DRUG TESTING & DRUG TREATMENT OR JAIL? IS THE CLEARWATER DRUG COURT A VIABLE OPTION IN PINELLAS COUNTY FLORIDA

To the credit of our local Judges and attorneys, Pinellas County has instituted a reasonably enlightened treatment for some drug offenders (see below for qualifications). It would almost be enough to make even a jaded Clearwater Drug Defense Attorney smile were it not for the fact that the rules for the Drug Court Program allows prosecutors rather than Judges to determine who can be accepted into the program -- wouldn't it make more sense for an impartial Judge to decide who is worthy of the program and to expand the ability of Judges to dismiss or reduce charges where appropriate.

The cooperative effort of a team approach is a hallmark of the Sixth Judicial Circuit Adult Drug Treatment Court in Clearwater Florida, Pinellas County. It is a court-supervised, comprehensive drug treatment court for non-violent defendants, I guess that leaves me out. This is a voluntary program requiring frequent appearances before the Drug Court Judge, substance abuse treatment and frequent, random testing for substance abuse.
1. Successful completion of the Adult Drug Treatment Court plan may result in the dismissal of charges against defendants entering the program through Pre-Trial Intervention (defendants facing a first-time, non-violent, third-degree felony charge and admitted to Drug Court at the sole discretion of the State Attorney).
2. For defendants entering the Drug Court as a condition of probation (post-plea drug court), successful completion may result in adjudication being withheld and/or a reduced length of probation.
3. All participants are required to make frequent court appearance (judicial reviews). Participants will appear before the drug court judge every 30 to 45 days.
4. Drug court is a 24-month program. After completion at least one year, persons who have completed treatment, remained drug free and completed all of their requirements of Pre-Trial Intervention or probation may petition the court for a dismissal of the charges (Pre-Trial Intervention) or early termination of probation (post-plea drug court).
Pinellas County Drug Court
Most Recent Drug Court Stats from Pinellas
Florida State Courts
Drug court a success: research - National - smh.com.au

A recent painting depicts a Pinellas County Prosecutor making impartial decisions on which Defendants will be eligible for Drug Court in Clearwater, Florida. 

Picasso The Absinth Drinker 1901.  What? Can you repeat that?

WHAT CAN FLORIDA LEARN FROM EUROPEAN DRUG DECRIMINALIZATION

In the nineteen-eighties most of the major industrialized countries of the world followed America's lead in declaring war on drugs by harshly increasing sentences for convictions and spending more money on investigations and prosecutions. The result was higher percentages of people in the democracies being sent to prison, sometimes even higher then in the totalitarian countries. 
Minimum Mandatory Drug sentences are especially troubling for Clearwater Trial Attorneys such as myself who have seen the destructive force of the criminal law strike and destroy productive lives.
To the credit of our local judges and attorneys, Pinellas County has instituted an enlightened treatment for those who qualify, which will be described in more detail in a future blog. Adult Drug Court, Clearwater Drug Defense Attorneys 


Yet for Florida Courts in search of justice some answers can be found from Portugal's experience. Portugal, a gateway for drug importation for all of Europe, buckled under European Union pressure to commit a huge percentage of its population to long term prison sentences, then Portugal relented. Recently, the New Yorker wrote about Portugal's solution, it success and its failure...


