Archive for 'Criminal Defense Blog'

I have been asked this week by several reporters for my remarks and commentary in connection with the Trayvon Martin/Zimmerman case. It’s indeed an  honor to be quoted as some sort of authority as a criminal defense lawyer in a case of this magnitude — and specifically, the reporters were inquiring about Zimmerman’s prior “domestic violence,” restraining order/injunction, and Judge Lester’s comments from the bench (at Zimmerman’s bond hearing) as to the relative lack of seriousness of Zimmerman’s earlier domestic ...

“Why do you think so many people are moving to Florida, something like 800 people a day?”

John Castellano, South Florida and Fort Lauderdale criminal lawyer:

“It’s not unrelated to why we have so many people locked up in Florida, and why we now lead the world in prison population. The reasons are really quite simple:

People want to come to Florida to get some sun and fun, and after a little vacation experience — which is never ...

Imagine you do something wrong and then confide in a colleague or new “friend” … and then imagine that colleague or your “friend” is working quietly and confidentially with his Government to reduce or mitigate his earlier sentence (ie, typically a prison sentence, to be served at some defined date in the future) — and yet the original sentencing dates back over a year ago, such that you never even knew about it … Well suffice it to say, be ...

Fort Lauderdale criminal defense lawyer John Castellano offers just a little insight into how you might get some help if wrongfully charged with a crime:

I will just briefly and generally state the legal defense of “mere presence,” a defense that is available to you or your loved ones (along with the doctrine of “corpus delicti”) any time you or your family members are wrongfully accused of being involved in a crime — accused simply because you are right there ...

Our own Government, it appears, is enhancing the category, level and punishment scale associated with most criminal activities, including your run of the mill drug possession charges; and though this may sound like good solid law enforcement and good for the rest of our law abiding society, think about the natural consequences of this increased Government enforcement and enhancement of penalties, specifically:

Almost everything that once was considered a “misdemeanor,” is now a “felony” and enforceable as such, and were that ...

Unbelievable! Reporters Brian Haas and Andrew BA Tran (no doubt very nice people, however misguided) sounded very informed and even quite smart – they had obviously done their homework and had apparently asked all the right questions of all the right technology experts within several phone manufacturers, telling Florida’s Sun-Sentinel readers all about law enforcement’s “tracking technology” and capabilities as respects the “iphone” and the “blackberry” and all the exact models of “Nokia” and “Samsung” …. *the ...

The beauty of being both a criminal defense attorney and a born again believer is that the arena is clearly a mission field, a real ministry. Of course, this is only true to the extent that the clients’ hearts are receptive to the Gospel.

Quite obviously, the clients’ hearts must be prepared first by the Holy Spirit, whose job it really is to “save” people. It is true, though, that many people do come to Christ throughout this ...