Author Archives: Jay Butchko
You Can Exercise Your Fifth Amendment Rights Even Without Pleading The Fifth Or Hearing The Miranda Warnings
This summer marks the 68th anniversary of Miranda v. Arizona, the Supreme Court decision where the Court ruled that police officers must notify a suspect in custody of his or her right to avoid self-incrimination before they begin questioning the suspect. When police have arrested someone and taken him or her to the police… Read More »
Start Your Criminal Trial Off Right With Opening Statements
It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. The past is a foreign country. Call me Ishmael. The first line of a book is often the most memorable part. Who can forget the opening line of Kafka’s Metamorphosis, convoluted as its exact wording may be, in which a nebbish called… Read More »
Turning Yourself In After An Arrest Warrant Means Facing Your Case From A Position Of Strength
Getting arrested at a traffic stop is scary. It is even scarier when a police officer approaches you on foot in a public place and says that he just saw you stealing, selling drugs, or doing something else illegal. A relentless optimist would point out that, in contrast to the aforementioned scenarios, finding out… Read More »
Real Estate Transaction Fraud
If you own real estate, you have financial security that most people don’t have. The majority of millionaires in the United States have a net worth of just over one million dollars because they bought their family home at an affordable price and paid down the mortgage, so now its value exceeds one million… Read More »
Is Medical LSD The New Medical Cannabis?
Almost every Schedule I controlled substance was once a legitimate pharmaceutical drug, a popular social lubricant, or both before the Controlled Substances Act came to town in 1970. In the plants’ native ranges, people have been smoking cannabis and chewing khat for centuries, if not for millennia. Even before heroin gave midcentury jazz its… Read More »
Questions Of Law And Questions Of Fact In Florida Criminal Cases
Yes and no questions are not always as simple as they sound. Sometimes, in order to arrive at the correct answer, you must consider all the information that is relevant to your decision and ignore all irrelevant information, and sometimes figuring out which information is relevant is more difficult than it sounds. Think about… Read More »
Bryant Scriven Quoted in Tampa Bay Times Article “Pinellas Deputies Will Seize Cars Seized in a Flee”
Brandon Kingdollar, Tampa Bay Times Staff, 6.10.24 Pinellas deputies will seize cars used to flee police, sheriff says. The first-of-its-kind policy, which takes effect Tuesday, aims to cut down on high-speed police chases. Drive off from a deputy in Pinellas County? Starting Tuesday, you’ll lose your car. The new policy aims to reduce dangerous… Read More »
How Does A Criminal Case Affect Your Professional Life?
When you get arrested on suspicion of a crime, you are wise to follow the instinct that tells you to exercise your right to remain silent and then calmly and privately discuss the situation with a criminal defense lawyer when you get the opportunity to do so. Meanwhile, until you get the chance to… Read More »
What Is So Great About A Bench Trial?
Police must notify you of some of your rights as a defendant when they arrest you, but it is only after you meet with a criminal defense lawyer and decide to plead not guilty that you get into the nuts and bolts of what the right to a fair trial means. You and your… Read More »
Is Internet Real Estate Crime Conspiracy The New Organized Retail Theft?
In the old days, the courts recognized nonviolent petty crimes as acts of financial desperation and not of malevolence. Even in the nineteenth century, when Les Miserables was written, everyone understood that no one steals a loaf of bread in order to get rich; they do it because they are hungry and cannot afford… Read More »