Manslaughter

September 15, 2023

Arrested for a Fatal Car Accident in Fort Lauderdale? Here’s What You May Be Facing.

By The Law Offices of Richard Ansara, P.A.

If you’re a driver who survives a deadly crash when others didn’t, it’s a unique kind of nightmare. Of course you didn’t intend harm. Maybe it wasn’t even wholly your fault. Nonetheless, lives were changed irrevocably – your own included. That is especially true if you’re arrested in connection with a fatal car accident in Fort Lauderdale.

Just because a fatal crash occurs (as they do roughly 3,500 times a year in Florida, according to the FLHSMV), it does not necessarily mean the driver(s) will face criminal charges. You might only face a traffic citation.

Criminal traffic charges are typically only filed when there is evidence of willful/wanton recklessness. Not mere carelessness, but reckless driving in a manner likely to cause great bodily harm or death. That can include street racing, being drunk/under the influence, fleeing a law enforcement officer, greatly excessive speeding (significant enough to be considered reckless), or engaging in acts of road rage (weaving through traffic, aggressively cutting people off, etc.).

The other primary catalyst for criminal charges filed in fatal Florida traffic accidents is a driver leaving the scene of an accident, better known as hit-and-run.

As a Fort Lauderdale criminal defense lawyer can explain, charges might not be filed immediately after the collision. It’s going to take time for investigators to piece together what they think happened. Some arrests don’t happen until months after the fact. It’s a really good idea if you were a driver in a fatal Broward crash to seek immediate legal counsel from a criminal defense lawyer – even if you aren’t sure whether you did anything wrong. This will help ensure your rights are protected and that you don’t speak out of turn in a way that could threaten your freedom or your future.

Criminal vs. Civil Traffic Crash Cases

Fatal crashes sometimes result in two separate judicial proceedings: One civil, one criminal.

In the civil justice proceedings, the question will be whether the defendant driver was negligent, meaning they failed in their duty to use reasonable care in operating the vehicle, resulting in the death of another person. Such cases are filed by the decedent’s surviving loved ones or their estate. If negligence is proven by a preponderance of the evidence, the defendant may be financially responsible to pay money to the survivors/estate.

In the criminal justice proceedings, the question will be whether there is proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant driver violated state law, and thus deserves to be punished according to the state’s criminal code.

The proof burden for criminal cases is far higher than for civil cases. That’s the reason a person might not face criminal charges, but could still be found liable in civil court.

Recent Broward Fatal Crash Criminal Cases

Recently, a number of fatal crashes in Broward County have made headlines. Among them:

A 42-year-old arrested for two counts of reckless driving and one count of vehicular homicide in Fort Lauderdale after the crash death of a motorcyclist.
A 20-year-old arrested for two counts of vehicular homicide, multiple counts of reckless driving, and numerous drug charges following a fatal Tamarac rollover crash that killed two women and injured five other people.
A 16-year-old unlicensed teen driver and his father arrested for reckless driving and vehicular homicide for the death of a pregnant ICU nurse and critical injury to her 8-year-old son in Miramar. The teen was allegedly under the influence of marijuana and driving 113-miles-per-hour in a 45 mph zone. The teen’s father wasn’t in the vehicle at the time, but his criminal charges stem from the fact that he provided his unlicensed teen with a vehicle.

Penalties for Fatal Crash Criminal Charges in Florida

February 1, 2023

Could Broward Criminal Defense Lawyers Really Use AI Facial Recognition Software?

By The Law Offices of Richard Ansara, P.A.

Artificial intelligence (also known as AI) has long been the subject of futuristic dystopian novels, with films like “Blade Runner” hyping the potential for this type of technology to bolster a nefarious police state. So it’s not surprising that the introduction of AI technology in criminal justice has been controversial. As our Broward criminal defense lawyers can explain, AI (specifically, facial recognition software) has been primarily utilized by police and prosecutors. Recently, however, it was used to exonerate a defendant accused of Florida vehicular homicide.

According to news reports and court records, the case began with a fatal car crash in Fort Myers six years ago. According to the defendant, he was the front seat passenger of a Mustang driven by his drunk, distraught friend, who sped recklessly at 100 m.p.h. on a street with a speed limit of 35 m.p.h. The defendant said he was terrified, begging his friend to slow down. They struck a curb, careened out-of-control, slammed into a light pole and then three palm trees before finally stopping against the side of a tree. The defendant blacked out. When he came to, his friend, the driver, was gone. The windshield had shattered. He was stuck, his seat belt jammed. And the car was on fire. He was dazed when an unknown man jumped into action, forcing open the driver side door and getting him out of the burning car.

He didn’t get the name of the man who pulled him from the car. When police arrived, they spoke briefly to the Good Samaritan – an interaction caught on the officers’ body cameras – who affirmed he’d pulled the defendant from the passenger seat. However, the officers didn’t get the name of that man either, perhaps being distracted by the fact that the defendant’s friend was dead nearby (which is not an excuse, especially as it almost led to a serious miscarriage of justice). Later, despite the defendant’s fervent insistence that he hadn’t been driving, prosecutors charged him with vehicular homicide for the death of his friend – a charge that could have landed him in prison for 15 years. They said there was conflicting evidence about who was driving; an accident reconstructionist presented evidence that the burns on his body weren’t consistent with being in the passenger seat. Prosecutors indicated the information provided to police by a nameless man on body cameras wasn’t enough, especially if he couldn’t be identified and called to testify.

