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State Must Prove Defendant's Knowledge of Driver's License Suspension
April 28, 2010
Topic: Criminal

The 4^th DCA ruled in Tuner aka Wilson v. State that a court must acquit a defendant on the charge of driving while license suspended where the state does not present evidence that defendant knew license had been suspended. The court ruled that the evidence must be direct and not circumstantial. In this case, the court did not find that evidence a license had been suspended for failure to pay traffic fines and the subsequent notices of suspension were mailed to the driver was enough to show the essential element of knowledge. The court ruled that the State was not entitled to a rebuttable presumption of knowledge where the reason for the suspension was administrative: the defendant's failure to pay his traffic fines.

Further, the court quite correctly denied the State's argument that knowledge of the suspension could be inferred from the fact that the Defendant fled from the police. The Defendant testified that he fled because of duress. Ironically, the jury rejected this argument at trial and found the Defendant guilty of the fleeing charge.

This case is important because it reaffirms the fact that the State must prove knowledge of a suspension. We handle dozens of driving while license suspended cases a year in Jacksonville and the surrounding area. We have had several clients who countered that they did not know that their license was suspended. Our Florida criminal defense team's lawyers has helped many of those clients get their license back and resolved the court case with the client's licenses remaining intact.

If you face a driving while license suspended or revoked charge in Jacksonville, Gainesville, Orange Park, Ponte Vedra, or St. Augustine, contact the criminal driving defense attorneys at Arnold & New. Our criminal defense lawyers are experienced and work hard to get our clients the best possible result. Ask us about our experience and results today!

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Sentencing Commission Votes to Eliminate Recent Criminal History Points
April 13, 2010
Topic: Criminal

Today, the United States Sentencing Commission has voted to delete section 4A1.1(e) from the Guidelines.

That section was part of the Criminal History Category in the sentencing guidelines said to:

"Add 2 points if the defendant committed the instant offense less than 2 years after release from imprisonment on a sentence counted under (a) or

(b) [which are 3 points for a felony sentence and 2 points for a 60-day+ sentence] or while in imprisonment or escape status on such offense. If 2 points are added for item (d) [which is 2 points for committing offense while on probation, S/R, imprisoned, etc.], add only 1 point for this item."

On Tuesday, April 13, 2010, the U.S. Sentencing Commission voted to amend the Guidelines Manual by deleting §4A1.1(e) (recency points).  In a press release, the Federal Public Defender's office stated that "The presumed reason for the amendment is that recency points add nothing to the predictive quality of the criminal history score and fail to reflect meaningful differences in offender culpability."  See pp. 90-98 of the Defenders' testimony to the Commission, available at http://www.fd.org/pdf_lib/FPD_Testimony%20of%20Meyers%20and%20Mariano_FINAL.pdf

This will be sent to Congress on May 1, 2010 and, if no further action is taken, will be adopted on Nov. 1, 2010.  In the meantime, it is clear that courts would be allowed to make this change immediately.  The court can use its inherent authority in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) and Supreme Court precedent to disagree with any part of the guidelines on policy grounds. Defense counsel should argue that courts should not assess recency points now for the same reason that the Commission recommends abandoning them on Nov. 1st:

they do not reflect either increased culpability or an increased risk of recidivism and thus do not serve any sentencing purpose.

The Commission will be announcing all of the pending amendments on its website soon, http://www.ussc.gov/.

If you are looking for criminal defense in federal court in Jacksonville, Orlando, or Tampa, contact us to discuss your case.  Learn more about Arnold & New's federal criminal defense here. 

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Consent to search inside of vehicle does not extend to locked containers
October 15, 2009
Topic: Criminal

The Fourth District Court of Appeals in J.J.V. v. State ruled that a search of a locked center counsel of a vehicle was unreasonable when the driver had only given the officer permission to search the inside of the vehicle. The court relied on a test put forth in the Florida Supreme Court case State v. Wells, 539 So. 2d 464, where the court stated that a person has two distinct interests that must be protected:

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Making phone calls to get drugs for personal use not a felony
October 14, 2009
Topic: Criminal

The Supreme Court held in Abuelhawa v. United States that making phone calls in order to obtain drugs for personal use was not a felony under 21 U.S.C. § 843(b). This section of the United States Code makes it a felony to facilitate the commission of a drug felony, which in this case would have been the sale of the drugs to the defendant. However, the Supreme Court rejected this idea stating that stating that Congress intentionally made different levels of punishment for buying and selling drugs. Therefore, it would be adsurb to make every purchase in essence a sale because it is axiomatic that a seller must have a buyer. If Congress wanted to make the punishments equal, they could have done so. To read this in the manner the government proposed would be to eliminate the prosecution of purchases and treat all parties to a transaction as a seller.

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Duval County schools agree to reduce number of students getting arrested
October 07, 2009
Topic: Criminal

The Florida Times Union reported today that Duval County School officials have agreed to stop arresting all students who commit crimes, particularly petty crimes on school campus.  The zero tolerance policy of crime on school campuses is being curtailed to include serious crimes and threats of violence.

The full article can be read here.  If you know of a juvenile who has been arrested and needs a Florida juvenile defense attorney, contact our office at 904-731-3800.

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