Cory J. Ciklin

In J.R.B. v. J.L.B., a father appealed a trial court order granting temporary custody of his two minor daughters to the grandparents under Florida Statutes chapter 751. The grandparents had filed an emergency petition while the children were staying with them during court-ordered make-up visitation after the father had previously withheld access. The District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fourth District, reversed the order and remanded with instructions to dismiss the petition, ruling that the grandparents lacked standing because the statute requires an extended family member to be caring for a child full time in the role of a substitute parent with whom the child is presently living, and temporary visitation does not meet that requirement. The court noted that the grandparents or the Department of Children and Families could still pursue a dependency action under chapter 39 or obtain parental consent for custody.

family law

The case involved a former husband's appeal from a trial court's denial of his petition to modify custody and visitation arrangements for his two children following two divorces from his former wife. The trial court had based its denial on the conclusion that a 2007 agreed order designating the former husband as primary residential custodian was superseded by the 2006 final judgment due to a filing error, and found no substantial change in circumstances since 2006. The appellate court reversed, holding that the 2007 order validly modified the 2006 judgment and that the trial court's reversion to the 2006 arrangements improperly modified the parenting plan without the required showing of changed circumstances. The court remanded for a new evidentiary hearing to assess whether a substantial, material, and unanticipated change had occurred since the 2007 order and whether modification would be in the children's best interests.

family law

The case involved Tillman Moore's appeal of his convictions for first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse of his three-month-old son. Moore argued that the crimes merged and that evidence of prior burn injuries to the victim was improperly admitted under the Williams rule. The court affirmed the convictions, holding that the crimes did not merge and that the prior burn incidents were admissible to prove absence of mistake or accident given Moore's sole care of the victim and his accident claims. The court reasoned that no additional factual similarity was required beyond the physical abuse context and that the evidence was relevant to rebut the defense of accidental injury.

criminal lawprocedure

In Walker v. State, Eric Walker appealed his convictions and life sentences for robbery with a deadly weapon and burglary of a dwelling with an assault or battery while armed with a firearm and wearing a mask. The sole issue addressed on appeal was whether the trial court abused its discretion by allowing the state to use a .38 caliber revolver as a demonstrative aid during the victim's testimony, even though no firearm was recovered in the case and the aid was not the weapon actually used. The victim had described the gun used in the crime as a snub-nose .38 revolver, and the state used the demonstrative aid to illustrate how the victim could see bullets in the chamber. The appellate court affirmed the convictions, holding that the trial court did not abuse its discretion because the aid was similar enough to the described weapon, was never admitted as evidence, was accompanied by clear jury instructions that it was unrelated to the case, and was relevant to the victim's identification of the firearm and its connection to .38 caliber ammunition found on Walker at arrest.

criminal lawprocedure

This case involved a failed business relationship between JMA and Firstate over an agreement for Firstate to market JMA's automotive extended warranty contracts in Puerto Rico, leading to disputes over payment timing, contract amendments, termination, and resulting lawsuits. JMA sued for breach of contract, breach of a promissory note, and related claims, while Firstate countersued for tortious interference and defamation; after a jury trial, it awarded Firstate $6,750,000 on the counterclaims and rejected the other claims. On appeal, the court affirmed the judgment on all contract claims but reversed on the tortious interference and defamation counterclaims, holding that Firstate failed to present proof on the correct measure of damages for tortious interference and evidence of any actionable defamatory statements by JMA, and directed entry of judgment for JMA on those counts.

business & regulatorytorts & liabilityprocedure

In Canady v. State, the appellant challenged his convictions for delivery of cocaine and dealing in stolen property after an undercover officer sold him an Xbox and radio in exchange for cash and crack cocaine. The court affirmed the cocaine conviction but reversed the dealing in stolen property conviction. The core reasoning was that although evidence showed Canady should have known the items were stolen, no evidence supported the required element that he intended to traffic in or sell the property afterward, as the purchase was consistent with personal use and lacked any indication of future sale plans under Florida Statutes sections 812.019 and 812.012.

