fired the gun, wounding the woman in the hand and neck. The victim and two other witnesses said the victim was standing about 10 feet away from the defendant and was not moving toward her at the time of the shooting.

The defendant told the court that she had the gun at her side and was moving away from the victim after the woman punched the defendant in the face. She said she raised and fired the weapon in self-defense, concerned that she would have been jumped if she had not done so. The judge in the case explained the legal elements of second-degree murder, including the lesser offenses of aggravated battery and aggravated assault. The judge did not, however, inform the jury that the defendant could also be convicted on the lesser offense of attempted manslaughter. She was convicted of attempted second-degree murder and other offenses related to the gun and drugs.

The Florida Supreme Court reversed the attempted murder conviction on appeal. The court said the judge erred by failing to tell the jury that the defendant could have been convicted of attempted manslaughter instead of attempted murder.

The right to legal representation is a central part of any criminal defense. Judges take this right very seriously, as a recent decision in a murder case from Florida’s Second District Court of Appeal shows.The defendant’s girlfriend was found dead in her home in Bradenton in June 2012. When they went looking for the defendant, the cops found that he had been involuntarily admitted for psychiatric treatment at Manatee Memorial Hospital earlier the same day. He had been acting erratically while visiting his parents. He was nervous, pacing, and unable to relax or slow down, according to the court. His mother later told police that he had previously suffered from similar mental health problems. His mother was informed by hospital staff that his girlfriend had been found dead when the mother tried to visit him in the hospital later the same day. She was barred from seeing her son until the cops arrived.

The mother obtained a lawyer – a friend of a fellow church member – to represent her son before the police came to the hospital. Although the lawyer informed hospital staff that he was representing the defendant and did not want the defendant talking to police alone, he too was barred from seeing him. The lawyer and the parents left the facility late in the evening with plans to return the next day.

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If you are charged with a crime in Florida, you have the right to a fair trial and the presumption of innocence. A recent murder case in Miami tested the bounds of fairness and prejudice when the Third District Court of Appeal was asked to decide whether a jury should be able to see a video of a person confessing to a crime while wearing a prison uniform and handcuffs.The defendant was charged with a 2002 murder during a botched robbery in Miami. The case remained unresolved for some 10 years before police had a breakthrough using fingerprint tracing technology. They eventually matched prints from the crime scene to another man by using a national database. This other man implicated the defendant, and the son of the person killed in the robbery picked the defendant out of a photo lineup. The cops tracked the defendant down to a prison in Pennsylvania, where he was serving time on unrelated charges. He agreed to do a video interview and waived his rights to an attorney. He confessed to committing the robbery, but he said it was the other man who pulled the trigger.

The defendant was eventually charged with first-degree murder. Before the trial began, he asked the judge to allow the jury only to hear an audio version of his prison interview with the police. He argued that he would be unfairly prejudiced if the jury saw him giving the interview in handcuffs and prison garb. The judge disagreed. The defendant was convicted, based on the confession, the victim’s son’s identification, and DNA evidence taken from a baseball cap left at the crime scene.

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