[0:01] Welcome to Lessons from the Sensei Law Business and Life.
[0:05] Hey everyone, welcome back to an all-new episode of Lessons from the Sensei Law Business and Life.
[0:12] I am your host, Mike Leon. Joining us again, the aforementioned Denis Quintana,
[0:17] veteran Orlando Criminal Defense Attorney with over 35 years of experience.
[0:22] Denis is here to pull back the curtain on how criminal cases get dismissed
[0:27] from the power of the C4 motion to the new 2026 deadlines for speedy trial and evidence suppression.
[0:34] We're going to be breaking all of this down in just a second with our Sensei.
[0:38] Alright, Sensei, I turn to you here for the first question because I'm sure you get this a lot from clients up there in the 407.
[0:45] Can we get my case dropped or thrown out?
[0:48] But in the Florida legal system, the UNIable funder,
[0:51] the dismissals aren't really handed out. So can you kind of explain the motion to dismiss
[0:56] why it's often the best way to kind of end the case before it reaches the jury stage?
[1:00] Well, first of all, thanks Mike. Thanks for letting me join you today.
[1:03] I'm very happy to feel that, of course everybody wants their case dismissed.
[1:08] And so in every defense, there's pretrial and there's trial.
[1:14] So pretrial is everything that happens before a trial.
[1:17] And what that means is the prosecutor is supposed to give all the evidence, the defense is supposed to review the evidence and where there are defects or contradictions in the evidence, then you can file motions.
[1:30] And so when you ask about a motion to dismiss, right, a motion to dismiss would be that you found something that would say that either the facts that they're alleging don't rise to the level of whatever particular statute.
[1:45] Or given the facts that they're alleging, it doesn't rise to the legal requirement of the statute, right, the law doesn't, or the law permits that.
[1:56] Let me put it in a positive way.
[1:58] So a motion to dismiss is based on the evidence and it's either going to be your facts are in your favor or your law is in your favor.
[2:05] And in that case, you file a motion to dismiss. There's another way. There's one other way.
[2:10] And that can be for something that is unfair, right, the prosecutorial misconduct, you know, they're doing something that is, it's just, you know, unfair or things like a speedy trial problem where the prosecutor is supposed to have a limit as to how fast they're supposed to do things.
[2:28] And if they, you know, they go beyond those, one of the potential remedies is a motion to dismiss.
[2:34] So that's part and parcel of every defense. The idea is when somebody is being, you know, accused of a crime, it's the defense lawyers obligation to defend them and to defend them means to defend the process, right, the process is what all the rules are.
[2:54] And just like in any kind of sport when somebody violates a rule, right, you're, you're, you're a boxing fan. If you got two guys in a ring and you got a referee, right, they have a time limit.
[3:06] There's limits as to where they can punch. There's limits as to how they're not allowed to bite, for example, but, but certainly if a third guy, somebody jumps over the ropes and comes in and attacks one of the two boxers, right, that's not going to be fair.
[3:23] So in that case, the referee would say objection. I file a motion to dismiss. I'm going to dismiss this bout because something has so, you know, fundamentally unfair occurred that we can't go on.
[3:36] And it's the same thing in court, right, when, you know, when it's interesting, when you see the word attorney, attorney means at attorney, attorney means you're in battle, right, an attorney is somebody that battles for you. They're an advocate.
[3:51] The ring is the courtroom. The referee is the judge judge is supposed to call balls and fouls, you know, and, and, you know, when something happens, right, you see in basketball, somebody gets hit a little bit and then they flop, you know, they're like, oh, you know, you knocked me out because they're trying to get somebody to call a foul.
[4:11] Well, we do that too. Right. When a prosecutor does something, we're like, wait a minute. This is ridiculous. It's unconstitutional. Right. And so what we're trying to do is get the judge, the referee to go, hey, hey, foul. This is unfair.
[4:25] And the system is designed to protect us to all designed to protect the accused. So the referee is just like the boxer, the referee in a boxing match.
[4:37] The judge, right, is the referee in the courtroom. And the judge here, she is supposed to protect everybody's rights, the defendants rights and the states rights to a fair trial. So, so that's the, those are the issues.
[4:51] Yes, emotion to dismiss is the first question everybody asked is what everybody wants. They want to get, you know, they want to get the charges dropped. But that's just rudimentary, fundamental, lawyering 101, right, disassemble what they're throwing at you.
[5:05] Let me ask you, because you kind of mentioned about the speedy trial part of this. I know in Florida in 25, like they changed the speedy trial clock at the start of, of like filing for formal charges.
[5:16] Can you kind of explain what they did in 2025, like, how does this change the, or how does it affect the likelihood that a case is going to get dismissed in 26.
