Recent Blog Posts
Will The Jury Acquit You Just Because Your Accuser Has A Motive For Lying?
The jury cannot return a verdict of guilty unless the prosecution’s evidence and arguments leave no room for reasonable doubt, but to establish reasonable doubt, you must do more than just say, “He’s lying!” You must show why the exhibits that the prosecutors show do not mean what the prosecutors say they mean or… Read More »
A Criminal Defense Lawyer’s Perspective On Romance Scams
If you are single and looking for love, it is easy to feel like you do not know who to trust, especially if you are meeting prospective partners on dating sites. People talk a big game on the phone and while exchanging messages, but when you meet them, they are much less charming. As… Read More »
Is Possession Really Nine Tenths Of The Law?
If you get arrested for a crime, it is best to exercise your right to remain silent until you have a chance to talk to a criminal defense lawyer about your case. You will probably go into survival mode, and your mind will be swirling with every possible way that you can get out… Read More »
Employees Of Florida Research Firm Plead Guilty To Falsifying Data In Clinical Trials
Sometimes it feels like there is nothing interesting on the Internet anymore, it is a case of “57 channels and nothing on” syndrome writ large. Everywhere you look, there are generic articles that sound like they were written by chatbots for an audience of search engines, and mindlessly sensationalist clickbait. If you need a… Read More »
How Hard Is It To Get Prosecutors Not To Charge You?
Getting arrested on suspicion of a crime is not like standing in front of two doors, behind one of which a terrible fate awaits you, and deciding which one to open. It is more like the beginning of a flowchart. Your case can take many different paths. If you focus only on “incarceration” versus… Read More »
Broward Sheriff’s Office Arrests Three Men On Suspicion Of Real Estate Fraud Conspiracy
Anyone who has ever bought or sold a house in South Florida knows that the process can be fraught with ambiguities. You have to sign huge volumes of documents to complete the transaction, and if you make a simple typo or other mistake on any of the paperwork, it can take weeks of work… Read More »
Driver’s License Suspension For Drug Possession Convictions Is Counterproductive, But The Practice Continues Unabated In Florida
Some corners of the Internet sing the praises of a world without automobiles, but the dream of a walkable utopia is not coming to Florida any time soon. People rely on their cars to go everywhere, including for commuting to and from work and picking up their children from school. They also rely on… Read More »
You Don’t Have To Be A Celebrity To Go To Drug Rehab Instead Of Jail While Awaiting Trial
It is as if, when it is a slow news day in South Florida, journalists have standing orders to recite the litany of criminal cases in which Bill Kapri, better known by his stage name Kodak Black, has been a defendant. It is a thrilling story, by all accounts; Kodak Black began recording music… Read More »
Founding Partner Jude Faccidomo Quoted in Florida Bar News Commenting on Proposed Deposition Bill
As published by the Florida Bar in Florida Bar News on March 9, 2023. By Jim Ash Senior Editor Top Stories Florida defense attorneys are warning that a proposal to bar the deposition of children and other vulnerable witnesses in criminal cases would do more harm than good. Jude Faccidomo, immediate past president of… Read More »
Mixed Messages About Ketamine From Medicine, Law, And Society
Ketamine is the world’s least dangerous anesthesia drug. It is PCP lite. Ketamine is nitrous oxide for grownups. Ketamine captures the ethos of Generation Z, giggling apathetically like minions, the way that cocaine, heroin, LSD, and weed (then known as pot, marijuana, reefer, doobies, and a host of other outdated nicknames) captivated the imaginations… Read More »
Delray Beach Man Faces Criminal Charges For Threats Against FAU Employees
It is possible to get criminal charges for acting in pursuit of violent acts that did not actually come to pass and for being indirectly involved in crimes such as money laundering or drug trafficking. These types of crimes are known as inchoate offenses, and they can be characterized as attempts, conspiracy, or solicitation. … Read More »
What Does The DEA’s Decision To Make Delta-8 A Controlled Substance Mean For Florida’s Cannabis Industry And Its Patrons?
As recently as the beginning of this millennium, legal cannabis was literally a pipe dream. You occasionally saw bumper stickers and T-shirts that said “Legalize It” over a picture of a cannabis leaf, but such merchandise was only available at concerts, independent record stores, and a certain reggae-themed kiosk at the Sawgrass Mills mall. … Read More »
Arrested For A Drug Crime?
Although methamphetamine is excellent at causing long periods of wakefulness in those who consume it, it is not especially good at instilling fear in people who have never consumed it. Our imaginations simply do not catastrophize about meth in the same way as they do about cocaine or opioids. Breaking Bad made meth look… Read More »
Four South Florida Men Receive Prison Sentences For Paycheck Protection Program Fraud
The financial effects of the COVID-19 pandemic continue to linger. We are slow to break the financial habits we picked up during the pandemic, whether good, such as buying ingredients in bulk and cooking them at home, or bad, such as racking up buy now pay later (BNPL) purchases with little thought as to… Read More »
Palm Beach County Physician Gets Prison Time For Healthcare Fraud
Native Floridians are a rare breed. Most of the adults you meet in South Florida will tell you that they moved here either from another state or from another country; the families who have been in Florida for more than two generations are even rarer. Likewise, an enormous variety of plant and animal species… Read More »
As Awesome As It May Be, Florida’s Own Philosopher’s Stone Mushroom Is A Schedule I Controlled Substance
An ancestor of modern medicine and chemistry was alchemy, which had as its goal the search for a substance that could cure all diseases, restore the elderly to youth, and transform ordinary metals into precious metals like gold and silver. Alchemists writing in Arabic, Latin, and other languages used to call this substance the… Read More »
New Report Argues That Juvenile Detention Does Not Help Young People Stay Out Of Trouble
Whether you are 26 or 76, you probably would not want to meet your 15-year-old self face to face. Compared to adults, young people are impulsive and impressionable; they lack perspective, and compared to their elders, many of them lack self-control. It stands to reason that the state’s response should be different when a… Read More »
How Does A Diagnosis Of Mental Illness Affect Your Criminal Case?
It seems like everyone is talking about mental health and mental illness these days, but the relationship between the criminal justice system and defendants’ mental health remains poorly understood. Initiatives that treat substance use disorder as an illness rather than a predisposition toward criminal behavior help people charged with drug crimes achieve sobriety and… Read More »
Lawmakers Seek To Reduce Or Eliminate Sentencing Disparities Between Crack Cocaine And Powder Cocaine Cases
If you are younger than the oldest millennials, “crack cocaine” sounds more like a punchline than a drug of which you have a reasonable fear. The younger generations think of crack as a MacGuffin in action movies rather than a drug that causes fatal overdoses. Who is afraid of crack when there is heroin,… Read More »
Expungement Of Criminal Records In Florida
In a court of law, defendants in criminal cases are presumed innocent until proven guilty, and they have the right to discuss the prosecution’s case against them and to prepare defenses and present them in court. In the court of public opinion, things are very different. How many times have people judged you, and… Read More »
