Frequently Asked Questions

In Florida, the State Attorney’s Office makes the decision on whether charges will be dismissed or not. The State Attorney’s Office will take in consideration the victim’s wishes but ultimately will make the final decision.

Both Expungement and Sealing serve a similar function in preventing the public from having access to your criminal record.

Expungement is essentially when a public agency is ordered to destroy or remove a criminal record that they have stored.

Sealing is when a public agency is allowed to maintain the record but is ordered to lock it away from public access.

The nature of the charge and the disposition of the case determines whether the record can be expunged or sealed. There are certain offenses that are automatically disqualified for expungement and sealing, but outside of these offenses, if the persons has never received a prior conviction and the charge that he wants removed from his record was either dismissed or withheld, then it can likely be expunged or sealed. Expungement or Sealing a criminal record is a multiple stage process and is finalized by a judges order.  We can help with this process.

After an arrest or when formal charges have been filed, whichever comes first, the State Attorney then has a certain amount of time to find a person guilty, whether through a plea or trial, unless the person waives speedy trial for strategic reasons. For misdemeanors, its 90 days, for Felonies, its 175 days.

Sometimes it is strategic to waive Speedy Trial. For example, the State Attorney may be pressured to make a quick decision on whether to file charges in efforts to meet the speedy trial deadline. Waiving Speedy Trial allows the state to make a more informative decision and possibly preventing formal charges from ever being filed.  Another example is that waiving speedy trial may be beneficial to the Defendant if his defense attorney needs additional time past the speedy trial deadline to gather necessary evidence for his defense.

There is not a clear-cut answer to this. Under certain circumstances it may be more beneficial but under other circumstances you may be doing more damage than good. Although refusing to provide a breath sample provides less evidence to the state to prove that you were driving under the influence, refusing to provide a breath sample carries a penalty of a 12 month drivers license suspension for the first refusal and then classified as an actual misdemeanor offense with an 18 month suspension for the second refusal.

The simple answer is yes!  Although under this circumstance, the state will not have your breath-alcohol level such as .08, the state can still prove the DUI under the theory of impairment which does not require the state to show your actual breath-alcohol concentration level.  A few ways the state can show impairment is by a weaving in and out your lane, odor of alcohol or poor performance on field sobriety exercises such as the walk and turn and the one leg stand.

A motion to suppress is a motion claiming that the police violated either your 4th amendment right to unreasonable searches or seizures or that police violated your Miranda Rights derived from your 5th and 6th Amendment against self-incrimination and right to counsel.  In context, if the police violated your 4th amendment right such as by an unlawful traffic stop, the motion will be asking that any evidence derived after the stop (fruit of the poisonous tree) should be precluded in a trial.  This can include any physical evidence the police recovered, any observations the police made, and any statements that an individual made to the officer.

If you are in custody, which is more than just being stopped, then prior to a police officer asking you an incriminating question, he must first read you your Miranda Rights which is essentially informing you that you have the right to remain silent and right to have an attorney.  If the officer does not provide you with your Miranda rights at the appropriate time, then any incriminating statement that you may have provided to the officer is later subject to suppression.  Argument can be made whether a person was in custody or not and a diligent defense attorney will try to argue that a person was in custody, thereby requiring the reading of your Miranda Rights.