In 2001, Portuguese leaders, flailing about and desperate for change, took an unlikely gamble: they passed a law that made Portugal the first country to fully decriminalize personal drug use. 
For people caught with no more than a ten-day supply of marijuana, heroin, ecstasy, cocaine, or crystal methamphetamine, there would be no arrests, no prosecutions, no prison sentences. 
Dealers are still sent to prison, or fined, or both, but, for the past decade, Portugal has treated drug abuse solely as a public-health issue. When caught, people are summoned before an administrative body called the Commission for the Dissuasion of Drug Addiction. Each panel consists of three members—usually a lawyer or a judge, a doctor, and a psychologist or a social worker. The commissioners have three options: recommend treatment, levy a small fine, or do nothing. In most respects, the law seems to have worked: serious drug use is down significantly, particularly among young people; the burden on the criminal-justice system has eased; the number of people seeking treatment has grown; and the rates of drug-related deaths and cases of infectious diseases have fallen. 
Yet there is much to debate about the Portuguese approach to drug addiction. Does it help people to quit, or does it transform them into more docile drug addicts, wards of an indulgent state, with little genuine incentive to alter their behavior? By removing the fear of prosecution, does the government actually encourage addicts to seek treatment? In the United States, the misuse of legally sold prescription medications has become a bigger health problem than the sale of narcotics or cocaine. There are questions not only about the best way to address addiction but also about how far any society should go, morally, philosophically, and economically, to placate drug addicts.
Portugal Decriminalized Drugs. What Can the U.S. Learn? : The New Yorker
DEA, Federal Trafficking Penalties
Federal Mandatory Minimum Sentences Drug Chart
Are Mandatory Minimum Drug Sentences Cost-Effective? | RAND
Here's a recent painting of a bright young couple eagerly awaiting their marriage license in Pinellas County, Florida.

Degas' painting (1876) portrays grim Absinthe drinkers in a cafe, imagine how they'll look when they see the bill.

AGGRAVATED IDENTITY THEFT - WARNING SIGNS YOUR LIFE HAS BEEN ABDUCTED FOR CONSUMERS IN CLEARWATER

Always be alert for these RED FLAGs of Identity Theft from your Federal Trial Lawyer:

• You find that there exist accounts in your name which you never opened. 
• You find purchases from accounts that you do not remember nor can explain.
• You find purchases made to unknown companies, organizations or people.
• You find inaccurate, flawed, incorrect or fraudulent information on credit reports on any information including any accounts or any personal information, such as the month, day or year of birth, your mother's maiden name, the name of your favorite pet (Sancho) your Social Security number, the spelling of your middle name, your present or past employers and the years you worked there.
• You find that you are no longer receiving bills for credit cards or other debts, because the Identity Thief changes the address to which the bills are sent to cover his tracks.
• You find that you have been sent a credit card for which you never applied and that my name is on it instead of yours.
• You find that your credit rating has fallen, that you've been denied credit.
• You find that you get voice messages, repeated debt letters from bill collection agencies, attorneys (damn them!), or from unique businesses concerning services, merchandise or priceless antique art work you could never afford and most likely didn't buy even if you were under the influence of drugs, alcohol or Antiques Roadshow.

If you may have been a vicim of identity theft in Clearwater, Florida and believe your information has been compromised this web page has information on what to do next.

As to the legal ramifications of identity theft here is a synopsis of yesterday's important 11th Circuit Federal Identity Theft decision:

United States v. John Doe, No. 09–15869 

( October 26, 2011) Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida John Doe (real name unknown at time of appeal) appealed his convictions for aggravated identity theft, claiming that the government did not produce sufficient evidence that Doe knew the name and social security number he used in applying for a United States passport belonged to an actual person. The Eleventh Circuit rejected this claim, noting that Circuit precedent stands for the proposition that a defendant's repeated and successful testing of the authenticity of a victim's identifying information prior to the crime at issue is powerful circumstantial evidence that the defendant knew the identifying information belonged to a real person as opposed to a fictitious one. Drawing all reasonable inferences in favor of the government, the Court found that a rational jury could have concluded that Doe knew the victim’s identifying information was subject to a detailed verification process when he applied for a driver's license. Doe's successes in obtaining not one, but two different driver's licenses from two different jurisdictions, in addition to opening a bank account and obtaining a debit card from Bank Atlantic, were meaningful circumstantial indicia that Doe knew the victim’s identifying information belonged to a real person, the Court wrote. 
The full text of the decision can be found here.
Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS)
Internet Crime Trends
Good News & Bad News About Identity Theft

This unfortunate man was recently the victim of Identity Theft. Now he wonders around Europe trying to find out who it was he was meant to be while confronting mighty windmills.

Honoré Daumier - Don Quixote - 1868 - Where's Sancho, my golden retriever?