[5:24] They made it much worse for us. Alright, so generally speedy trial is a constitutional right and the basic purpose of speedy trial is if somebody says I did something, right, the government ought to have a limit as to how long they can have me accused because the competing interest is no matter that I've been accused, I'm presumed innocent.
[5:46] Right. So I'm presumed innocent, unless it until somebody finds me guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. So speedy trial says in a misdemeanor, you know, the government is supposed to have no more than 90 days in order to prosecute the case.
[6:00] And in a felony, right, no more than 175 days. Okay. So basically just call it three months and nine months, six months, three months on a misdemeanor, six months on a felony. Now here's what they did last year.
[6:13] What they did last year was is they changed the rules as to when that clock starts to begin. So the clock used to begin from the moment of arrest.
[6:23] And so I'm going to step back for a second because in criminal justice, sometimes you're arrested and then the case gets sent to a prosecutor.
[6:33] And then the prosecutor files a document in Florida that documents called an information on TV and federal cases and sometimes in other courts, they call that an indictment.
[6:44] So you probably have heard, hey, somebody got indicted, right. So in Florida, the term is somebody has an information filed. What that means is prosecutor reviewed all the information and elected to go forward on these charges.
[6:57] So here's an example. Cop arrest me for DUI because I hit somebody and there's an injury.
[7:03] I'm drunk. They see me stumbling. I can't do the field sobriety exercises. They booked me and send me to jail. Right. Cop writes on the arrest affidavit DUI.
[7:13] Five days later, the person I hit dies. Now the prosecutor looks at it and goes, wait a minute. This isn't just the DUI. This is the DUI manslaughter. We have somebody died here. Right. And so that's the difference between when a cop says here's what I think you have versus what a prosecutor may ultimately charge and it can go the other way.
[7:35] Right. A cop can arrest me and say, hey man, you're trafficking and cocaine. I see a bunch of baggies of white powder in there. The trafficking amounts in Florida start at 28 grams. So one ounce would be a trafficking amount. They're like, I put it on my scale. You got two ounces of white powder. Okay. They're going to charge me with trafficking and cocaine.
[7:53] But then they're going to have to send that to a lab. Right. And the Florida Department of law enforcement is going to analyze that and they're going to determine a what it is and be how much it weighs. If they determine that it's not cocaine, then the prosecutor's going to go, hey, I can't file trafficking charges.
[8:10] Or if they determine, no, it's not cocaine is heroin. Right. You know, something else. They say, no, we're going to file trafficking and heroin charges. But the charge can either go up or down because officially you're not charged on until the prosecutor files an information.
[8:26] What they did last year with respect to speedy trial was speedy trial rights used to start once you got arrested. So from the moment of arrest, the clock started counting. Now it doesn't count. Now it only starts counting from when the prosecutor files the charges.
[8:45] And from the, from the point of arrest to the point that they file the charges, months can go by because they're waiting on lab results. They're doing forensic analysis, ballistics, fingerprints, hair samples, DNA testing. Right. All of those things can take a long, long time.
[9:01] And unless and until they file an information, a formal charging document, the clock for speedy trial hasn't run. The other thing they did was they kind of monkey with the system on the end. There was a system before where what speedy trial ran, let's say it's a misdemeanor.
[9:18] Prosecutor hasn't done anything. It's the 90th day. Right. Then the defense would have to file a notice of expiration of speedy trial. Say, hey, judge, it's 90 days. This is a part.
[9:28] Judge was supposed to hold a hearing immediately within five days to find out what's going on. Right. And within those five days, they not only held a hearing, but then they had to immediately set the case for trial within the next 10 days.
[9:41] So there was a potential of a recapture period of a total of 15 days. Right. You follow the notice of expiration. You have your hearing up to five days. And then you have up to 10 days after that to have a trial. Well, now they've changed all that.
[9:54] So on the back end, when you raise foul and say, hey, even though, you know, they started late, now the time has run. Now they have 30 days.
[10:03] And so the issue with that is 30 days is a long time. We used to win a lot of speedy trial cases because, you know, on a short window, five to 10 days, if they couldn't get their witnesses like their witnesses were on vacation or their witnesses were on training or they couldn't subpoena them fast enough to get them here.
[10:23] That's it. Called up for trial. No witnesses case over. But 30 days, that gives you, I mean, you can do a lot in 30 days to get ready for a trial. Right. So basically, you know, effectively, they've watered down the speedy trial rules so much that they're, they're almost ineffective.
[10:43] This started during COVID, started during COVID because during COVID, it couldn't subpoena jurors to come to the courtroom and and be witnesses or testify. And so speedy was waived.
[10:53] They were just like, look, I don't care if you got arrested. But while we have COVID, court houses and open, you can't file any speedy trial motions. And we want like that for years. Right. Even though COVID was over, we're still operating under that.
