Articles Posted in Attorney Richard Ansara

Late last year in the Florida Panhandle city of Escambia, a man was sentenced to five years in prison for third-degree felony cocaine possession as a habitual offender.

Our Fort Lauderdale criminal defense lawyers know on the surface, this case is fairly common and not likely to garner much attention – but for the fact of how his arrest was initiated.

It started with something called a “consensual encounter.” These are situations when police are allowed to approach you, without probable cause, and engage you in a voluntary conversation about anything. The problem is most people don’t realize the difference between a “consensual encounter” and a stop made with reasonable suspicion. But the fact is, there is a major difference in terms of your rights.

The Florida Supreme Court has classified police encounters in three distinct categories: consensual, investigatory and arrest. With a consensual encounter, it can be initiated by either party for any reason and can be terminated by any party for any reason without any consequence. However, you are not free to go if the encounter is investigatory or you are under arrest. But here’s the key: investigatory encounters and arrests can’t be initiated by police officers absent a well-founded and articulable suspicion of criminal activity. Countless criminal cases have been tossed because the officer did not have that reasonable suspicion prior to conducting a search or interrogation.

But if an officer argues it was simply a consensual encounter, as opposed to an investigatory encounter, he or she doesn’t have to prove any reasonable suspicion. And that’s what happened in this case in northern Florida.

The officer stopped the defendant, who was riding his bicycle along the roadside. The officer conceded he had no reason to stop the man, other than that he hadn’t met him before and wanted to make his acquaintance. When the man stopped, he appeared nervous and started to fidget. He had a pocket knife on him. The officer then conducted a search, where he found the cocaine in the man’s shirt pocket. He was subsequently arrested, convicted and sentenced to five years in prison.

Upon appeal, the defendant’s lawyers argued that conviction should be tossed, as the stop wasn’t valid in the first place. However, the appellate court upheld the conviction on the basis that the encounter the officer initiated was a consensual one.

The problem is that even if a police officer is extremely polite, many people don’t feel they have any choice but to stop and speak with him or her. Officers have guns. They have handcuffs. They have cruisers that you can’t open from the inside and they can call back-up at any moment. It can be incredibly intimidated and lead people to believe they don’t have a choice but to talk. And an officer will probably not tell you outright that the encounter is “consensual.”

So how can you avoid getting caught up in such an encounter and potentially incriminating yourself?

The key is to be as clear and explicit as possible. You have to be assertive with regard to your rights. If a police officer stops you for a conversation, you need to politely but firmly make it clear that you have no interest in talking – about anything. In many cases where the encounter is consensual, the officer will simply move on. If, however, he or she proceeds to detain you, the case will eventually end up in court and your defense attorney will have strong grounds on which to challenge the arrest. If the officer had no reason to stop you and you have made it clear that you don’t wish to speak to him, the evidence obtained during that stop legally can’t be used against you.
Continue reading

The majority of those who have been jailed in Broward County are there for relatively minor crimes, and many have yet to be convicted. It’s a rotating population, but some are apparently staying for longer than they should, and an outside consultant has recommended jail officials trim their numbers by about 500.

Fort Lauderdale criminal defense lawyers know this is good news (though it won’t be official until court-ordered) but we don’t want this to lull people into a false sense of complacency.

When you’ve been arrested and booked into jail, it creates a definite urgency. You want to get out. You want to get this handled and you want to move on. But when you are released within hours or sometimes not booked at all, there is a tendency to view the situation as not being as serious.

In cases of domestic violence allegations or a DUI arrest, this could not be further from the truth. Both of these instances have the potential to harm your career, your family relationships and your future. This is why no matter how much time you are actually in jail following an arrest, your very first call needs to be to a criminal defense attorney.

What’s happening in Broward is actually part of a long history of overcrowding. Of course, this is an issue at incarceration facilities across Florida and the country, but Broward is unique due to a civil lawsuit filed nearly four decades ago. That suit, Jonas et al v. Stack, filed by the ACLU, was filed on behalf of inmates in the crowded facility. The result was that an outside consultant regularly monitors jail population levels. If it gets too high, he or she can recommend to a judge that population reduction measures are taken.

