By attorney Carlos A. Ivanor, Jr.
Recently, I had a chance to represent a client in a Jury Trial. The client was charged with resisting arrest without violence. In the State of Florida, it is a criminal offense to resist, obstruct or oppose a police officer during the execution of their legal duty. See Florida Statute 843.02.
In the case that we handled my client was initially charged with Aggravated Battery with a weapon, which is a Second Degree Felony (which can be punishable by 15 years in prison). His current wife accused him of pulling a knife and threatening her during an argument. His wife cooperated with our representation and came to the Office freely and voluntarily to file a declination of prosecution affidavit. In the State of Florida a victim of a crime can decide to not go forward on a criminal case and cooperate with the defense attorney to get the charges dropped.
We were able to convince the Prosecutor to not go forward on the Felony offense. However, the State of Florida decided to file charges for resisting arrest. During the arrest of the Accused he did act out and started crying and getting emotional. During trial we were able to point out that he never acted violently towards the police and never resisted the application of handcuffs. We pointed out that our client was emotional and upset but nothing more. Again, we held the State Attorney’s Office to their burden – prove this case beyond and to the exclusion of reasonable doubt.
The video of the offense showed our client getting emotional and crying and he was in fact already handcuffed. When they placed him in the Patrol vehicle he said that he would rather they kill him and stated that he was going to strangle himself with the seat belt. But was this enough to show he is resisting arrest? We argued NO and a Jury Agreed – Not guilty of resisting arrest!!
We fight for your rights here at the Ivanor Law Firm and will always strive to give our clients their best day in Court.