[11:07] Legislature finally came around and said, ah, we're just going to water it down. And they've made it a big cushion on the front end for the prosecutor. And also, they have a big recapture period on the end. So it's, it doesn't mean that it's not worth enforcing.
[11:23] It just means that it's watered down. Nevertheless, I still have speedy trial cases where we're prosecutors, they get screwed up with a DNA, you know, when, when they have to do DNA analysis, they send it to a lab, the Florida Department of law enforcement takes them forever.
[11:38] Right. Well, while you're waiting, you know, and you know, that's why a defense lawyer is is kind of like a food inspector. Right. A defense lawyer is looking at compliance with the rules.
[11:52] So imagine, imagine you like restaurants, right. Right. I like restaurants. I love restaurants. Right. But when you and I go to a restaurant, we don't expect to get sick. Right. We want to want to order food. We want it to be cooked. But we assume that they're doing all of this proper food safety handling.
[12:10] Okay. Well, they have food safety inspectors that do that. And these are basic things. Right. So you know, if you go to a restaurant, they're not supposed to cut raw chicken and then use that knife to put butter on your croissant. Right.
[12:23] But why? Because you're going to get cross contamination. They're supposed to wear a hair tie. They're supposed to wear gloves. You ever go to the bathroom in a restaurant. What, what does the bathroom always say? Employees must wash their hands. Right.
[12:34] Basic shit. Right. These are just basic deals that with the goal of making sure that when you and I eat there, we don't get sick. Okay. Well, I'm the food safety inspector for the cops.
[12:45] Cops have rules too. Right. Where do those rules come from? They come from the Constitution. You have a right to remain silent. You have a right to an attorney. You have a right to, you have all these rights that are enumerated. Those rights become the procedural law that governs what cops can do.
[13:03] Cop can't beat the shit out of you and force you into confession. They can't lock you up for 14 days, not feed you and say, okay, did you do it? Because at 14 days, you'll admit to anything. Right. Right. And the cop can't just start interrogating you without telling you, hey, by the way, you have a right to remain silent and whatever you say, we can use against you. So all these rules are designed to make the customer safe. Right.
[13:25] Customer in a criminal process is the accused. Why is that important? Brother, why are you here? You got family from Cuba. I got family from Cuba. Why are lots of people here from all over the world from India, from, from, you know, Afghanistan, from all over the world. People come here. One of the reasons they come here is because of the freedoms that we have.
[13:44] So if I were in Iran today and I were publicly saying, I'm opposed to whatever the, you know, Ayatollah is doing, I might just disappear. I might just get shot. Right. I don't have a right to free speech. I don't have a right to confront my accusers. I don't have a right to bail. I don't have a right to lawyer. They just go straight to executing whatever the hell they want.
[14:04] That's what they were doing in Cuba, too. Right. But in America, when Nicole and this came over here and they were like, dude, this guy, King George, he keeps screwing with us. Right. He's taking all our stuff. We're paying all these taxes, but he passes these rules. And we have taxation without representation. Right. We're paying taxes on the tea and on the coffee and on the whatever else. Right.
[14:24] Right. We're out in the tea actually because we drink coffee because we got pissed at King George. Right. Remember the Boston Tea Party. We dumped all the tea in the river. We're like, Hey, here's what we think about your tea. Right. Dumped it in the river. We're not paying your taxes. Why? Because we pay all these taxes, but we don't have any representation. We don't get anything for it. You just pass these rules. Right. And then they said, you know what? Let's go ahead and get ourselves independent from the king. What's the first thing we want to do? First amendment, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press. Right. Second. What's the
[14:54] second thing they said? Right to bear arms. It's not fair that only the King's army has guns. We want to have guns because at some point, if we have to defend ourselves against our own government, we want to be able to. Right. And so we want to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures. Right. Fourth amendment. I don't want anybody just to walk in my house. I'll start rifling through my shit. I don't want anybody to read my diary. Right. Fifth amendment. I ever write to self in protection against self-incrimination. I don't want anybody to coerce me to say something. Six amendment. I have a right to count.
[15:24] Right. Try that in Cuba. You have a right to point. You're dead. So as you say, I have a, they just shoot you. Right. I mean, there's no, there's no criminal procedure. Right. In America, there is a criminal procedure. And that's what I do. I'm a, I'm a food safety inspector, criminal procedure inspector for the cops. Right. Those rules that we're talking about are all about fairness. So, you know, go, go back to the year of your boxing. Right. A boxer can't put like a whole bunch of lead.
[15:54] Right. You can't cheat. You know, a baseball player can't put, you know, extra tar and stuff on the bat that makes the bat really, really, really heavy. Right. That's cheating. Well, cops can't just say, hey, I got this evidence. They got to say how I got it, where I got it. They got a preserve it. They can't contaminate a scene. You ever see crime scene photos. Right. They put cones out there. They have locations. They measure. They pick stuff up with tweezers, put in a plastic bag. So your fingerprints don't get on it. Right.
