Author Archives: Jay Butchko
Staying Silent While the Police Examine Your Drugs Is Better Than Making a Fool of Yourself
When you see a police cruiser flashing its blue lights behind you, you might assume that you are toast. The location of your drugs might be so obvious to you that you cannot take your eyes off of it, but at least for now, the cops don’t know that the drugs are there. Sometimes… Read More »
Can You Get Convicted Four Times and Acquitted a Fifth?
Whenever you face criminal charges, you are presumed innocent until proven guilty. The right to a fair trial with an unbiased jury means that, if you have previous criminal convictions, the attorneys for the prosecution cannot mention these during your trial, lest it influence the jurors’ decision about the present case. The only way… Read More »
How to Avoid Getting Arrested When the Police Crash a Party at Your House
Police harassment in public is bad enough, but can cops really show up at your house and start looking for reasons to arrest you? Most of the time, they cannot. The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution protects against unlawful search and seizure, so police cannot enter a residence unless they have a… Read More »
Florida Enacts Two Laws Imposing New Restrictions on Cannabis
How legal is cannabis in Florida? Increasingly, it depends when you ask. Cannabis is a hot topic for legislation at the state and local levels. In just a decade, cannabis has gone from being completely illegal in every state to our current confusing, but noticeably 420 friendlier, state of affairs. Some states have given… Read More »
Depositions in Florida Drug Cases
The evidence that the prosecution and defense present at a criminal trial is a surprise to the jury, but it is not a surprise to the defendant. Before the trial, there is a long process where both sides search for and examine evidence and form the arguments that they plan to present at trial. … Read More »
Search Warrant at Indian River County House Leads to Two Arrests on Drug Charges
Robert King and Nicole Ladouceur live on 40th Avenue in Vero Beach. If they lived somewhere else, several important details of the criminal case against them would be different. In April 2023, the Indian River County Sheriff’s Office and Vero Beach Police Department executed a search warrant at King and Ladouceur’s house. During the… Read More »
Proposed Recreational Cannabis Constitutional Amendment Gets Enough Signatures for Ballot Initiative
Compared to a decade ago, there are many more opportunities to smoke weed or eat cannabis edibles in Florida without fear of criminal penalties. Medical cannabis once sounded like something that only made sense when you were high and waiting for the pizza delivery to arrive, but now numerous Floridians have medical cannabis cards… Read More »
The Sixth Amendment And Your Drug Case
In some drug cases, your best hope is to try to enter a pretrial diversion program, which will result in the court dropping the charges against you after you successfully complete the program. Pretrial diversion for drug cases, sometimes known as drug court, is only an option if your charges are for a misdemeanor… Read More »
Florida’s New Law About Nitazenes
This year, Florida enacted a law that adds eight new drugs, all of them synthetic opioids, to the list of Schedule I controlled substances. Schedule I controlled substances are drugs of abuse that are not legal for any medical purposes. Heroin and MDMA are Schedule I controlled substances; so is cannabis, according to federal… Read More »
Three Orange County Men Arrested On Suspicion Of Trafficking Fentanyl Analog
An analog of a drug is a substance that is chemically similar to the original drug and has similar effects, but the chemical composition is different enough that the two substances cannot technically be considered one and the same. In 1986, the federal government enacted the Federal Analog Act, which automatically categorized analogs of… Read More »
