Key West Criminal Lawyers

If you have been charged with a crime after being taken into custody or you have learned you are under investigation, a sense of anxiety is unavoidable. Although your situation might not be an enviable one, a clear and prompt assertion of your legal rights and skilled legal representation from reliable Key West criminal lawyers offers the best opportunity to protect your reputation, liberty, and future. Key West defense lawyers can review law enforcement procedures, evaluate witness statements, analyze forensic evidence, and forcefully challenges the prosecutor’s case. IMPORTANT: If you are arrested by the police or asked to participate in an interview with investigators, you should immediately exercise your right to remain silent and your right to have your attorney present.

Once you become aware that there are criminal charges pending against you in the state of Florida, one of the most important decisions that you will make will be which Key West criminal defense attorney to hire. This choice is critical and it is imperative that you choose a criminal defense attorney who will defend your best interests and who has a proven track record of successful outcomes to criminal cases. This choice can make the difference between paying an exorbitant amount of fines and serving a lengthy sentence in a state prison or having the charges reduced or possibly completely dropped altogether.

The legal defense team at Musca Law is dedicated to preserving your freedom and clearing your good name. Our Key West attorneys are focused and experienced. If you have been arrested or are the focus of an ongoing criminal investigation, then you need to take advantage of our free consultation. Acting quickly is going to be vital to the success of your case.

Criminal Attorneys in Monroe County

Criminal charges can threaten a person’s job, family stability, liberty, reputation, and financial well-being, but our Navarre criminal defense attorneys with over 150 years of combined experience provide aggressive opposition to the full range of criminal offenses, such as:

• Driving Under the Influence (DUI)
• Boating Under the Influence (BUI)
• DUI Manslaughter 
• Sexual Crimes
• Domestic Violence
• Child Pornography
• Injunctions
• Theft Offenses
• Serious Traffic Offenses
• Drug Offenses
• Violent Crimes
• White Collar Crimes
• Concealed Weapons
• Public Corruption
• Federal Crimes
• Possession of Stolen Property
• Juvenile Crimes
• Probation Violation
• Disorderly Conduct
• Obstruction of Justice
• Expungement
• Underage DUI

Professional Sex Crime Lawyers in Key West

For those that are the target of a criminal investigation or arrest for a sex-related offense, the punishment could include incarceration in prison/jail, psychological counseling/treatment programs, probation, and mandatory inclusion on the Florida sex offender registry. The harsh impact of registering as a sex offender affects those convicted of sex crimes long after they have fulfilled the terms of their sentence. An individual’s status as a “sex offender,” or “sex predator” for certain violent sex crimes, can be discovered by a simple web search. The site makes public the registrant’s crimes and address. While the defenses our sex crime lawyers in Key West utilize to defend clients are specifically determined based on the facts, defense strategies might include:

• False Identification
• Consent
• Lack of Specific Intent
• Unlawful Search & Seizure
• Violation of Miranda or Involuntary Confessions
• False Allegations

Florida sex crimes attorneys from Musca Law understand that even when you are up against a pile of convincing evidence, legal options are always available to you to help alleviate the hardship. Our primary goal is always the dismissal of all your charges. Failing that, we will strive diligently towards the dismissal of specific offenses or do our best to achieve a decreased sentence. It is essential that your sex crime charges are reduced to the least possible offense under Florida law because not only will that keep you from being legally required to register as a sex offender or a sexual predator, but it would also prevent you from being subject to the Jimmy Ryce Act,  where you must go before a panel of people who assess those regarded as sexually violent and decide if they are likely to commit further sex crimes.

Our sex crimes criminal defense attorneys at our Key West office in Florida will aggressively and skillfully protect all of our clients from the unseemly allegations of sexually based crimes. Offenders in Florida sex crimes cases need to have a qualified and highly determined defense attorney in their corner at all times until the matter has been resolved.

Local Monroe County DUI Lawyers

Although it is never a good idea to get behind the wheel of a car when you have had too much to drink, people from all walks of life and backgrounds occasionally make this mistake. Our Key West DUI lawyers adhere to the belief that a single mistake should not be allowed to dictate your future. We use investigators and experts in order to analyze every single aspect of an alleged DUI accident if one occurred and to review our client’s entire interaction with the police officer starting before the stop and extending through the formal chemical test and booking.