[16:24] So they know where it came from. Then they have what's called chain of custody came from here. I gave it to Jose Jose, drove it to evidence. Evidence put it into hairy, hairy. Then gave it to the court clerk, court clerk brought it into court. Hasn't been contaminated chain of custody. All of these procedures are rules to protect me and you. Right. The government. Right. So, so what when I'm representing somebody, I'm representing all of us. Right. Yeah. My job is to enforce the rules. Yeah. Well, Denis, on that front,
[16:55] let me ask you as we're wrapping here on this. And if you could give this quickly as possible, because I'm sure a lot of clients come to you and they say, my case should be dismissed, because it's really my word against theirs. Right. Things like that. What are some other common misconceptions about like how dismissals actually work in Florida? If they say, well, I think it should be dismissed. Right. There has to be a legal basis. Right. You you may have a perspective or a point of view.
[17:25] But you have to be a legal basis. So either the facts are in conflict. So he said, she said, is that enough for evidence beyond a reasonable doubt? It's going to come down to credibility. Right. A jury is going to decide. Do I believe you? Do I believe her? Remember that you have a right to remain silent. So you don't have to say anything. Right. And if you do your subject across examination. So it really comes down to believe ability. I give you an example. Boy and a girl go on a date. Boy and a girl have sex. Next day, girl, wait.
[17:56] She makes up and, you know, doesn't remember whether or not she consented or, you know, comes home and still lives with her parents and her parents are like, where were you? Oh, I spent the night at Jose's house. Well, did you have sex? I don't know, you know, and she doesn't want to admit that she consented to having sex or maybe she just doesn't remember. Right. But parents are going to go, you were raped. Right. They're going to call the cops. Well, now you got a he said, she said.
[18:24] The issue is didn't they have sex? The issue is, was it consensual? Right. So what are you doing a case like that? You're asking. I, I pose it because you're like, Holy cow. I could see that happening. I could see going out. We have a good time. Right. Maybe we're both drinking. Yeah, we have sex. But maybe in the morning, you know, either she doesn't remember or she's, you know, ashamed. And somebody else gets the idea that this was non consensual. And now it's he said she said. Right. You take her to a, a medical.
[18:54] And they're going to go, yeah, she definitely had sex. Right. I mean, we don't see that she was beaten or anything like that. She wasn't, you know, but she definitely had sex. It wasn't consensual or wasn't it.
[19:04] And so that's a very difficult circumstance because in a circumstance like that, consequences are really high. Right. Somebody gets convicted. Yet young man gets convicted of having sex with somebody and they say it's without consent. That's called rape.
[19:18] So you're a sex offender, right. You're going to prison. Right. So I mean, there doesn't mean that we just roll over and go, oh my God. And it doesn't mean every case goes to trial. So, you know, one, one of the things that I've done is I have a polygrapher as a former retired policeman and now trains different policemen on polygraphs.
[19:40] But, you know, I have my client do a polygraph for me. Right. It's work, it's work product. It's, I pay for it. Nobody knows about it. My client passes it. Now I use it. My client doesn't pass it for whatever reason, because sometimes you can fail a polygraph because you're nervous, you know, because you're thinking about something else.
[19:58] Right. So it doesn't pass and I don't use it. But if they pass, then I use it and I challenge the other person to do it. And when the, when the alleged victim says, I don't want to do it. Right. Then usually those cases get dismissed.
[20:12] Right. But there's other things we look to other evidence, right. Were there any signs of struggle? Was there any fresh complaint? Right. Did she, did she immediately wake up and get out of there and go, I was raped or did she go home and now she's late in her dad's like, where the hell are you coming in at six in the morning?
[20:27] Right. Right. So it's all circumstances.
[20:31] It's all circumstances. It's a lot to digest. Denis, I can't thank you enough for the time in the insights. I appreciate it.
[20:37] Brother, I'm sorry. I may have rambled a bit, but the stuff matters and it's, I'm passionate about it. Right. So I, you know, I look forward to helping you and anybody has any questions in this.
[20:48] Well, you're the sense that concludes today's episode of lessons from the sense law, business and life. Denis proved today, dismissal isn't look. It's really the result of a mindset discipline legal strategy. There's a lot to it.
[21:01] Like you said, and if you need an experienced navigator, a sense a criminal defense attorney in central Florida, reach out to Denis's office by calling 407 694 5403 and get that free consultation schedule with Denis and his team.
[21:17] As always, do me a favor before you go. Hit like, hit subscribe, leave a review comment, share the episode with someone who needs to hear it. I'm Mike Leon. We'll see everybody next time. Thanks Mike.
[21:28] Thanks for watching. Be sure to hit that like and subscribe button and leave us a review in the comments.