AVOID BEING TAKEN IN BY THIS NOTORIOUS TELEPHONE SCAM - ADVICE FOR TAMPA BAY CONSUMERS

Each of us should be concerned about the avalanche of personal information we give out nearly every day, not only from high tech computers but every time we make a phone call. 
All Floridians - especially older Floridians in the Tampa Bay Area - face being scammed and need to be on guard for telephone scams; the scammers will try to pry money from you over the phone.
Yet people in the Tampa Bay area, including Clearwater, St. Petersburg, and Pinellas County, Florida are sometimes falsely accused of committing fraudulent acts such as phone crimes, cyber crimes and white collar crimes, especially when confronted with unreasonable law enforcement officers with little training, if so call your Criminal Defense Attorney and Trial Lawyer.
Here's a notorious telephone scam and the grandmother who outfoxed the perpetrators of this crime as illustrated in a recent Daily Finance article. 
 An 84-year-old Illinois lady receives a chilling phone call from a man saying he is her grandson, a soldier who only recently has come home from the War in Iraq. He needs emergency money fast - always a possible hint of a scam - his voice sounds different, shaking, strange - "Have you been drinking?"she asks. "No, grandma I've just been in a car accident in Canada and hit a pole." 
Her heart skips a beat as he says he needs $5,000 immediately.
This grandmother outfoxes the fox by agreeing to wire the money on condition that he her give one word, "What's your grandfather's name?" (see her full declaration to the Federal Trade Commission) He tries to avoid answering her question, she asks him again, he hangs up.
How to Avoid Becoming a Financial Scam Victim - DailyFinance
Consumer Sentinel Network - Law enforcement's source for consumer complaints
FBI — Common Fraud Schemes


Should you see the tortured artist below, a man well known for making crank phone calls and perpetrating endless scams, please contact French Law Enforcement immediately.

Frédéric Chopin, by Eugene Delacroix, the original is hidden in Clearwater, the copy may be found at the Louvre.
1838

HACKED! AN IMPORTANT WARNING TO EVERY COMPUTER USER IN THE TAMPA BAY AREA!

All of us are at risk when using computers, cell phones, and email accounts with companies such as Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Apple. All of these companies are storing more and more of our personal information 'in the cloud,' placing each of us and those in our 'contact lists' at risk of fraud.

With the complex nature of these charges, many police officers in the Tampa Bay Area, including Clearwater, St. Petersburg and Pinellas County, Florida neither have the training nor the computer literacy to fully comprehend complex computer networks accusing and arresting those who had nothing to do with the unlawful acts, an important consideration if you've been falsely accused of a White Collar Crime.

Companies across America will spend in excess of $130 Billion because of data breaches, how much will it cost you? CNNMoney

James Fallows' recent article in The Atlantic, HACKED!, describing his wife's ordeal when her Google account is taken over by a Nigerian thief - Fallows attempts to regain control of the account and the lost information - even as the Nigerian contacts everyone on her contact list for money to be wired immediately because of her mugging in Madrid:

Hacked!

As email, documents, and almost every aspect of our professional and personal lives moves onto the “cloud”—remote servers we rely on to store, guard, and make available all of our data whenever and from wherever we want them, all the time and into eternity—a brush with disaster reminds the author and his wife just how vulnerable those data can be. A trip to the inner fortress of Gmail, where Google developers recovered six years’ worth of hacked and deleted e‑mail, provides specific advice on protecting and backing up data now—and gives a picture both consoling and unsettling of the vulnerabilities we can all expect to face in the future.

A stream of concerned responses from friends and acquaintances, all about the fact that she had been “mugged in Madrid.” The account had seemed sluggish earlier that morning because my wife had tried to use it at just the moment a hacker was taking it over and changing its settings—including the password, so that she couldn’t log in again. The bogus message that had just gone out to me and everyone else in her Gmail contact list was this:

From: Deb Fallows <debfallows@gmail.com>

Date: Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 8:45 AM

Subject: Problem

To:

now this might come as a suprise to you,but I made a quick trip to Madrid in Spain and was mugged.My bag,valuables,credit cards and passport all gone.The embassy has cooperated by issuing a temporary passport.I need funds to settle outstanding hotel bills,ticket and other expenses.

