Court: Circuit Court for Crestview, Florida and First District Court of Appeals.
Charges: Vehicular Homicide and Driving on a Suspended License Resulting in Death
Case Category: Post-Conviction and Appeal
Position: Our client on the advice of his Public Defender Entered a plea to the Court with an agreed cap of 15 years in the Department of Corrections. He was sentenced to 10 and 5 years prison to run concurrently. Subsequent to sentencing our client wrote his own Motion for Post-Conviction Relief and hired our office to argue the Motion for him. Upon reviewing the same we amended his Motion to include an argument that it was a violation of double jeopardy to charge and sentence a defendant to both Vehicular Homicide and Driving on a Suspended License Resulting in Death. The Circuit Court in and for Crestview, Florida denied the Motion on all grounds.
We then filed an appeal to the First District Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals agreed and vacated the Client’s sentence based upon the double jeopardy argument.
Status:On remand the State conceded the issue and offered a plea of 7 years incarceration with credit for time served. Our client accepted the State’s offer.