[0:05] Hey everyone, welcome back to an all-new episode of Lessons from the Sensei Law Business and Life.
[0:12] I am your host, Mike Leon. Joining us again, the aforementioned Denis Quintana,
[0:17] veteran Orlando Criminal Defense Attorney with over 35 years of experience.
[0:22] Denis is here to pull back the curtain on how criminal cases get dismissed
[0:27] from the power of the C4 motion to the new 2026 deadlines for speedy trial and evidence suppression.
[0:34] We're going to be breaking all of this down in just a second with our Sensei.
[0:38] Alright, Sensei, I turn to you here for the first question because I'm sure you get this a lot from clients up there in the 407.
[0:45] Can we get my case dropped or thrown out?
[0:48] But in the Florida legal system, the UNIable funder,
[0:51] the dismissals aren't really handed out. So can you kind of explain the motion to dismiss
[0:56] why it's often the best way to kind of end the case before it reaches the jury stage?
[1:00] Well, first of all, thanks Mike. Thanks for letting me join you today.
[1:03] I'm very happy to feel that, of course everybody wants their case dismissed.
[1:08] And so in every defense, there's pretrial and there's trial.
[1:14] So pretrial is everything that happens before a trial.
[1:17] And what that means is the prosecutor is supposed to give all the evidence, the defense is supposed to review the evidence and where there are defects or contradictions in the evidence, then you can file motions.
[1:30] And so when you ask about a motion to dismiss, right, a motion to dismiss would be that you found something that would say that either the facts that they're alleging don't rise to the level of whatever particular statute.
[1:45] Or given the facts that they're alleging, it doesn't rise to the legal requirement of the statute, right, the law doesn't, or the law permits that.
[1:56] Let me put it in a positive way.
[1:58] So a motion to dismiss is based on the evidence and it's either going to be your facts are in your favor or your law is in your favor.
[2:05] And in that case, you file a motion to dismiss. There's another way. There's one other way.
[2:10] And that can be for something that is unfair, right, the prosecutorial misconduct, you know, they're doing something that is, it's just, you know, unfair or things like a speedy trial problem where the prosecutor is supposed to have a limit as to how fast they're supposed to do things.
[2:28] And if they, you know, they go beyond those, one of the potential remedies is a motion to dismiss.
[2:34] So that's part and parcel of every defense. The idea is when somebody is being, you know, accused of a crime, it's the defense lawyers obligation to defend them and to defend them means to defend the process, right, the process is what all the rules are.
[2:54] And just like in any kind of sport when somebody violates a rule, right, you're, you're, you're a boxing fan. If you got two guys in a ring and you got a referee, right, they have a time limit.
[3:06] There's limits as to where they can punch. There's limits as to how they're not allowed to bite, for example, but, but certainly if a third guy, somebody jumps over the ropes and comes in and attacks one of the two boxers, right, that's not going to be fair.
[3:23] So in that case, the referee would say objection. I file a motion to dismiss. I'm going to dismiss this bout because something has so, you know, fundamentally unfair occurred that we can't go on.
[3:36] And it's the same thing in court, right, when, you know, when it's interesting, when you see the word attorney, attorney means at attorney, attorney means you're in battle, right, an attorney is somebody that battles for you. They're an advocate.
[3:51] The ring is the courtroom. The referee is the judge judge is supposed to call balls and fouls, you know, and, and, you know, when something happens, right, you see in basketball, somebody gets hit a little bit and then they flop, you know, they're like, oh, you know, you knocked me out because they're trying to get somebody to call a foul.
[4:11] Well, we do that too. Right. When a prosecutor does something, we're like, wait a minute. This is ridiculous. It's unconstitutional. Right. And so what we're trying to do is get the judge, the referee to go, hey, hey, foul. This is unfair.
[4:25] And the system is designed to protect us to all designed to protect the accused. So the referee is just like the boxer, the referee in a boxing match.
[4:37] The judge, right, is the referee in the courtroom. And the judge here, she is supposed to protect everybody's rights, the defendants rights and the states rights to a fair trial. So, so that's the, those are the issues.
[4:51] Yes, emotion to dismiss is the first question everybody asked is what everybody wants. They want to get, you know, they want to get the charges dropped. But that's just rudimentary, fundamental, lawyering 101, right, disassemble what they're throwing at you.
[5:05] Let me ask you, because you kind of mentioned about the speedy trial part of this. I know in Florida in 25, like they changed the speedy trial clock at the start of, of like filing for formal charges.
[5:16] Can you kind of explain what they did in 2025, like, how does this change the, or how does it affect the likelihood that a case is going to get dismissed in 26.
[5:24] They made it much worse for us. Alright, so generally speedy trial is a constitutional right and the basic purpose of speedy trial is if somebody says I did something, right, the government ought to have a limit as to how long they can have me accused because the competing interest is no matter that I've been accused, I'm presumed innocent.