To be honest,i don’t have money with me at the moment. I’ve made contact with my bank but the best they could do was to send me a new card in the mail which will take 2-4 working days to arrive here from DC. I need you to lend me some Money to sort my self out of this predicament, i will pay back once i get this over with because i need to make a last minute flight.

Western Union or MoneyGram is the fastest option to wire funds to me. Let me know if you need my details(Full names/location) to effect a transfer. You can reach me via hotel’s desk phone and the number is, +34 981 600916867.

Hacked! - Magazine - The Atlantic

Areas of Practice for Robert Hambrick - Attorney in Clearwater, FL

Contact Info and Directions for Attorney Robert Hambrick in Clearwater, FL

FBI — Cyber Crime

Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) | Annual Reports

ProtectYourIncome.com

Here is a recent portrait of Deb Fallows as her GMail Account is being HACKED by Nigerian Thieves. Scholars believe the white flowers floating in the air and water represent the lost emails. Somehow out of great pain and loss magnificent art always emerges:

The Birth of Venus (Nascita di Venere) is by Sandro Botticelli. c.1486, many thanks to the Uffizi Museum in Florence. Perhaps the museum would be willing to fly me to Florence so that I can more accurately present these paintings to the world.

STEALING FIRE - WHITE COLLAR CRIME NETS 11 YEARS FOR THE KING OF THE HEDGE FUNDS

Professor Douglas Berman writes about the futility of long prison sentences for white collar defendants involving fraud and insider trading. At first glance he persuasively argues that for white collar criminals 'shaming sanctions' could be a more effective deterrent than jail. 
Isn't the Professor really suggesting that rich men, men of culture perhaps not unlike the Professor himself, should not have to live by the rules that the rest of us must follow and if caught need not suffer the consequences the rest of us would face. 
No, the real problem with sentencing in America is in too much prosecutorial power in charging decisions, too little discretion left in the hands of Judges, and the harsh sentences for victimless crimes such as routine 25 year minimum mandatory sentences for drugs. Isn't eleven years for an assault on the free market system and a take of nearly 54 million dollars about right? Or as one observer noted, “No matter the crime, if the rewards are great enough, people will ignore the risk of getting caught.”
Would a sign saying, "I am an INSIDER TRADING THIEF," hung around the Defendant's neck effectively persuade others contemplating similar crimes not to corrupt capitalism?
Nor does the Professor note that the NYTs reported that Judge Howell did reduce the guidelines sentence based on personal factors including his charity work in the community, his age and his advanced diabetes which the Court noted would make his jail time harsher than time served by a typical inmate. 
And the Judge makes some telling points that show shame to be a weak cure for this disease: “Insider trading is an assault on the free markets,” said Judge Holwell, who also imposed a $10 million fine and ordered Mr. Rajaratnam to forfeit $53.8 million in ill-gotten profits, "His crimes reflect a virus in our business culture that needs to be eradicated.” 
Sentenced to 11 Insider Case - NYTimes.com
Ten top American fraudsters - Telegraph
Here are two paragraph excerpts from the Professor's Time article.   What Will Deter Insider Trading? | TIME Ideas | TIME.com
 Raj Rajaratnam, who was convicted of masterminding the biggest hedge-fund insider trading scheme in American history, federal prosecutors urged U.S. District Judge Richard Holwell to give him at least 20 years in prison “to send a clear and unequivocal message that illegal insider trading will not be tolerated.” Judge Holwell imposed 11 years — a relatively long sentence compared to insider-trading-Hall-of-Famers such as Ivan Boesky, who served only two years in federal prison. 