criminal law

In this Florida family law dispute, the mother (primary residential parent after a 2004 divorce) sought court permission to relocate with the child to Texas for new jobs, while the father objected and petitioned to modify custody to make him the primary parent. The trial court denied relocation and granted the modification after a hearing. The appellate court affirmed, holding that substantial competent evidence supported the rulings because the original judgment explicitly barred relocation without consent, the mother had already moved to Texas without the child, and she indicated she would not return to Florida regardless of the outcome, creating an unusual substantial change in circumstances justifying the custody shift. The court noted the trial court's detailed factual findings and the feasibility of preserving the father's relationship under the new arrangement.

family law

The case was an appeal by Milton Allen from convictions on two counts of armed sexual battery and one count each of armed kidnapping, armed burglary, and aggravated assault, based in part on DNA evidence linking him to the crime scene. The central issue was whether the trial court erred by permitting a DNA expert to testify about the statistical probability of a random DNA match without first establishing that she had sufficient knowledge of the relevant database and statistical methods. The court reversed the convictions and remanded for a limited evidentiary hearing to determine the expert's qualifications and the methodology used, holding that the state bore the burden to prove the expert's competence under precedents requiring proper foundation for DNA population frequency statistics.

criminal lawprocedure

In Robinson v. State, the defendant appealed his conviction for possession of more than twenty grams of cannabis, challenging the denial of his motion for judgment of acquittal and the trial court's exclusion of testimony from himself and his brother on grounds that no notice of alibi had been provided. The court reversed the conviction and remanded for a new trial, finding that the excluded testimony was not an alibi under the applicable rule but rather a general denial that the defendant was present at the scene, that the defendant was not required to give notice of his own testimony, and that the exclusion deprived him of the right to present his defense of misidentification, which was not harmless error. The opinion also rejected the claim that the state's evidence was insufficient to support the conviction.

criminal lawprocedure

Frank Monte was charged with aggravated stalking and violating a protective injunction; after conflicting expert evaluations of his competency to stand trial, he discharged counsel and was permitted to proceed pro se following a Faretta inquiry. On appeal, Monte argued that the trial court failed to renew offers of counsel at critical stages, neglected to hold required competency hearings before and during trial, and allowed self-representation without confirming his competency to waive counsel. The appellate court held that a defendant's waiver of counsel applies only to the stage at which it is made and must be renewed at each subsequent critical stage, that Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.210 requires specific procedures including multiple experts when competency is in question, and that a nunc pro tunc competency determination may be permissible only under limited circumstances.

criminal lawprocedure

In JS v. State, a juvenile appealed his delinquency adjudication after the trial court denied his request to take a second deposition of the victim following the State's amendment of the charges from lewd and lascivious conduct to lewd and lascivious molestation. The Florida Fourth District Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court's ruling, holding that there was no abuse of discretion because the victim had already been questioned during the first deposition about the specific acts relevant to the amended charges. The court noted that Florida Rule of Juvenile Procedure 8.060(d)(2)(D) permits a second deposition only upon a showing of good cause, and defense counsel's admission of an oversight in the initial questioning did not qualify. The decision rested on the principle that discovery decisions are within the trial court's discretion when the parties had a full opportunity to explore closely related facts.

criminal lawprocedure

In Gomez v. Fradin, nineteen condominium unit owners sued their association and board members over decisions made in response to Hurricane Wilma damage, including claims of secret meetings, misallocation of insurance proceeds, and breaches of fiduciary duty. The trial court dismissed five counts for failure to pursue non-binding arbitration under Florida Statutes section 718.1255 and granted summary judgment on two surviving counts. The appellate court reversed the dismissals, holding that the claims alleged breaches of fiduciary duty, which are expressly excluded from the statutory definition of arbitrable disputes, so arbitration was not a required condition precedent. It affirmed the summary judgments because the unit owners presented no genuine issues of material fact on their injunction claim or their speculative insurance allocation claim.

propertyprocedure

In Ward v. State, the defendant was convicted of robbery and grand theft of a motor vehicle after being accused of taking a victim's scooter, wallet, cash, and cell phone. The trial court gave the jury an inference instruction allowing possession of recently stolen property to imply knowledge that the items were stolen, but the appellate court found this instruction lacked a factual basis for the scooter count because the defendant was never shown to have personally or exclusively possessed the scooter, the victim could not identify him, and the scooter was recovered abandoned in a wooded area. The court reversed the grand theft conviction and ordered a new trial, holding that the instruction was unsupported by evidence of the required type of possession and was not harmless given that identity was the central issue at trial.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involved an appeal by Aegis Properties, the successful bidder at a foreclosure sale of real property owned by Huguette Chery to satisfy a homeowner’s association lien. The trial court had granted Chery’s motion to set aside the sale after she claimed a misunderstanding of the default judgment and offered to pay the amount owed. The appellate court reversed this order, holding that foreclosure sales may only be set aside for a grossly inadequate sales price or irregularities in the sale process, neither of which were present here, and that a party’s failure to protect its own interests or misunderstanding of legal obligations does not constitute sufficient grounds. The court directed reinstatement of the final judgment, certificate of sale, and issuance of a certificate of title to Aegis.

