Florida

Sheriff Bob Gualtieri of Pinellas County, Florida, is one of the state’s most controversial lawmen.

Over a three-year period, Alachua County prosecutors closed 236 sexual battery cases: 115 were dropped, 92 were offered plea deals, and seven went to trial.

Thanks to the diligence of one assistant state attorney, 119 cases were thrown out and the officer is under state investigation.

A new court order allows the family’s lawsuit to proceed, and may lead to holding jail staff accountable.

Florida is poised to pass a law that imposes a ‘poll tax’ on thousands of formerly incarcerated people.

A scandal of falsified drug arrests is spreading at a Florida sheriff’s office that has also spent more than $1.33 million settling excessive force lawsuits and is at the center of the increasingly troubled Robert Kraft case.

Lawmakers are redefining certain crimes in order to carve out broad exceptions to who can regain the right to vote.

In 2017, over 2,000 homeless people were arrested on charges including drinking in public and panhandling. That same year, roughly 1,400 people were arrested in Miami-Dade County for rape, murder, and robbery.

A 22-year-old woman overdosed and died in jail. A 24-year-old faces first-degree murder charges. Did the system fail them both?

With Appeal staff reporter Kira Lerner

A Philadelphia-born man was detained by ICE and nearly deported. The agency’s mistake was caught, but the case exposes a new collaborative program that encourages jails to hold immigrants for ICE.

Critics say the state’s policy of keeping non-residents registered bloats the list—and harms public safety.

Claims including sexual assault of a woman with mental illness to lying in reports haunt the Miami Gardens police; payouts in federal lawsuits have cost the city’s taxpayers at least $3.5 million.

Defense attorneys say they were unaware of the practice and are unclear on how they can expunge the data of nonconvicted clients.

A Florida woman with substance use disorder allegedly brokered a drug sale that ended in a fatal overdose; she faces 15 years in prison.

The technology also allows authorities to mine call databases and cross-reference the voices of individuals prisoners have spoken with.

One commissioner wants the state Department of Corrections to show proof that his county isn’t just using prisoners as ‘slaves.’

The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office stands accused of violating immigrants’ rights and dismissing a shocking number of jail deaths.

With privatization of the state’s prisons in full swing, this year is on track to be its deadliest on record.

In the ‘fentanyl’ bust at a ‘narcotics house,’ no opioids were seized at all.

State Attorney Andrew Warren of the 13th Judicial Circuit, which is comprised of Hillsborough County, surprised many last year when he narrowly defeated incumbent State Attorney Mark Ober, who had been the chief elected prosecutor in Florida’s fourth largest county for 16 years. A former federal prosecutor, Warren ran as a supporter of criminal justice reform, vowing to lock […]

On April 9, a Florida public defender persuaded a judge to drop a first-degree murder case against his client related to a fentanyl overdose last fall. The case involves Christopher Toro, 30, who is accused of selling illicit fentanyl that resulted in the overdose death of 32-year-old Alfonso Pagan in September 2017. Seminole County prosecutors […]

Voters in Florida may soon get to decide whether to give victims of crime a bigger say in the criminal justice system.

Two prominent Jacksonville civil rights attorneys are challenging bail practices for misdemeanor charges in Northeast Florida’s 4th Judicial Circuit. Attorneys William Sheppard and Elizabeth White argue that current practices unfairly punish those unable to afford bail. The lawsuit maintains that judges in the 4th Judicial Circuit, which consists of Duval, Clay and Nassau counties, don’t inquire as […]

The Florida Supreme Court ruled that a man sentenced to death must be acquitted because there was insufficient evidence to convict him. Ralph Wright Jr., a former Air Force airman, becomes the 27th death row inmate in Florida to be exonerated. Wright was exonerated for the 2007 murder of his girlfriend and their baby son in St. […]

A Jacksonville man previously accused by Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi of being the mastermind behind a $300 million racketeering and money laundering scheme has his law license back and all criminal charges dismissed after a four year battle with prosecutors. Bondi’s office announced it would dismiss all charges against former Jacksonville Bar Association president Kelly Mathis after the Fifth District […]

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled that Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez-Rundle had “no basis in the law” when she threatened to prosecute a man for recording a conversation he had with the Chief of the Homestead Police Department. As a result, James Eric McDonough’s federal lawsuit against Fernandez-Rundle can proceed. According to […]

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled that Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez-Rundle had “no basis in the law” when she threatened to prosecute a man for recording a conversation he had with the Chief of the Homestead Police Department. As a result, James Eric McDonough’s federal lawsuit against Fernandez-Rundle can proceed.

Cuyahoga County prosecutor Michael O’Malley attempted to try a 15-year-old boy accused of murder as an adult. The child was accused of shooting 16-year-old Alexander Mullins in an abandoned building in Cleveland’s Slavic Village. O’Malley’s effort to try the child in adult court was rejected by Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court Judge Alison Floyd, who found that the […]

After almost a quarter century in the job, Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle is facing criticism like never before.