A variety of shaming sanctions were widely used during the 18^th Century in America, in part because prisons did not then exist and in part because shaming was viewed as a humane alternative to the death penalty, banishment or brutal physical punishments. More recently, academics have debated the potential virtues and vices of modern shaming sanctions — often after a judge has ordered a shoplifter to wear publicly a sign saying “I am a thief” or a police department has published drunk drivers’ names on billboards. Because we have never tried to make white-collar offenders “pay” for their crimes through extensive and prominent use of shaming sanctions, I cannot say with confidence that this alternative form of punishment will be more effective. But because deterrence research suggests very long prison terms for white-collar offenders may greatly extend their suffering (and taxpayer-funded imprisonment costs) with no corresponding benefit to society, I think it is time to start considering creative alternatives.
Federal Crimes Trial Lawyer & Criminal Defense Attorney in Florida
White Collar Crime Criminal Defense Attorney in St. Petersburg, Pinellas, Clearwater, FL
Criminal Defense Attorney in St. Petersburg, Pinellas, Clearwater, FL
Raj Rajaratnam sentenced to 11 years in prison for insider trading - Telegraph
Raj Rajaratnam; insider trading; sentence; hedge funds; federal prison - Los Angeles Times
FBI — Hedge Fund Founder Raj Rajaratnam Sentenced in Manhattan Federal Court to 11 Years in Prison for Insider Trading Crimes
Prison Time for Inside Trading Is Climbing - WSJ.com
Sentencing Law and Policy: Purposes of Punishment and Sentencing

Stealing fire isn't singe free -- Prometheus having his liver eaten by an eagle. Painting byJacob Jordaens, c. 1640

EVERYTHING YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT DOUBLE JEOPARDY BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK

The Fifth Amendment of the U. S. Constitution prohibits the government from prosecuting individuals more than once for a single offense and from imposing more than one punishment for a single offense. The Constitution states, "No person shall . . . be subject for the same offense to be twice put in JEOPARDY of life or limb;" this is known as the Double Jeopardy clause.
Florida has its own constitutional double jeopardy provision which does not prohibit a defendant's retrial when a prior trial has been concluded by mistrial because of a HUNG JURY (see Lebron v. State, 2001 WL 987233, 26 Fla. L. Weekly S553 (Fla. 30, 2001); West's F.S.A. Const. Art. 1, § 9).  http://www.law.fsu Lebron v State pdf

A jury's verdict of acquittal terminates jeopardy. An acquittal cannot be overturned on appeal even if later overwhelming proof of a defendant's guilt is found or even if the trial judge committed reversible error in ruling on an issue at some point during the proceedings.
Double jeopardy embodies within each sworn jury the power to nullify an inappropriate prosecution. The power of the government is is checked because each jury possess the power to correct corruption of the legal system by law enforcement, government officials, confidential informers, prosecutors, state attorneys, and even judges themselves
A jury can also implicitly ACQUIT a defendant when it is instructed by the judge on the elements of a particular crime and on a lesser included offense, if the jury returns a guilty verdict as to the lesser offense, a second prosecution for the greater offense is barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause. 

Double Jeopardy
Criminal Defense Attorney and Trial Lawyer Pinellas, St. Petersburg, Clearwater, FL
Federal Crimes Trial Lawyer & Criminal Defense Attorney in Pinellas, St. Petersburg, Clearwater,Fl
JEOPARDY! Alex Trebek
EVIDENCE
Bill of Rights 
Annotated Constitution Fifth Amendment

Why are the two men at the left with arms raised so upset? "I didn't say Double Jeopardy...we ordered Double Espresso..." Can you find Ben Franklin? Good thing he didn't bring that kite of his.

SUPREME COURT GRANTS CERT WHERE THE TRIAL JUDGE DECLARES A MISTRIAL IN A MURDER CASE WHEN THE JURY FOREWOMEN TELLS THE JUDGE HOW THE JURY HAS ALREADY VOTED: IS IT DOUBLE JEOPARDY TO TRY THE DEFENDANT AGAIN?

Oh, impartial jurors, please don't tell the Court what you've decided until you actually render your verdict at the end of the case otherwise bad things will happen possibly even this unfortunate result....
The Supreme Court granted certiorari this morning in the case of Alex Blueford v. Arkansas, 
No. 10-1320. 

