Felony Defense

Geiger Law defends felony charges in Flagler County and throughout the Seventh Judicial Circuit — Flagler, Volusia, St. Johns and Putnam counties. Felony cases demand in-person appearances, a working knowledge of the local judges and prosecutors, and an attorney who has tried serious cases to verdict. Andrea Burns spent twelve years prosecuting felonies in the Queens County District Attorney's Office, including in its Homicide Trials Bureau. She knows how the state builds a felony case because she built them.

How Florida grades felonies

Florida divides felonies into classes, and the class sets the maximum sentence:

• Third degree — up to 5 years in state prison and a $5,000 fine. Possession of most controlled substances, grand theft under $20,000, felony battery, aggravated assault, driving while license suspended as a habitual traffic offender.
• Second degree — up to 15 years and a $10,000 fine. Aggravated battery, burglary of a dwelling, sale of certain drugs, grand theft between $20,000 and $100,000.
• First degree — up to 30 years and a $10,000 fine, or life where the statute provides it. Robbery with a weapon, drug trafficking in larger quantities, burglary with an assault or battery.
• Life and capital felonies — life imprisonment, or for a capital felony, life or death.

The maximum is rarely the sentence. What actually drives a Florida felony sentence is the Criminal Punishment Code scoresheet: points for the primary offense, any additional offenses, prior record, victim injury and legal status at the time. Above 44 points a prison sentence is presumed; at or below it, the court may impose a non-prison sanction. A great deal of felony defense is work on the scoresheet — contesting how an offense is scored, the prior record the state claims, and whether a downward departure is available.

Minimum mandatory sentences

Some charges remove the judge's discretion entirely. Drug trafficking is defined by weight, not by intent to sell, and carries minimum mandatory terms of three, seven, fifteen or twenty-five years depending on the quantity. Florida's 10-20-Life statute imposes a ten-year minimum for possessing a firearm during certain felonies, twenty for discharging it, and twenty-five years to life for injuring someone with it. Where a minimum mandatory is on the table, the charge the case is resolved to matters more than anything else about it.

What we do first

Bond and first appearance come before anything else; we work to get you out and keep you out while the case is pending. Then we go to the evidence: the stop, the search, the warrant, the statements, the identification. Felony cases are built on paperwork and on the way it was gathered, and a suppressed search or an unlawfully obtained statement frequently takes the state's case apart. Florida also gives defendants a right most states do not — to take depositions of the state's witnesses before trial — and we use it before deciding whether a case should be negotiated or tried.

The consequences beyond the sentence

A felony conviction in Florida costs you the right to possess a firearm, suspends your right to vote until the sentence is complete, and bars many professional licenses outright. Where adjudication was entered it cannot be sealed or expunged, and it is visible to every employer and landlord who runs a background check. A withhold of adjudication, where one is available, preserves options a conviction closes for good — which is why it is often the most important term in a negotiated resolution.