This is in response to State Attorney Angela Coreys misleading assertion that Florida law does not permit overcharging..
Unequivocally, there is absolutely no law on the books that can stop a prosecutor from either filing charges that are not aligned with the particular facts or prevent a prosecutor from filing charges that should never have been filed at all.
Two basic potential abuses of prosecutorial discretion must be examined when considering overcharging.
WHEN DISCRETION IS OUT OF LINE
First, filing charges where the hard facts of what actually happened are outside of the legislative intent of the particular law being applied. Two excellent examples are the George Zimmerman and Michael Dunn cases.
The facts in Zimmerman called for manslaughter at best. Had the prosecution pursued manslaughter, the jury would have had a better opportunity to understand the facts, evidence and the law.
However, because the state spent so much time on second degree murder, the jury never heard a clear case on the lesser included manslaughter charge because the prosecution wasted so much time stretching the facts to prove second-degree murder.
The same occurred in the Dunn case where the overcharge was first-degree murder. This was so although the actual facts suggested second-degree murder and three counts of attempted second- degree murder. The results in both cases speak for themselves.
The second way to overcharge is filing charges against a person who should not have been prosecuted at all for what allegedly happened.
The Alexander case is a classic example.
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Guest column: The State Attorney's scorched earth approach to prosecuting is unwise