But the nameless man didn’t stay nameless. The defendant was ultimately exonerated because of him, after an AI company with a facial recognition database of billions of faces granted his criminal defense lawyers access to that system. Through this, defense lawyers were able to identify that Good Samaritan – who confirmed he was there on scene, and that the defendant was indeed the one stuck in the passenger seat when he arrived. With his testimony, the prosecution dropped the case.

But use of this system to find him was only employed after years – hundreds of hours – trying to locate that man through fliers, social media, tattoo parlors inquiries, internet searches, etc. Local law enforcement reportedly ran a few cursory searches through the AI database early on as well, trying to find that witness, but didn’t have a paid account with the company, and thus didn’t pursue it further.

Still, not all criminal defense lawyers – or civil rights attorneys – are on board with the proliferation of this new technology.

How AI May Be Problematic for Both Criminal Defense and Civil Rights

August 25, 2019

Nursing Home Workers Charged With Manslaughter in Florida

By The Law Offices of Richard Ansara, P.A.

Manslaughter is the killing of another human being without malice aforethought. That means a person may not have intended for the other person to die (unlike homicide/murder), but nonetheless that was the result of one’s conduct, usually reckless or criminally negligent. It can stem from crimes like driving drunk, criminal assault or neglect. In these cases, it is not necessary to prove intent.

Recently, several nursing home employees were arrested on charges of manslaughter, pursuant to F.S. 782.07, following the deaths of 12 elderly patients who overheated in sweltering conditions with no air conditioning after Hurricane Irma struck South Florida in 2017.

Manslaughter is considered aggravated when it involves the death of an elderly person or disabled adult due to culpable negligence without lawful justification. Culpable negligence, as noted in Florida Standard Jury Instructions, is defined as a course of conduct that shows reckless disregard for human life or for the safety of individuals exposed to it that displays recklessness or wantonness. Continue reading

April 12, 2018

Fewer Florida Death Sentences Post-Unanimous Jury Rule

By The Law Offices of Richard Ansara, P.A.

It’s been a year since the U.S. Supreme Court deemed Florida’s process of deciding death penalty cases unconstitutional for the second time.

Florida had a long-standing practice of allowing imposition of the death penalty without the unanimous support of a jury. Before the 2016 ruling in Hurst v. Florida, courts here only required a recommendation of a simple majority of jurors (7-5), though the decision was ultimately up to the judge. Not Ok, ruled the U.S. Supreme Court, finding it a violation of the Sixth Amendment. The state legislature revised the rules, deciding at least 10 out of 12 jurors needed to agree in order to impose the death penalty. Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that still wasn’t good enough, as it violated the Eighth Amendment’s provision against cruel and unusual punishment. Juror input and consensus is mandatory in capital cases.

Now, the Tampa Bay Times reports that since those two rulings, there have been “far fewer” convicted murderers sentenced to death in the state. Continue reading

February 10, 2017

State Seeks Reversal of Stand Your Ground Immunity for Deputy

By The Law Offices of Richard Ansara, P.A.

Prosecutors allege a Broward sheriff’s deputy was not entitled to legal immunity under the so-called “stand your ground” law. The state is appealing the ruling last year by Broward Circuit Judge Michael Usan, who ruled the 38-year-old deputy should have immunity from prosecution. The deputy, Peter Peraza, is the first on-duty officer of the law to be charged with a firearm death of a civilian in in Florida in 37 years. As The Sun-Sentinel reported, the deputy faced charges of manslaughter for the 2013 fatal shooting.

The incident happened in Oakland Park, where the 33-year-old decedent was walking through an apartment complex past a pool with children and parents present. He reportedly had a realistic-looking rifle on his back and reportedly ignored Peraza’s orders to set it down. The deputy told the judge he had no choice but to fire his service weapon after decedent turned toward him and his fellow law enforcement officers and appeared to raise it as if to fire. It was later determined that weapon was an air rifle, and it wasn’t loaded. However, members of decedent’s family offered up evidence that he was wearing headphones at the time of the shooting, contrary to testimony given by deputies who insisted there was nothing that obviously indicated to them that he could not hear what they were saying when they ordered him to lay down the weapon.

Intention to appeal was first filed by prosecutors shortly after the judge’s ruling last year, but it was only formally filed late last month. Prosecutors argue that stand your ground immunity can’t be extended to police or other law enforcement officers who are in the midst of making an arrest. Stand your ground allows the use of fatal force to stop a threat that is reasonably deemed imminent. Continue reading

February 29, 2016

Florida Manslaughter Charges Dropped for Ansara Law Firm Client

By The Law Offices of Richard Ansara, P.A.

South Florida Defense Attorney Richard Ansara of The Ansara Law Firm successfully defended a client charged with manslaughter following a 2013 fatal shooting in Boca Raton.

As The Sun-Sentinel recently reported, Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Glenn Kelley dismissed the second-degree felony case against 25-year-old client Joshua Henry of Pompano Beach. Henry originally faced up to 15 years in prison. He is now a free man.

Ansara aptly argued that the events resulting in the death of Justin Holt, 22, were the result of a “tragic accident,” not criminal action. Continue reading