[5:46] Right. So I'm presumed innocent, unless it until somebody finds me guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. So speedy trial says in a misdemeanor, you know, the government is supposed to have no more than 90 days in order to prosecute the case.
[6:00] And in a felony, right, no more than 175 days. Okay. So basically just call it three months and nine months, six months, three months on a misdemeanor, six months on a felony. Now here's what they did last year.
[6:13] What they did last year was is they changed the rules as to when that clock starts to begin. So the clock used to begin from the moment of arrest.
[6:23] And so I'm going to step back for a second because in criminal justice, sometimes you're arrested and then the case gets sent to a prosecutor.
[6:33] And then the prosecutor files a document in Florida that documents called an information on TV and federal cases and sometimes in other courts, they call that an indictment.
[6:44] So you probably have heard, hey, somebody got indicted, right. So in Florida, the term is somebody has an information filed. What that means is prosecutor reviewed all the information and elected to go forward on these charges.
[6:57] So here's an example. Cop arrest me for DUI because I hit somebody and there's an injury.
[7:03] I'm drunk. They see me stumbling. I can't do the field sobriety exercises. They booked me and send me to jail. Right. Cop writes on the arrest affidavit DUI.
[7:13] Five days later, the person I hit dies. Now the prosecutor looks at it and goes, wait a minute. This isn't just the DUI. This is the DUI manslaughter. We have somebody died here. Right. And so that's the difference between when a cop says here's what I think you have versus what a prosecutor may ultimately charge and it can go the other way.
[7:35] Right. A cop can arrest me and say, hey man, you're trafficking and cocaine. I see a bunch of baggies of white powder in there. The trafficking amounts in Florida start at 28 grams. So one ounce would be a trafficking amount. They're like, I put it on my scale. You got two ounces of white powder. Okay. They're going to charge me with trafficking and cocaine.
[7:53] But then they're going to have to send that to a lab. Right. And the Florida Department of law enforcement is going to analyze that and they're going to determine a what it is and be how much it weighs. If they determine that it's not cocaine, then the prosecutor's going to go, hey, I can't file trafficking charges.
[8:10] Or if they determine, no, it's not cocaine is heroin. Right. You know, something else. They say, no, we're going to file trafficking and heroin charges. But the charge can either go up or down because officially you're not charged on until the prosecutor files an information.
[8:26] What they did last year with respect to speedy trial was speedy trial rights used to start once you got arrested. So from the moment of arrest, the clock started counting. Now it doesn't count. Now it only starts counting from when the prosecutor files the charges.
[8:45] And from the, from the point of arrest to the point that they file the charges, months can go by because they're waiting on lab results. They're doing forensic analysis, ballistics, fingerprints, hair samples, DNA testing. Right. All of those things can take a long, long time.
[9:01] And unless and until they file an information, a formal charging document, the clock for speedy trial hasn't run. The other thing they did was they kind of monkey with the system on the end. There was a system before where what speedy trial ran, let's say it's a misdemeanor.
[9:18] Prosecutor hasn't done anything. It's the 90th day. Right. Then the defense would have to file a notice of expiration of speedy trial. Say, hey, judge, it's 90 days. This is a part.
[9:28] Judge was supposed to hold a hearing immediately within five days to find out what's going on. Right. And within those five days, they not only held a hearing, but then they had to immediately set the case for trial within the next 10 days.
[9:41] So there was a potential of a recapture period of a total of 15 days. Right. You follow the notice of expiration. You have your hearing up to five days. And then you have up to 10 days after that to have a trial. Well, now they've changed all that.
[9:54] So on the back end, when you raise foul and say, hey, even though, you know, they started late, now the time has run. Now they have 30 days.
[10:03] And so the issue with that is 30 days is a long time. We used to win a lot of speedy trial cases because, you know, on a short window, five to 10 days, if they couldn't get their witnesses like their witnesses were on vacation or their witnesses were on training or they couldn't subpoena them fast enough to get them here.
[10:23] That's it. Called up for trial. No witnesses case over. But 30 days, that gives you, I mean, you can do a lot in 30 days to get ready for a trial. Right. So basically, you know, effectively, they've watered down the speedy trial rules so much that they're, they're almost ineffective.
[10:43] This started during COVID, started during COVID because during COVID, it couldn't subpoena jurors to come to the courtroom and and be witnesses or testify. And so speedy was waived.
[10:53] They were just like, look, I don't care if you got arrested. But while we have COVID, court houses and open, you can't file any speedy trial motions. And we want like that for years. Right. Even though COVID was over, we're still operating under that.