The facts are as follows:

Petitioner Blueford was tried on a charge of capital murder. During jury deliberations the jury forewoman, in open court, informed the court that the jury had voted unanimously against the capital murder charge and against the lesser-included charge of first-degree murder, but that it was deadlocked on the lesser-included offense of manslaughter. (oops!) 
The court declared a mistrial, and subsequently ruled that double jeopardy did not prevent a retrial on all charges. 

The defendant appealed interlocutorily

to the Arkansas Supreme Court, which affirmed. Blueford v. State, 2011Ark. 8, S.W.3d, 2011 WL 285805 (Ark. 2011).

Areas of Practice for Robert Hambrick - Attorney in Clearwater, FL
Criminal Defense Attorney and Trial Lawyer Crimes in Clearwater, FL
Definition: Certiorari, Petition for Writ of Certiorari. Legal Dictionary | Law.com
JuryBox.org - Explaining Jury Nullification as the Last Check and Balance

Jury behavior

Scholarly research on jury behavior in American non-capital criminal felony trials reveals that juror outcomes appear to track the opinions of the median juror, rather than the opinions of the extreme juror on the panel, although juries were required to render unanimous verdicts in the jurisdictions studied. Thus, although juries must render unanimous verdicts, in run-of-the-mill criminal trials they behave in practice as if they were operating using a majority rules voting system.

The Jury by John Morgan, 1861 This is a very talkative bunch of jurors...the one with the blue scarf on his head wants to convict my client, shame on you --- but the future foreman of the jury, that bright tall fellow right behind Mr. Bluescarf knows that my client is innocent and plans to dominate the jury and then if necessary,  invade Continental Europe to prove my client's innocence - Many Thanks.

LET'S MAKE IT ILLEGAL: OVERLY-BROAD STATUTES, TECHNICAL CHARGES & NOVEL LEGAL THEORIES CREATE OVERCRIMINALIZATION IN AMERICA

Here is an excellent article by Lucian Dervan, law professor - wait, wait - keep reading- he's written an impressive article - and even better it's free, about the overcriminalization we face as Americans. 


The problem is that prosecutors have so much leverage that  they can virtually force even innocent, or at least questionably guilty, defendants to plead guilty without ever testing ever expansive legal theories with a trial by jury, thereby ensnaring those who never even intended to do a crime. 


This is especially true in white collar crime, cases involving fraud, allegations of theft or misrepresentation by individuals or corporations which a few years ago would have been subject to civil court jurisdiction and legal suits rather than marked as criminal. 


Here's an example of the absurdity of over-ciminalization involving a client I represented in Clearwater, Pinellas County, Florida who was more or less charged by Microsoft with copyright infringement. My investigation revealed that Microsoft paid for local law enforcement personnel to fly all over the country for special Microsoft 'seminars' for law enforcement to learn about Microsoft allegations of potential criminal misconduct. Shouldn't law enforcement always be unbiased? Shouldn't civil disputes over copyright infringement be handled by civil courts not criminal courts? The prosecutor dropped the charges a week before the trial was to begin - yet the mere allegations, the costs of his defense and the destruction of my client's life due to his arrest can not be given back to him. 


If there was no plea bargaining, if every case went to trial, prosecutors would have to defend overly-broad laws, new novel legal theories as well as tenuous and technical charges in open court which would lead them to make wiser filing decisions in the first place to make fair decisions based on whether justice is best served by bringing the prosecution at all with the facts at hand.


