Adam Farkas, a partner in the law practice of Farkas & Crowley of West Palm Beach, Florida, discusses one of the firm’s more unique and interesting cases involving an out-of-town client from Texas. After a little too much to drink at a night-before party, the client is not only arrested but shot several times by nervous police officers. As an employee of Lockheed Martin, he built Blackhawk helicopters and held a security clearance. He had never been in trouble with the law and had no prior record in either Florida or Texas. With the help of Adam Farkas, his court case was successfully handled with dismissal of most charges, and released with time served.
Both attorneys, Adam Farkas and Jacqueline Crowley, have considerable experience and strong legal backgrounds. Together they serve their clients in both criminal defense and family law cases. As Jacqueline says, you are getting two lawyers for the price of one.
Transcript:
A few years back, we had a pretty interesting case. We got hired by someone who will remain nameless, but he was from Texas. He was an older guy in his 50’s. He worked for Lockheed Martin building the Black Hawk helicopters, no criminal history or anything. It was around Christmastime, and he was getting ready to go home to do a hunt with his family for Christmas. He had his stuff on his bed, but that night, before he was leaving the following day, he – they were having a little bit of a get-together at his own house, his little condo pool, with the neighbors he knows and everybody. He’s there that night and everybody’s drinking, having a good time.
Obviously, he ends up having a little bit too much to drink, and so he thinks it’s funny when – he goes back to his condo. He gets his rifle. It’s not loaded, and he puts Christmas deer antlers on the front. He goes out naked with his rifle. Completely joking but waving it around to the point where some neighbors got really scared and freaked out. He’s plastered at this time, and they end up calling the police.
Two police officers show up that are clearly inexperienced, so what they do is they are screaming at it him to put the gun down. Meanwhile, the gun is already on the ground, and he’s just walking around naked. He comes closer to them and is standing over the rifle. They both scream, “Put it down.” Yet, it’s already down.
They both panic, and they shoot him numerous times, both of them. These two officers both shoot him numerous times, and neither one could tell me how many times they shot. What was funny is both of them testified that the gun was pointed at me when I fired, and the partner said the gun was pointed at me when I fired. The jury took that as, well, it can’t be pointed in both places, and they clearly panicked.
Here’s what ended up happening. There was also the other people at the apartment who were alleged victims, so they claim that the rifle was pointed at them and all this and all that. What ends up happening is he ends up getting arrested. He ends up being held in jail until his trial because he is charged with six counts of attempted first degree murder with a firearm and two counts of aggravated assault with a firearm on a law enforcement officer. What that did was it gave him minimum mandatories, as you can imagine. He didn’t fire his gun.
Each minimum mandatory, though, was 3 years so 3, 6, 9, 12, no criminal history. He had about 21 years minimum mandatory that he was facing if he went to trial. State attorney’s office offers him nine years in prison. This is a man who has never done anything wrong in his life. He has high security clearance from building Black Hawk helicopters. He’s in his 50s. He got shot numerous times.
It was one of those cases where we had to tell the client, listen, we got to just knuckle up and go to trial. Our trial strategy was, obviously, he was out there drunk doing stupid things and there was a gun out there. There’s a charge, improper exhibition of a weapon or a firearm, and that is a first-degree misdemeanor. Our strategy was we’ll go in there, and we get to admit guilt. We get credibility from the jury.
We say you know what? We’re here today because he was stupid. What did he do? He improperly exhibited his gun or firearm. It’s exactly why we have that statute, and you’ll notice in your jury packet form that it’s a lesser included offense.
We are accepting responsibility that this is what he did. He was guilty of improper exhibition of a weapon, and that’s what he should be found guilty for but not the attempted murders that have premeditation or had 10-20-Life attached. After some deliberation, sure enough, the jury comes back not guilty on the AGG assault on the firearm with the officers because their testimony did not match up at all and improper exhibition of a weapon on the six other counts. Obviously, that’s a one-year misdemeanor, so the state attorney thinks, okay, well, at least I’ll get six years.
When we get to sentencing, little did they know that improper exhibition of a weapon has no victims, so there’s no alleged victims. For the same incident, you can’t have six charges. The court was then forced to dismiss five out of the six charges, and he’s left with one misdemeanor, improper exhibition of a weapon, time served. The judge had to release him.
Farkas & Crowley are dedicated criminal defense attorneys who understand the needs of someone under arrest. They will fight to protect your rights, defend you against the charges, and stand up for you in court.
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