[11:07] Legislature finally came around and said, ah, we're just going to water it down. And they've made it a big cushion on the front end for the prosecutor. And also, they have a big recapture period on the end. So it's, it doesn't mean that it's not worth enforcing.
[11:23] It just means that it's watered down. Nevertheless, I still have speedy trial cases where we're prosecutors, they get screwed up with a DNA, you know, when, when they have to do DNA analysis, they send it to a lab, the Florida Department of law enforcement takes them forever.
[11:38] Right. Well, while you're waiting, you know, and you know, that's why a defense lawyer is is kind of like a food inspector. Right. A defense lawyer is looking at compliance with the rules.
[11:52] So imagine, imagine you like restaurants, right. Right. I like restaurants. I love restaurants. Right. But when you and I go to a restaurant, we don't expect to get sick. Right. We want to want to order food. We want it to be cooked. But we assume that they're doing all of this proper food safety handling.
[12:10] Okay. Well, they have food safety inspectors that do that. And these are basic things. Right. So you know, if you go to a restaurant, they're not supposed to cut raw chicken and then use that knife to put butter on your croissant. Right.
[12:23] But why? Because you're going to get cross contamination. They're supposed to wear a hair tie. They're supposed to wear gloves. You ever go to the bathroom in a restaurant. What, what does the bathroom always say? Employees must wash their hands. Right.
[12:34] Basic shit. Right. These are just basic deals that with the goal of making sure that when you and I eat there, we don't get sick. Okay. Well, I'm the food safety inspector for the cops.
[12:45] Cops have rules too. Right. Where do those rules come from? They come from the Constitution. You have a right to remain silent. You have a right to an attorney. You have a right to, you have all these rights that are enumerated. Those rights become the procedural law that governs what cops can do.
[13:03] Cop can't beat the shit out of you and force you into confession. They can't lock you up for 14 days, not feed you and say, okay, did you do it? Because at 14 days, you'll admit to anything. Right. Right. And the cop can't just start interrogating you without telling you, hey, by the way, you have a right to remain silent and whatever you say, we can use against you. So all these rules are designed to make the customer safe. Right.
[13:25] Customer in a criminal process is the accused. Why is that important? Brother, why are you here? You got family from Cuba. I got family from Cuba. Why are lots of people here from all over the world from India, from, from, you know, Afghanistan, from all over the world. People come here. One of the reasons they come here is because of the freedoms that we have.
[13:44] So if I were in Iran today and I were publicly saying, I'm opposed to whatever the, you know, Ayatollah is doing, I might just disappear. I might just get shot. Right. I don't have a right to free speech. I don't have a right to confront my accusers. I don't have a right to bail. I don't have a right to lawyer. They just go straight to executing whatever the hell they want.
[14:04] That's what they were doing in Cuba, too. Right. But in America, when Nicole and this came over here and they were like, dude, this guy, King George, he keeps screwing with us. Right. He's taking all our stuff. We're paying all these taxes, but he passes these rules. And we have taxation without representation. Right. We're paying taxes on the tea and on the coffee and on the whatever else. Right.
[14:24] Right. We're out in the tea actually because we drink coffee because we got pissed at King George. Right. Remember the Boston Tea Party. We dumped all the tea in the river. We're like, Hey, here's what we think about your tea. Right. Dumped it in the river. We're not paying your taxes. Why? Because we pay all these taxes, but we don't have any representation. We don't get anything for it. You just pass these rules. Right. And then they said, you know what? Let's go ahead and get ourselves independent from the king. What's the first thing we want to do? First amendment, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press. Right. Second. What's the
[14:54] second thing they said? Right to bear arms. It's not fair that only the King's army has guns. We want to have guns because at some point, if we have to defend ourselves against our own government, we want to be able to. Right. And so we want to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures. Right. Fourth amendment. I don't want anybody just to walk in my house. I'll start rifling through my shit. I don't want anybody to read my diary. Right. Fifth amendment. I ever write to self in protection against self-incrimination. I don't want anybody to coerce me to say something. Six amendment. I have a right to count.
[15:24] Right. Try that in Cuba. You have a right to point. You're dead. So as you say, I have a, they just shoot you. Right. I mean, there's no, there's no criminal procedure. Right. In America, there is a criminal procedure. And that's what I do. I'm a, I'm a food safety inspector, criminal procedure inspector for the cops. Right. Those rules that we're talking about are all about fairness. So, you know, go, go back to the year of your boxing. Right. A boxer can't put like a whole bunch of lead.
[15:54] Right. You can't cheat. You know, a baseball player can't put, you know, extra tar and stuff on the bat that makes the bat really, really, really heavy. Right. That's cheating. Well, cops can't just say, hey, I got this evidence. They got to say how I got it, where I got it. They got a preserve it. They can't contaminate a scene. You ever see crime scene photos. Right. They put cones out there. They have locations. They measure. They pick stuff up with tweezers, put in a plastic bag. So your fingerprints don't get on it. Right.
