State Court Criminal Case Achievements
Crimes prosecuted by the State of Florida can be as serious as crimes prosecuted by the federal government. Val Rodriguez has practiced in state criminal courts for almost 25 years, and is Board Certified by the Florida Bar in the area of Criminal Trial Law. He has handled hundreds of state criminal cases to completion, and oftentimes has achieved “not guilty” verdicts, verdicts for lesser offenses, or beneficial plea bargains.
Some of those recent cases include:
Val Rodriguez negotiated a plea recently for a client indicted in Operation Dirtywater, resulting in no more than a misdemeanor conviction where the client originally faced 20 years imprisonment for “official misconduct.”
Val Rodriguez was able to have charges dismissed for two defendants who were alleged to have committed grand theft by not removing their homestead exemptions from properties rented out through H.U.D.
K.A. was found guilty of murder but was spared the death penalty in 2005. Two experts testified that he was legally insane at the time of the double homicides at a local construction site. This was Val Rodriguez’s first death penalty case.
T.A. was tried two times on attempted murder of a law enforcement officer. After the second prosecution, he was convicted only of aggravated assault and received time served. Later, the City of West Palm Beach paid him civil damages for the improper shooting of him in the back during the arrest.
S.H. was accused of attempted murder of his live-in girlfriend at a local mobile home park. The defense was that she tried to kill herself by stabbing herself in the back. S.H. was ACQUITTED of all charges.
G.V., originally charged with a vehicular homicide of a bar patron who attacked his truck, was facing 45 years imprisonment, but was cleared by a jury of the homicide charge on the grounds of self-defense, and was later sentenced to 4 year sentence for a misdemeanor culpable negligence and felony fleeing the scene of the accident; he was released in August 2008 from state prison, and was reunited with his children and now supports them. (See Palm Beach Post article titled: Man Who Fled Faces Prison in Bar Patron’s Death, published on January 12, 2006).
Over the last 25 years, Val Rodriguez has provided effective and superb representation in state courts, and has never been afraid to back down or challenge the State in proving the case. Indeed, in state court, the primary goal is to convince the jury that the evidence is not sufficient for a conviction — jurors are asked to determine whether they have strong abiding convictions of guilt or whether the evidence simply creates a reasonable doubt. Val Rodriguez has convinced many juries that reasonable doubt exists, and for that reason, many clients are acquitted or convicted of much less serious charges.