propertyprocedure

The case involved Moisés Espinoza's conviction on two counts of sexual battery on a child under 12, based on the victim's testimony at trial describing three incidents. On appeal, Espinoza argued that the trial court erred by preventing defense counsel from impeaching the victim with her prior deposition statements that referenced a fourth incident. The appellate court affirmed the conviction and sentences, holding that no proper foundation for impeachment by prior inconsistent statement had been laid because the victim's trial testimony was not truly inconsistent with her deposition; her inability to recall details of a fourth incident did not contradict her earlier account. The court explained that loss of memory alone is not logically inconsistent with a prior statement, and the rules of evidence require a material difference or direct contradiction to allow such impeachment.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involved David Richards, who was convicted of possession of cocaine with intent to sell after being found with seven individually packaged bags of a white powdery substance in a coin purse. Richards argued that the State failed to prove its case because only one bag was chemically tested for cocaine, and moved for a judgment of acquittal. The court affirmed the conviction, holding that the amount of cocaine was not an element of the offense and that additional circumstantial evidence, including a detective's testimony about the packaging method being inconsistent with personal use, was sufficient to submit the issue of intent to sell to the jury.

criminal law

This case involves an appeal by Nelsenn Simon from his conviction for second-degree murder in which he challenged three aspects of his trial. Simon argued that the jury instruction on the lesser-included offense of manslaughter was fundamentally erroneous, that the trial court improperly excluded testimony about the victim's propensity for violence, and that a prosecutorial comment on his right to silence was not adequately remedied. The appellate court affirmed the conviction, finding no error in the manslaughter instruction because it permitted conviction based on culpable negligence, that the reputation testimony was properly excluded for lack of a sufficient predicate showing the witness's knowledge derived from a broad community, and that the comment issue was not preserved because defense counsel did not move for a mistrial after objecting. The court noted that a curative instruction had been given but did not reach the merits of the unpreserved claim.

criminal lawprocedure

Jerry Jones was charged with and convicted of first-degree premeditated murder with a firearm and possession of cocaine. On appeal, Jones argued that the trial court erred in denying his motion for judgment of acquittal due to insufficient evidence of premeditation and in admitting the victim's statements under the dying declaration hearsay exception. The appellate court affirmed the convictions, finding that the state's evidence—including expert testimony, the defendant's pretrial statements, and witness accounts—was sufficient to allow the jury to decide the issue of premeditation, and that the victim's statements were properly admitted because they were made when he feared imminent death with no hope of recovery.

criminal lawprocedure

Singh appealed his conviction for second degree murder with a firearm after a shooting during a confrontation with the victim. The issues on appeal were whether the trial court erred by giving a jury instruction on the lesser included offense of manslaughter that allegedly required an intent to kill, and whether it erred by excluding testimony from two defense witnesses about prior confrontations involving the victim. The court affirmed the conviction, holding that the manslaughter instruction was not fundamentally erroneous because it permitted conviction based on culpable negligence rather than intent, and that the excluded witness testimony was irrelevant to self-defense since there was no evidence Singh knew of those incidents. The jury had returned a verdict for second degree murder with a firearm after hearing evidence that Singh shot the victim in the back.

criminal lawprocedure

Edner Yeye was convicted of multiple charges, including three separate counts of leaving the scene of an accident, after his vehicle struck a series of parked cars during a single incident while fleeing police. The appellate court reversed two of the three convictions for leaving the scene of an accident. The court held that these multiple convictions violated double jeopardy protections because all counts arose from one criminal episode and one failure to stop. The relevant statute does not indicate legislative intent to authorize separate punishments in this situation, and under the Blockburger same-elements test, Yeye committed only a single offense.

criminal lawprocedure