[16:24] So they know where it came from. Then they have what's called chain of custody came from here. I gave it to Jose Jose, drove it to evidence. Evidence put it into hairy, hairy. Then gave it to the court clerk, court clerk brought it into court. Hasn't been contaminated chain of custody. All of these procedures are rules to protect me and you. Right. The government. Right. So, so what when I'm representing somebody, I'm representing all of us. Right. Yeah. My job is to enforce the rules. Yeah. Well, Denis, on that front,
[16:55] let me ask you as we're wrapping here on this. And if you could give this quickly as possible, because I'm sure a lot of clients come to you and they say, my case should be dismissed, because it's really my word against theirs. Right. Things like that. What are some other common misconceptions about like how dismissals actually work in Florida? If they say, well, I think it should be dismissed. Right. There has to be a legal basis. Right. You you may have a perspective or a point of view.
[17:25] But you have to be a legal basis. So either the facts are in conflict. So he said, she said, is that enough for evidence beyond a reasonable doubt? It's going to come down to credibility. Right. A jury is going to decide. Do I believe you? Do I believe her? Remember that you have a right to remain silent. So you don't have to say anything. Right. And if you do your subject across examination. So it really comes down to believe ability. I give you an example. Boy and a girl go on a date. Boy and a girl have sex. Next day, girl, wait.
[17:56] She makes up and, you know, doesn't remember whether or not she consented or, you know, comes home and still lives with her parents and her parents are like, where were you? Oh, I spent the night at Jose's house. Well, did you have sex? I don't know, you know, and she doesn't want to admit that she consented to having sex or maybe she just doesn't remember. Right. But parents are going to go, you were raped. Right. They're going to call the cops. Well, now you got a he said, she said.
[18:24] The issue is didn't they have sex? The issue is, was it consensual? Right. So what are you doing a case like that? You're asking. I, I pose it because you're like, Holy cow. I could see that happening. I could see going out. We have a good time. Right. Maybe we're both drinking. Yeah, we have sex. But maybe in the morning, you know, either she doesn't remember or she's, you know, ashamed. And somebody else gets the idea that this was non consensual. And now it's he said she said. Right. You take her to a, a medical.
[18:54] And they're going to go, yeah, she definitely had sex. Right. I mean, we don't see that she was beaten or anything like that. She wasn't, you know, but she definitely had sex. It wasn't consensual or wasn't it.
[19:04] And so that's a very difficult circumstance because in a circumstance like that, consequences are really high. Right. Somebody gets convicted. Yet young man gets convicted of having sex with somebody and they say it's without consent. That's called rape.
[19:18] So you're a sex offender, right. You're going to prison. Right. So I mean, there doesn't mean that we just roll over and go, oh my God. And it doesn't mean every case goes to trial. So, you know, one, one of the things that I've done is I have a polygrapher as a former retired policeman and now trains different policemen on polygraphs.
[19:40] But, you know, I have my client do a polygraph for me. Right. It's work, it's work product. It's, I pay for it. Nobody knows about it. My client passes it. Now I use it. My client doesn't pass it for whatever reason, because sometimes you can fail a polygraph because you're nervous, you know, because you're thinking about something else.
[19:58] Right. So it doesn't pass and I don't use it. But if they pass, then I use it and I challenge the other person to do it. And when the, when the alleged victim says, I don't want to do it. Right. Then usually those cases get dismissed.
[20:12] Right. But there's other things we look to other evidence, right. Were there any signs of struggle? Was there any fresh complaint? Right. Did she, did she immediately wake up and get out of there and go, I was raped or did she go home and now she's late in her dad's like, where the hell are you coming in at six in the morning?
[20:27] Right. Right. So it's all circumstances.
[20:31] It's all circumstances. It's a lot to digest. Denis, I can't thank you enough for the time in the insights. I appreciate it.
[20:37] Brother, I'm sorry. I may have rambled a bit, but the stuff matters and it's, I'm passionate about it. Right. So I, you know, I look forward to helping you and anybody has any questions in this.
[20:48] Well, you're the sense that concludes today's episode of lessons from the sense law, business and life. Denis proved today, dismissal isn't look. It's really the result of a mindset discipline legal strategy. There's a lot to it.
[21:01] Like you said, and if you need an experienced navigator, a sense a criminal defense attorney in central Florida, reach out to Denis's office by calling 407 694 5403 and get that free consultation schedule with Denis and his team.
[21:17] As always, do me a favor before you go. Hit like, hit subscribe, leave a review comment, share the episode with someone who needs to hear it. I'm Mike Leon. We'll see everybody next time. Thanks Mike.
[21:28] Thanks for watching. Be sure to hit that like and subscribe button and leave us a review in the comments.
