Author Archives: Jay Butchko
Directed Verdicts Are An Eleventh Hour Victory For The Defendant
If your case goes to trial, your greatest hope is that the jury will deliver a verdict of not guilty. Once the jury goes to the jury chambers to deliberate, it is anyone’s guess what the verdict will be, but at least you will know how your case ends. Until the moment the trial… Read More »
Scopolamine Can Cause Plenty Of Legal Trouble Without Officially Being A Controlled Substance
Of the many drugs available only by prescription, only the ones considered to have substantial potential for abuse are on the controlled substances list. Even though you can’t just buy boring prescription drugs like Metformin off of the drugstore shelf, the law does not consider it tempting enough to list it as a controlled… Read More »
How The Humble Smartphone Camera Is Changing The Criminal Justice System
Young people are already tired of hearing their elders talk about how different life was before the Internet, so for a change, tell your kids about how different life was before smartphone cameras. Even millennials can participate with this game, because while you used websites in the bibliographies of papers you wrote in high… Read More »
Florida Enacts Changes To Police Response To Domestic Violence Calls
Most domestic violence calls do not lead to an arrest; the police simply de-escalate a fight between family members, perhaps telling one of the parties to stay away from the house for a few hours until everyone has had a chance to cool down. Things often continue to escalate after the police leave, though. … Read More »
How Jury Instructions Can Affect The Outcome Of Your Case
The best thing about jurors is how little they know; this is what makes them unbiased. The jury would not be able to return a fair verdict if all of the jurors were your former classmates who were still bearing a grudge about what a jerk you were when you were a teenager. How… Read More »
Is “Embalming Fluid” The Next Big Thing In Florida’s Drug Supply?
Every so often, you hear about a new drug making an appearance in Florida’s drug supply; often, it is just an old drug known by a new nickname. Recently, a man got arrested at the Sol Fest music festival in Florida, because he bit a sheriff’s deputy while high on drugs, and one of… Read More »
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 »