Author Archives: Jay Butchko
Scopolamine, the Scariest Drug Not to Be Categorized as a Controlled Substance
Schedule I controlled substances are the most illegal drugs in the United States, but the categorization of drugs into the five schedules of controlled substances is not directly related to the risk of death from overdose or adverse effects from the drug. For example, heroin and MDMA are Schedule I controlled substances, and both… Read More »
New Florida Domestic Violence Laws for 2024
Police get calls about domestic violence all the time; some couples and families have such a volatile relationship that the police know which house to go to before the 911 dispatcher even tells them the address. Sometimes the incident turns out to be a tempest in a teacup, where two members of the same… Read More »
Drug Mule Diaries
When you are a kid, your parents, your teacher, and the media send the message that music stars are the coolest thing in the world, and drugs are the scariest. News reports full of police sirens and crime scene tape and “drugs are bad” assemblies in school focus on what drugs will do to… Read More »
Product Tampering – Is It Illegal?
Game shows where contestants answer trivia questions, solve puzzles, or perform athletic feats may seem outdated, but the popularity of reality TV shows about people being horrible to each other never go out of style. If you have no money and no time commitments this summer, you can easily pass the time watching YouTube… Read More »
Latest MDMA Research Fails to Convince FDA to Legalize It
MDMA is awesome; you don’t need to graduate from medical school to know that. If you want to see the wonders of MDMA, just attend any rave and see people who are the age where misanthropy is the essence of cool dancing together and thoroughly enjoying themselves. MDMA is also a Schedule I controlled… Read More »
Facing Insider Trading Charges?
You know you are good at your job when portrayals of it in the entertainment media annoy you. Real doctors, lawyers, real estate agents, and teachers are nothing like how Hollywood screenwriters portray them. You know what your Hollywood-created on screen avatar should do in the situation portrayed on screen. And you can think… Read More »
Types of Real Estate Fraud
South Florida is the land of impossibly beautiful edifices that seem to spring up overnight. How many times have you driven past a row of McMansions that was an empty field of dirt the last time you drove down that road, and it was a swamp a year ago? There are no basements in… Read More »
PCP, Embalming Fluid, or Both
Our Miami drug crimes defense lawyer explains how PCP got one of the least appealing drug nicknames, namely embalming fluid, as well as the legal trouble that you can get into for smoking actual embalming fluid. PCP, Another Rejected Pharmaceutical Drug From the Trippy 50s Phencyclidine (PCP) was first synthesized in Germany in 1926. … Read More »
The Miranda Warnings and Florida Criminal Cases
Almost everyone has heard a police officer say, “You have the right to remain silent” in a movie or TV show about a criminal case, but they usually don’t show what happens next. Fictional dramas use that phrase, which is part of the Miranda warnings to show that things are getting serious; the police… Read More »
What To Know About Opening Statements
Imagine the opening sequences from the most iconic movies set in Miami. From Scarface to The Birdcage and from One Night in Miami to the Bad Boys series, the first impression the audience gets is that of the beauty and peril of South Florida. The images tell you where the story that is about… Read More »
Jury Instructions – What You Should Know
If you think that competitive eating is impressive, try watching a competitive memorization tournament. It’s amazing that competitive eaters can fit so much food in their stomachs, but it is equally impressive that competitive memorizers can fit so much information in their brains. Competitive memorizers do not have a superhuman ability to memorize; being… Read More »
Questions of Law and Questions of Fact in Florida Criminal Trials
As Florida is an equitable distribution state, where judges at divorce trials can decide on an individual basis the fairest way to divide a couple’s marital property and debts, many Floridians who have survived divorces so acrimonious that they went to trial balk at the judges’ interpretations of justice. In criminal cases, though, there… Read More »
Apartment Rental Fraud and Other Internet Real Estate Crimes
Lack of transparency is the name of the game in most real estate transactions. Case in point, the National Association of Realtors, an organization which lists more than 90 percent of the real estate properties that get sold in the United States, just agreed to pay a multimillion-dollar settlement in a lawsuit. As part… Read More »
How Does Your Criminal Case Affect Your Career?
Every so often, you will hear stories about people whose career prospects improved after they got convicted of a crime. In today’s gossip-hungry world, you can probably make money after you get out of prison by granting interviews to journalists and YouTubers and talking about the crime to which you pleaded guilty, if the… Read More »
Right Here in South Florida, an LSD-Like Drug Gets One Step Closer to Becoming Legal
Ever since the days of Geocities, mothers have been taking to the Internet to tell strangers, from behind a wall of pseudonyms, about the substances that help them get through their day. Blogs were where you could sing the praises of your own Mother’s Little Helper without fear of judgment. Sometime during the George… Read More »
Florida’s Year of Uncertainty Regarding Cannabis Laws
Cannabis laws have changed a lot in the last decade, to say the least. Ten years ago, if you insinuated that the state or federal government was about to legalize marijuana, your friends would just congratulate you on how high you were and pass you the bong. Smoke shops bore signs that stated in… Read More »
Pill Presses Are Not Your Grandpa’s Drug Paraphernalia
Facing drug charges is no laughing matter, but the story of Gal Vallerius has all the hallmarks of a Miami New Times grade tall tale; even though the story spans the globe, it could only take place in Florida. You have to admit that OxyMonster is a fun screen name, almost as much fun… Read More »
Meet Dimethylpentylone, Florida’s Newest Designer Drug
The idea of designer drugs is nothing new, but drugs come and go from the drug supply so quickly that to trace their prevalence in South Florida from the time of the 60s counterculture through the disco age, the “Just Say No” era, the heyday of shady strip mall pain clinics and the hideous… Read More »
Brady Disclosures and Florida Criminal Cases
The rights of defendants in criminal cases have been part of United States law since the Bill of Rights was codified, but several Supreme Court decisions in the 1960s made the rules clearer about what constitutes a violation of a defendant’s rights. In a Dick Tracy comic strip from the 1960s, the cartoon detective… Read More »
What Does It Mean When the Prosecution Terminates Your Charges
Judges in criminal court look plenty scary with their black robes, their gavels, and their somber expressions, but so much of the outcome of a criminal case is not up to them. Yes, they get to decide which evidence is admissible, and they have the final decision about which jurors will get to participate… Read More »