Driving Under the Influence in Key West (DUI) – Florida Statute, Section 316.193

Florida, like most other states, recognizes that there are legally two distinct forms of driving under the influence (DUI). If you are driving or “in actual physical control of a vehicle”, you can be prosecuted for DUI if you have a blood alcohol level (BAL) that exceeds .08 percent or your “normal faculties are impaired” by drugs or alcohol. See Florida Statutes, Section 316.193. The penalties for a DUI conviction will depend on the specific circumstances but could include things like incarceration, loss of your driver’s license, mandatory DUI school, probation, fines, and other expenses, probation, and a criminal record. Our Key West drunk driving attorneys have defended hundreds of people who have been accused of DUI, which has enabled us to develop many successful defense strategies against this type of charge, such as:

• Exposing improperly conducted standardized field sobriety tests (SFSTs)
• Presenting reasons for subpar performance of SFSTs like pain, illness, or poor lighting
• Establishing the officer’s initial stop of your vehicle was illegal because it was not based on “articulable facts” giving rise to “reasonable suspicion”
• Revealing the officer failed to comply with the strict procedures for conducting and evaluating SFSTs
• Showing the breathalyzer was not working properly or calibrated as required prior to a breath test
• Revealing the BAL of the driver was under the legal limit when pulled over but rose above this threshold at the time of the chemical test

Key West Domestic Violence Lawyers

When the police respond to a scene of alleged domestic violence, the purported aggressor will usually get arrested. The societal emphasis on family violence means that police officers and prosecutors feel intense pressure to resolve these cases and impose penalties. This political pressure often propels domestic violence cases forward based on nothing but the unsubstantiated claims of the accuser. The recent “Me Too” movement has exacerbated this issue by pushing the narrative that “victims should be believed.” The problem with this position is that some accusers are not “victims” but “attackers” who recognize the effectiveness of false allegations of domestic violence. These allegations can be used to compel the alleged perpetrator into submission because a conviction and/or domestic violence injunction could impair the accused’s parental rights, child time-share schedule, access to a jointly owned home, and employment by limiting firearm ownership rights.

Domestic Violence Defense in Key West

Domestic violence is defined by Florida Statutes, Section 741.28 to cover criminal offenses resulting in injury or a fatality involving parties in certain relationships that include:

• Parents who have a child in common
• Spouses or ex-spouses
• Individuals related by blood or marriage
• Parties living together as a family presently or in the past

Convictions of a domestic violence offense pose serious consequences because the accused often faces multiple charges. For example, the prosecutor typically will charge both domestic battery and domestic violence as separate offenses in a case involving an alleged punch against an accused’s spouse.

Criminal Defense Attorneys in Monroe County, Florida

Although no one wants to face the virtually unlimited power of the state or federal government in a criminal prosecution, aggressive and experienced representation from criminal defense attorneys in Key West can safeguard your rights and tenaciously defend your future.

Property and Theft Crimes

Property and theft crimes are one of the single most frequently charged crimes in Florida. The defense attorneys for theft and property crimes at Musca Law are dedicated to assisting our clients in securing the most desirable outcome to their case as possible.

The word “theft” envelops an entire spectrum of criminal acts, ranging from minor to incredibly severe. Florida law broadly defines theft as having occurred when somebody knowingly uses, takes, uses or attempts to use or take the personal property of someone else with the intention of permanently stripping the rightful owner of the property or securing that property for the use of a person to whom it is not entitled.

Alongside the central theft law which covers petty theft, grand theft, larceny, and embezzlement, various other laws cover other crimes that are theft-related. For instance robbery, burglary, credit card fraud, carjacking, retail theft, shoplifting, and retail theft. The seriousness of a theft charge in the state of Florida will be contingent on the value of the stolen property, the kind of property that was stolen, how many offenders were involved in the theft and whether or not the offender has any previous criminal convictions. Fines may be raised and prison sentences may be extended if the theft included taking the stolen property with the threat of the use of a firearm, by force, or by a gang.

According to the law, a theft charge must have very damning evidence in order to prove your guilt. A seasoned defense lawyer from Key West will be able to help you dispute these allegations in a successful manner.

Drug Crimes

According to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, there are 115,000 arrests for drug-related charges every year in Florida. These charges are primarily for lower-level drug crimes such as possession.

In the state of Florida, drug crimes are normally charged as either felonies or as misdemeanors, although certain offenses pertaining to drug possession could be deemed civil violations, depending on the laws of the city or county in which the crime took place. For instance, Broward County allows law enforcement officers to issue civil citations for low-level marijuana possession, but the officer does retain the right to go ahead and make an arrest if they should choose to do so.

Our Key West drug crime criminal defense attorneys have successfully defended numerous clients that had been arrested for these types of offenses, making good use of legal tactics that range from questioning the legality of a traffic stop and any subsequent search techniques to arranging favorable terms in the event of a plea bargain.

The sentences for drug-related crimes are subject to a wide array of varying factors, including whether or not an alleged sale even really took place, and the kind of drug involved and the quantity that was seized. Previous criminal charges will also factor into the equation. A previous conviction for a charge of drug trafficking can earn you decades behind bars, but even a conviction for a smaller charge will have the ability to change your life entirely. It will negatively impact your finances, your personal liberties and freedoms, and also your choices in where you are able to live, whether or not you receive an education and whether or not you are eligible to apply for certain jobs for the rest of your life. We here at Musca Law work diligently to reduce the negative impact that these type of drug allegations will have on your quality of life.

Musca Law

2011 Flagler Ave, 
Key West, FL 33040
(305) 395-2077

Appointment Required

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