Here's a link to Professor Dervan's Over-criminalization article from The Journal of Law, Economics and Policy:
Overcriminalization 2.0: The Symbiotic Relationship 
Between Plea Bargaining and Overcriminalization by Lucian Dervan :: SSRN
White Collar Crime Criminal Defense Attorney in Clearwater, FL

Is Congress eroding the criminal intent requirements:“Overcriminalization” describes the trend in America – and particularly in Congress – to use the criminal law to “solve” every problem, punish every mistake (instead of making proper use of civil penalties), and coerce Americans into conforming their behavior to satisfy social engineering objectives. Criminal law is supposed to be used to redress only that conduct which society thinks deserving of the greatest punishment and moral sanction.
Overcriminalized.com
Supreme Court of the United States
Federal Crimes Trial Lawyer & Criminal Defense Attorney in Florida
http://www.texaspolicy.com/pdf/2011-Overcriminalization-CEJ-ml.pdf
Crime & Federalism: Why Is Our Criminal System So Screwed Up?
'Mens Rea' Legal Protection Erodes in U.S. as Federal Criminal Code Expands - WSJ.com

Justice and Divine Vengeance in pursuit of Crime — 1808 oil-on-canvas by Pierre-Paul Prud'hon

YOUR CELL PHONE RECORDS AS EVIDENCE - HOW LONG CAN THE GOVERNMENT GO BACK TO FIND CALL RECORDS & TEXT MESSAGES

Your cell phone provides your Government, not to mention your friends, family and favorite stalkers - if they know where to look, with a huge amount of information about you. 


Call towers used by your cell phone provide an accurate guide to your location. Text messages supply not only the words used but to whom the words are sent with the time sent and received. Pictures taken not only provide evidence of the picture itself but can provide the location of where the picture was taken imbedded within the photograph. For internet usage from the phone the ip address tracks location of the phone as well as ip session and destination information, in other words everything you do on the web.


Links Phones and Evidence:
E-Evidence Information Center - Cellular/Mobile Phone Forensics
Computer and Cell Phone Forensics Information Examiners
Mobile phone - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Federal Crimes Trial Lawyer & Criminal Defense Attorney in Florida
White Collar Crime Criminal Defense Attorney in Clearwater, FL

The following Department of Justice document lists the times for each category of information availability for every major American mobile service provider:

IS YOUR BABY SITTER WANTED FOR MURDER -- HOW TO FIND OUT IF ANYONE HAS AN ACTIVE ARREST WARRANT

Florida's statewide investigative agency has a "Wanted Persons Search" function which allows you to check the names of anyone you suspect may be a fugitive from justice. Is your babysitter wanted for Murder, Aggravated Battery, or even worse in Florida's warped Criminal Justice System, the crime of Driving While License Suspended or Revoked? 

This link looks to be a winning party game at your next get together with friends, neighbors and especially politicians; all in abject fear that maybe that long forgotten speeding ticket was never paid. 

Below you'll see that FDLE (Florida's FBI) "cannot represent that this information is current, active or complete," but no matter just for the hell of it, your government puts it out there anyway, riddled with errors or not....

Here's the link to the Wanted Persons Search: FDLE Public Access System | Wanted Persons Search

And more about the database from your friends at FDLE:

The database contains Florida warrant information as reported to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement by law enforcement agencies throughout the state and authorized for release to the public. FDLE and the reporting agencies strongly recommend that no citizen take any individual action based on this information. This information is not to be used as a confirmation that any warrant is active, or as probable cause for an arrest. Information contained herein should not be relied upon for any type of legal action. FDLE cannot represent that this information is current, active, or complete. You should verify that a warrant is active with your local law enforcement agency or with the reporting agency. [Wanted persons may use false identification, which could cause the warrant to contain a name, date of birth, or other information not belonging to the subject of the warrant. Such false information may or may not be designated as an alias on the warrant.]

Here are some other FDLE LINKS of interest for your next neighborhood party:

FDLE Public Access System | Missing Persons Search

And this, which from its name - STOLEN ARTICLES SEARCH - must be for finding a purloined article or two from this Blog or from say, The New Yorker.......no, I see, articles to FDLE means personal belongings, never mind then, just take what you want:

FDLE Public Access System | Stolen Articles Search 

Burglary & Theft Criminal Defense Attorney in Clearwater, FL

And for all the strange folks you meet at Publix or the public parks:

FBI — Ten Most Wanted

Arrest warrant - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A history of prisons and punsishment:

Vintage books edition cover