Florida domestic violence

June 13, 2023

Can Teens Be Arrested for Domestic Violence in Florida?

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

Much of the focus on Florida domestic violence prosecution centers around cases involving adults – co-parents, estranged spouses, dating partners, etc. But as our Broward domestic violence defense lawyers can explain, teens can be involved too.

The U.S. Department of Justice reports 1 in 11 teen girls and 1 in 14 teen boys are victims of physical dating violence every year. This includes both physical dating violence and sexual dating violence. According to the U.S. Office of Justice Programs, targets of domestic violence committed by juveniles were mostly parents (51 percent). About a quarter of cases involved siblings, another 13 percent other family members.

Only about 10 percent of cases involved a boyfriend/girlfriend. But these statistics are likely skewed a bit by semantics. That’s because “domestic violence” as it’s defined in F.S. 741.28 is strictly limited to “family or household members.” So unless the teens are married, divorced, co-parents, currently living together as a family or had previously lived together, acts of violence in that relationship aren’t technically counted as “domestic violence.”

That doesn’t mean juveniles can’t face consequences for dating violence. Among the possible consequences:

A criminal charge of assault and battery or aggravated assault and battery.
Subject to a civil protection order, which is public record.
School expulsion, in accordance with F.S. 10006.148.
Removal from home and placement in foster care and/or youth group home.
Delinquency proceedings through the Juvenile Delinquency Division of the 17th Judicial Circuit (in Broward County).
Required counseling and/or anger management courses.

Although the penalties for Florida juvenile crimes of violence can be quite serious (particularly if the defendant is charged as an adult), the process will probably look a little different than a typical criminal case. Continue reading

October 12, 2022

Fort Lauderdale Criminal Defense Lawyer Explains the Three Levels of Police Encounters

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

When Florida law enforcement officers interact with the public in the course of their duties, there are three levels of interaction that will dictate how any search or seizure in the course of that interaction will be judged from a legal perspective.

These three levels of interaction are:

Consensual encounters.
Detention or investigative stops.
Arrests.

Within each of these interactions, the person involved has constitutionally-protected rights. But those constitutional protections are different at each level. If those rights are violated, then it is more likely that your Fort Lauderdale criminal defense lawyer will have some success in convincing the court to suppress evidence gleaned in that interaction. Here, we review the rights and protections at each level.

Consensual Encounters

Consensual encounters with police in Florida don’t require officers to establish any sort of evidence of wrongdoing. There’s no bright line rule for when an encounter is consensual vs. investigative, but we can say that a key aspect of consensual police encounters is that the person at the center of the interaction is free to leave.

The lines can get a little fuzzy because courts have held that law enforcement is allowed during a consensual encounter to ask you questions, ask to see your ID, might even ask to search your vehicle. If they say or imply that complying with their requests is mandatory, then it’s no longer a consensual encounter. However, police encounters can often be intimidating and people sometimes feel they don’t have much of a choice – even when they do. If you consent to answer questions or to be searched during a consensual encounter, it can be difficult to challenge any evidence gleaned from that – because you freely agreed to it. You’re often better off keeping your answers brief, politely declining any requests to search, and asking point blank whether you’re free to go.

In determining whether a police interaction began with a consensual encounter (as opposed to an investigative stop), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the 1980 case of U.S. v. Mendenhall that courts should examine the totality of circumstances – and specifically, whether a reasonable person believed themselves free to go. Continue reading

August 30, 2022

Types of Evidence Used in Broward Domestic Violence Cases

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

If you are arrested in a Broward domestic violence case, you may be wondering what evidence the state might use against you.

As experienced Fort Lauderdale criminal defense attorneys, we know at the outset exactly the sorts of things prosecutors are going to be deep diving for to make their case.

Just like in any Florida criminal case, the burden of proof rests with the prosecution to prove in court that a crime was committed and that the accused is guilty of it. They are held to the highest standard of proof, which is beyond a reasonable doubt. Despite this, they have a fairly good conviction rate for domestic violence cases. According to one study by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, domestic violence sexual assault defendants are more likely to be prosecuted (89 percent) than non-domestic sexual assault defendants (73 percent). Domestic violence defendants were as likely to be prosecuted (66 percent) as non-domestic assault defendants (67 percent), but their conviction rates are substantially higher (87 percent versus 78 percent).

Elements of a Florida Domestic Violence Charge

If you’re facing a charges under F.S. 784.03 (battery and felony battery) what the prosecution basically has to show is:

The defendant actually and intentionally struck the other person against that person’s will.
The defendant intentionally caused bodily harm to another person.

If the prosecution is trying to prove a domestic violence crime specifically under F.S. 741.28, they will need to show the basic elements of the underlying crime (which can include assault, aggravated assault, battery, aggravated battery, sexual assault, sexual battery, stalking, aggravated stalking, kidnapping, false imprisonment or any criminal offense relating to physical injury) AND that the target was a family or household member. A family or household member can mean a spouse, people related to you by blood or marriage, people who reside together as if they are a family (or who have in the past), or someone with whom you share a child. Unless you share a child together, domestic violence can only be established if the defendant and accuser currently live together as a family or had in the past. Continue reading