The sheriff has said he is at the mercy of the courts, who ultimately decide who stays in jail and who is granted a bond. If a judge approves the recommendations set forth by the consultant, this could give your attorney more leverage to negotiate a lower bond. And, of course, anytime jail overcrowding is an issue it can provide your attorney with leverage when negotiating to keep you out from behind bars.

About 60 percent of those arrested in Broward are released from jail within three days. Seventy percent are released within one week. However, it’s the rest that are of concern to the consultant. Many of these individuals are not violent, but rather can’t afford to pay even the low bond amounts set by the court. A recent analysis of booking reports indicated that about 800 inmates were held for more than five days on bonds that were less than $100.

Even more troubling, the consultant found that of the approximately 5,145 inmates housed in Broward County jails on any given day, about 265 are later found to have been arrested without probable cause. Their average jail stay? More than 70 days.

The majority of alleged crimes committed by inmates are: marijuana possession, probation violations, domestic violence, DUI, theft, resisting arrest without violence and possession of cocaine.
Continue reading

Local police have purchased a mobile surveillance unit, dubbed “The Peacemaker,” in an effort to reduce crimes in Fort Lauderdale.

The armored surveillance truck is being touted by a police as an effective crime-fighting tool. However, some have countered that it can be used to intimidate innocent people.

What Fort Lauderdale criminal defense attorneys know is this: If law enforcement has the benefit of taxpayer-funded, advanced technology that can be used to aid the prosecution in criminal cases, anyone who is accused of a crime in Fort Lauderdale needs to contact an experienced Fort Lauderdale criminal defense attorney.

According to the Sun-Sentinel, the Fort Lauderdale Police Department’s “Peacemaker” may be the first to debut in South Florida. The department now has two of them – one an old Brink’s bank truck, was purchased in August.

Another, a converted SWAT vehicle, was paid for last month. The bank truck is covered with police logos and signs that say things like, “Whatcha gonna do when we come for you?” It is equipped with a number of cameras that can record for up to 700 hours that can stream live back to police headquarters for 24-7 surveillance. Officers park it out in front of what they dub as high-crime areas, and say it is a major deterrent for criminal activity. Often, the vehicles are unmanned.

While some residents have applauded the presence of the vehicle, others, like one local motel owner, was quoted in the paper as saying the vehicle was essentially a form of harassment. The hotel owner was arrested in October in a prostitution case, which is still pending, but says she is innocent. She said both the city and police have tried everything to shut her down, but have been unsuccessful because she’s doing nothing illegal.

“Now, they bring this truck to intimidate me and my customers,” she said.

One of her neighbors shared the same sentiment, saying police exited the Peacemaker recently to question a group of young men, one of whom was ultimately charged with loitering.

“We can’t sit outside without being harassed,” he said. “Now we have that truck. Most of us are not doing anything wrong.”

Police say if people are abiding by the law, the truck shouldn’t be a concern, and that it has already alleviated certain neighborhoods from rashes of burglaries and robberies. They counter that every time a person walks down the street, they are watched by up to 30 private cameras owned by businesses. The difference, Attorney Richard Ansara notes, is that those cameras aren’t funded by the government for use in criminal cases.

While the Peacemaker in Fort Lauderdale is likely the first in Florida, that may not last long. A spokesman for the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office said while it may not be in the immediate budget, it is something he hopes the agency could deploy sometime soon.

Other agencies that have used in-vehicle cameras in the U.S. include:

— Police in Peoria, Ill. are using an old Brink’s truck they call the Armadillo; They have even added an Armadillo Two.

–Police in Green Bay, Wis., are also using an armored surveillance vehicle, though the name of it is unclear;

–Lafayette, La. police have employed a Crime Suppression Surveillance Vehicle, which they also call an Armadillo;

–St. Louis Metro Police have an armored car that is also equipped with such things at ballistic headlights, and it has the ability to provide live 360-degree of surveillance of several square blocks.
Continue reading

I am pleased to announce that the Law Office of Richard Ansara, P.A. has been featured in the Sun-Sentinel 2008 South Florida Highlights.

If you would like to view the South Florida Sun-Sentinel “Best of 2008” please click here.

If you would like to speak with attorney Richard Ansara please visit www.ansaralaw.com.