In HENRY v. STATE, No. 2D10-1976 (Fla. 2d DCA Jun. 29, 2011), the court held that where a defendant is charged with organized scheme to defraud and grand theft based on the same underlying conduct, convictions for both offenses violate double jeopardy.
In KEPFORD v. STATE, No. 2D09-3804 (Fla. 2d DCA Jul. 1, 2011), the Defendant filed a pro-se motion to withdraw his plea, essentially alleging that his plea was involuntary. The trial court heard the motion but did not address the issue of providing counsel for the Defendant. The DCA held that a trial court should not strike a pro se motion to withdraw plea as a nullity if the motion is based on allegations giving rise to an adversarial relationship such as counsel's misadvice, misrepresentation, or coercion that led to the entry of the plea. Instead, the trial court should hold a limited hearing to determine if an adversarial relationship exists between counsel and the defendant. Here the Defendant alleged that counsel failed to inform him about DNA evidence and explain the plea sufficiently. Therefore the trial court should not have conducted a hearing without conflict-free counsel to represent the Defendant.
In M.D. v. STATE, No. 1D10-3055 (Fla. 1st DCA Jun. 28, 2011), an anonymous tipster informed school officials that the student had carried a gun onto campus three months earlier. As a result, the school resource officer asked a school security guard to escort himself and the student to the school security office. As a general policy, all students entering the security office were searched. When the student was asked to empty his pockets, the security guard observed a gun on the student's person.
The DCA held that a search conducted by a resource officer placed in the school as a liaison is more akin to a search from a school official than from an outside police officer coming into the school to conduct a search, because a school police officer is a school official who is employed by the district School Board. It would be foolhardy and dangerous to hold that a teacher or school administrator, who often is untrained in firearms, can search a child reasonably suspected of carrying a gun at school only if the teacher or administrator does not involve the school's trained resource officer. Slip opinion at 5-6.
The DCA concluded that it made no difference that the tip was three months old. "While under other circumstances, this tip may have been considered stale, recent tragedies make it clear that school officials could not ignore the possibility that the student could possess a firearm on school property. These officials had not only the right, but the responsibility, to look further into the threat." Slip opinion at 6. [Editor's note: The dissent is well reasoned and worth reading.]
