A LITTLE APPELLATE LAW

It was an interesting day yesterday perusing the appellate decisions from the 3rd DCA (Motto: "Give us a really tough case, and we'll give you a per curiam Affirmed." )

In Brown v. State, HERE the Judges applied some legal yoga to arrive at the conclusion that a new indictment obtained AFTER THE EXPIRATION OF THE SPEEDY TRIAL TIME PERIOD, did not bar the prosecution of the Defendant.

As a professor from our law school up North used to say, “That dog won’t hunt.”




Candid shot of how the 3rd DCA sometimes works.



However, all was not lost for the appellate team from the PD’s office. The defendant was convicted of a triple murder before Judge Scott Silverman, and the 3rd DCA found problems with the murder instructions for two of the three counts of murder. So Mr. Brown goes to state prison for life with only one murder on his rap sheet. Happy day. We guess the thought that an improperly instructed jury on TWO murder counts might not have been the fairest panel to decide the entire case never crossed the minds of the Judges.

In Barnes v. State, Andy Stanton of the PD’s appellate division notches a reversal HERE and Judge Trawick takes the fall for instructing the jury on the “forcible felony” portion of the justifiable use of deadly force instruction when the “forcible felony” provision was not applicable to the case.

Barnes and the State get to do it all again. "This case was so nice, we decided to try it twice!"

Actually this was a tough one. The point of law was a technical issue not often encountered unless you try a lot of self defense cases. No real fault should be ascribed here to the prosecution or Judge Trawick, who we think is a very good judge who does a good job all the time.

And while you’re on the 3rd DCA’s web site, check out Silvia Gonzalez’s nice win HERE
in Labrador v. State. No Silvia was not defending a cute puppy.

Most of you know that appellate law gives us a rash.

See You In Court. We're the one's scratching as we read the FLW's.