Browning Law News Blog

Deandre Somerville overslept on the day he was supposed to show up in court for jury duty. To chastise him, the Florida judge originally sentenced him to 10 days in jail, a year of probation, a fine, and 150 hours of community service.  Somerville was picked as a juror for a civil automobile accident negligence case on August 20. Then, when he was supposed to return to court for the trial, he slept through his alarm and went to work instead of going to the court or calling the bailiff.  He works part time as a recreations specialist leading youth activities at a local park. Then he spends the rest of his time taking care of his grandfather who lost 50% of his mobility due to a heart attack.  After three weeks of not showing up for jury duty, the police arrived at his house. He was required to have a hearing with a judge. At his hearing, Somerville admitted to oversleeping and apologized. He said that he had never been in a courtroom and didn't know the seriousnes...

Prosecutors have criminally charged a homeless man and a New Jersey couple for misusing funds from a viral feel-good fundraising story that raised over $400,000 The homeless veteran Johnny Bobbitt Jr. claimed that Mark D'Amico and McClure misused the funds from the GoFundMe campaign that was meant for him after he used the last $20 bill to fill McClure's gas tank when she was stranded on the roadside in Philadelphia.   Burlington County District Attorney Scott Coffina told reporters this afternoon that the story Bobbitt told was a hoax.  Bobbitt, McClure, and D'Amico are each charged with second degree theft by deception and conspiracy to commit theft by deception. The charges could hold a sentence of 5-10 years in jail. Things started to go awry when Bobbitt sued the couple for allegedly withholding the $400,000 that the couple collected from the GoFundMe fundraiser. The full amount after the fees taken out from the site was around $367,000. An attorney a...

Anna Sorokin was a young, up and coming heiress who traveled in the best celebrity circles and left $100 tips as if it was pocket change. Behind all of the glitz and glamour was a con who fooled friends, banks, and hotels to see how the other half lived. Sorokin lived in luxury New York hotel rooms she couldn't afford and promised a friend an all-expense-paid trip abroad, but stuck her with the $62,000 bill. She also faked bank statements in an attempt to get a $22 million loan. Sorokin is on trial for grand larceny and theft of services charges alleging she swindled various people and businesses out of $275,000 within ten months. She claimed to be a wealthy German heiress with approximately $60 million being held abroad. Prosecutor Catherine McCaw said that Sorokin was born in Russia and doesn't have a cent to her name. Apparently, Sorokin never intended to commit a crime according to Sorokin's attorney Todd Spodek. Spodek said that she was easily seduced by the hi...

Civil rights attorney Larry Krasner was elected in a landslide last year and became the new district attorney of Philadelphia. Across the country, promises of reforming the criminal justice system had gotten many people elected as DA. However, when they do become elected, their reforms are slow and disappointing. Krasner ran his campaign on a platform of radical overhaul. In the three months, he has kept to his word. During his first week, he fired 31 prosecutors from the DA's office because they weren't committed to his changes. His next change was obeying a court order to release a list of 29 officers from the Philadelphia Police Department that were on a "do not call list", which means that they were tainted to the extent that they would be considered unreliable witnesses. The police officers on the list had either been charged with crimes or found responsible for misconduct including lying to their fellow investigators, filing false reports, using excessive fo...

Dasha Fincher is suing Monroe County, Georgia, two deputies, and the company Sirchie, which manufactures a roadside drug test popular with law enforcement for false and malicious arrest. Fincher is seeking equitable relief and monetary damages.  Fincher spent three months in jail after a car she was riding in was pulled over by cops who thought an old piece of blue cotton candy was methamphetamine. A crime lab found out that they were wrong.  The two sheriff's deputies said they pulled over the car on New Year's Eve in 2016 because the windows were tinted, but they later admitted the windows were legal. They said they found a clear plastic bag which contained a blue substance, spherical in shape, which was located in the floor board. Fincher and the driver said that it was just a bag of blue cotton candy.  The officers arrested Fincher and the driver after the roadside test said the substance was positive for methamphetamine. Fincher was charged with traffic...

52 year old James Shields and his girlfriend, 59 year old Brenda Reichel, were driving to the beach when the got the warning on their phones that a missile was on its way to Hawaii in January 2018. Shields suffered from a heart attack shortly after. Now he is suing the state citing that the alert triggered his medical emergency. 38 minutes after the alert went out, the alert was retracted after admitting that it was sent on accident. However, Shields and Reichel believed it to be true. They had decided that there wasn't much they could do to protect themselves, so they went to die at the beach. The couple called their children for their final goodbyes. Reichel's son is a member of the Army National Guard, and he said the threat was real, so it confirmed their belief that the threat was real. Shortly after, Shields started feeling severe pain in his chest. He tried to cool down by going into the water, but when that didn't help, they went to the hospital. After they ...

California legislature is putting forth a bill in 2020 that would bar the juvenile justice system from hearing most cases of children younger than 12 similar to legislation that was just passed in Massachusetts this year. It has caused backlash from district attorneys. California currently has no minimum age that would prevent courts from hearing cases of children charged with criminal offenses. It would require counties in the state to develop the "least restrictive" alternatives to the juvenile justice system.  This could mean a heavier reliance on the dependency court system, where child protective agencies with providing service to vulnerable children. The bill asserts that children younger than 12 are too young to enter the justice system. All states have an established age of jurisdiction, which is the maximum age of juvenile court jurisdiction(usually 18 years old). It is the age where a young person stops being eligible for the rehabilitative services in ...

Patients of Accure Dental & Dentures wondered what happened to their dentist. They couldn't seem to get a hold of anyone who worked there, so they called the Idaho Board of Dentistry. The owner, dentist Tera Greene, went silent. Patients weren't able to get their records. Some had prepaid dental work and didn't know if they would ever get a refund. Susan Miller, executive director of the Idaho Board of Dentistry, said they started getting calls from patients saying that there were signs on the door and the doctor wasn't there. Apparently, there was supposed to be another doctor to take patients, but they found that the agreement was never fully executed, so the patients were left in the air. The board has stepped in by seizing the patient records, so the patients could take their records to their new dentist. The board has talked to at least three dozen former patients who didn't have a new dentist. Patients have complained to the Idaho Attorney Genera...

A judge sentenced David Berry Jr., who illegally killed hundreds of deer, to watch Disney's Bambi once a month during the year he spends in jail. Berry was sentenced in early December in what may be Missouri's largest poaching case ever. Lawrence County Prosecutor Don Trotter said that he didn't have a problem with the cinematic penalty if it gets the point across to Berry. Berry's defense attorney argued for leniency in sentencing because he had recently has a baby, but the judge responded with the legal obligation to watch the movie. Officials don't have an exact count of how many deer were killed the the years long poaching operation because Berry destroyed the evidence. Trotter said that in the last three months of 2015, the Berry family killed around 100 deer according to the photos on their phones. The family used the heads as trophies in their homes. Trotter said the Berrys threatened the lives of people who tried to stop them.  Berry Jr. and ...