Florida Personal Injury Lawyer Blog
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Lee County Wanted Persons Photos
The Fort Myers News Press has published this photo album of Lee County’s wanted Fugitives.
Check it out here: http://www.news-press.net/crime/
Articles Posted in Criminal Law
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FHP, law enforcement agencies increasing visibility Labor Day weekend
NAPLES — The Florida Highway Patrol announced today that it is stepping up its enforcement operations and teaming up with other law enforcement agencies across the state to prepare for the Labor Day holiday weekend.
The FHP will increase visibility and enforcement efforts beginning at 12:01 a.m. on Aug. 29 through midnight Sept. 1, according to a press release. The agency will target three specific causes of highway fatalities: speeding, impaired driving and failure to use occupant restraints.
Auxiliary and reserve troopers will be volunteering their time to assist regular troopers during the heightened holiday enforcement weekend. Full Story: http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2008/aug/28/fhp-law-enforcement-agencies-increasing-visibility/
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Text-messaging plot to rob Lauderdale McDonald’s foiled
Four teens have been charged with planning to rob a McDonald’s restaurant, including an employee who police say was text-messaging instructions on how to open the cash registers.The late Sunday night plot at 950 West Commercial Boulevard was foiled by a police officer who saw a suspicious vehicle in a nearby parking lot, police spokeswoman Detective Katherine Collins said.The officer approached the car and found three males with robbery tools and a cell phone that one of them tried to throw into the bushes, Collins said.On the phone was a text message sent from a McDonald’s employee describing how to open the registers and where the money was kept, police said.
The employee, a 17-year-old from Lauderdale Lakes, was charged with attempted armed robbery. Full Story: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/broward/sfl-826lauderdalerobbery,0,835191.story?track=rss
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Public defender, state attorney hurting from state budget cuts
The state attorney’s office is also looking at about six days of furloughs for its employees if they’re not granted an exemption from budget cuts.”I am concerned about a morale issue, because I look at our folks and I can’t even hold out any hope,” State Attorney Willie Meggs said.Meggs said his employees haven’t had a raise since 2006. He also said their caseloads are increasing, because attorneys are leaving and not being replaced.
Public Defender Nancy Daniels says attorneys in her office might have to turn down cases if they can’t get any relief from budget cuts.”It’s unethical for a defense lawyer to represent so any people that they can’t do an adequate job for clients,” she said.The Office of the Public Defender currently has 60 attorneys, not including the six positions that have been eliminated since last summer. Full Story: http://tallahassee.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080821/BREAKINGNEWS/80821005/-1/BREAKINGNEWS
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Interactive Map of Marijuana Growhouse Busts in Southwest Florida
Check out this interactive map of Southwest Floirda Marijuana Growhouse busts provided courtesy of the Naples Daily News.
http://www.naplesnews.com/growhouse/
Are there any in your neighborhood? Click on the pushpins for a brief description of the Arrest.
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Fort Myers Cocaine Bust: VIDEO, Lee County Sheriff Mike Scott
Click the link below for a video of what Sheriff Mike Scott is calling the biggest bust in Lee County’s history. Doesn’t look like all that much if you ask me.
http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080522/VIDEO/80522074/1085/RSS0110
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Cocaine Is Back, Killing More Than Ever
The signs: Increased business at rehab centers. Those Ski-related personal ads. A big spike in death rates. The trend began to reveal itself about five years ago — in centrifuges and under microscopes — at the University of Florida’s Forensic Toxicology Laboratory. Each year, the lab assists seven Florida medical examiners’ offices with about 3,000 cases, helping to identify toxic substances in bodies as medical examiners perform autopsies. Dr. Bruce Goldberger, the UF toxicologist who runs the lab, says he began to notice a “significant increase” in the number of cases in which cocaine either caused the death or was present in the blood stream. When he and his colleagues looked at data collected by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement from all 24 of the state’s medical examiners, they found that cocaine-related deaths had been rising all over Florida — from 1,034 in 2000 to 2,052 in 2006. The raw numbers also translated into a statistical spike in the cocaine-related death rate, from 6.4 deaths per 100,000 people in 2001 to 11.2 in 2005.
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Justices OK new state legal offices for poor defendants
Five regional legal offices the state has created to represent poor defendants in special circumstances can stay open, the Florida Supreme Court ruled Thursday [March 13]. The justices reversed a judge’s ruling that the offices, which opened their doors in January, were unconstitutional because they are headed by appointed rather than elected officials. The offices handle cases public defenders cannot take for reasons that include conflicts of interest that often occur when more than one defendant is charged with the same crime. Those cases previously had been assigned to private lawyers, but the new offices are expected to do the same job at a savings of about $55 million the first year.
-We’ll have to wait and see on this one….
Full Story:
http://ap.polkonline.com/pstories/state/fl/20080313/257656307.shtml
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Man arrested after high speed chase and jumping 70 feet from bridge
A 24-year-old Fort Myers man jumped about 70 feet off of the Caloosahatchee Bridge to avoid Lee County sheriff’s deputies this morning, after trying to run over a deputy and then fleeing in what became a lengthy high-speed chase, according to the Lee County Sheriff’s Office.Lorenzo Dean Hood was quickly arrested after his leap to the ground below. He suffered only a sprained ankle.His jump from the bridge – deputies estimate 70 to 75 feet – would be about the equivalent of jumping from the top of a seven-story building.According to the arrest report:A call came into the sheriff’s office at 2:44 a.m. about an assault on Boatways Drive. The caller said the perpetrator left in an older model Chevy Caprice.Deputies stopped a car that matched the caller’s description at the northbound onramp to I-75 from Palm Beach Boulevard.The driver, later identified as Hood, swerved and attempted to run over the approaching officer before accelerating up the onramp.
Full Story: http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080306/NEWS0110/80306007/1085/RSS0110
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CHILDREN IN CHAINS
Remove shackles unless offenders pose a clear threat
As they consider ways to make juvenile offenders safer in state custody, lawmakers should seize the opportunity to clarify state policy on one controversial practice — slapping leg irons and belly chains on youthful offenders, regardless of their age, physical strength or offense.
Lawmakers never officially approved the practice of shackling juveniles travelling to and from court. Yet it’s common procedure in courthouses across the state — even in circuits where adults accused of violent offenses are transported without the chains. Experts in juvenile justice lament the message the heavy shackles send to young offenders, many of whom are already terrified.
