Every week we check the appellate court decisions for the prior week to see whether there are any decisions impacting registration laws. It seems that for a while, almost every week there are new appellate decisions on the same Double Jeopardy.

Last year, in Lee v. State, 258 So. 3d 1297 (Fla. 2018), the Florida Supreme Court held that “to determine whether multiple convictions of solicitation of a minor, unlawful use of a two-way communications device, and traveling after solicitation of a minor are based upon the same conduct for purposes of double jeopardy, the reviewing court should consider only the charging document.” In other words; if the charging document sets forth a single course of conduct, you can’t be charged with multiple offenses (from the same course of conduct) – that’s Double Jeopardy.

Since we’ve been highlighting this case in multiple posts since it was decided, hopefully anybody who thinks they might benefit from this decision (or who has a family member currently incarcerated who might), has already contacted their criminal defense attorney. The point of this post is how despite the decision, people still have to bring their cases to an appeal court. Just last week, Florida’s First District Court of Appeals had to reverse TWO cases; Sherman v. State (1D13-4464) and Dygart v. State (1D13-4977).

An appeal is often a costly and time consuming process. Unfortunately, it’s sometimes necessary.

 

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