Criminal Defense
Search, seizure, warrant, probable-cause, and suppression issues in Florida criminal practice.
The Florida Supreme Court affirmed the circuit court’s summary denial of James Aren Duckett’s sixth successive postconviction motion and his second post-warrant motion for DNA testing. The Court held the DNA motion was procedurally barred and also failed because the items identified did not contain testable DNA. It also rejected Duckett’s due-process claim because he did not show bad faith by the State in the testing that consumed the earlier sample.
The Florida Supreme Court affirmed the denial of Dominick A. Occhicone’s second successive postconviction motion and denied his motion for a stay of execution. The Court rejected his public-records, equal-protection, age-based Eighth Amendment, execution-pace, and seven-to-five jury recommendation claims. The decision emphasizes the Court’s application of colorable-claim, timeliness, and existing constitutional limits in post-warrant capital litigation.