Richard Hornsby
"This brings me to my professional opinion – from a professional standpoint Judge Perry’s order to pay the State’s attorney fees is clearly prohibited by existing case law. Specifically, absent statutory authority, a trial court has no legal authority to require either a prosecutor or a defense attorney to pay “attorney fees” or “court costs” to the other side or to the court. See State v. Nelson, 27 So. 3d 758 (Fla. 3d DCA 2010) (“The trial court does not have inherent authority to assess costs against the State Attorney’s Office in criminal cases.”
; Williams v. State, 596 So. 2d 758 (Fla. 5th DCA 1992) (“It is well established that a court lacks the power to impose costs in a criminal case unless specifically authorized by statute;” dealing with circuit wide practice of fining defendants for wasting judicial resources by waiting until day of trial to plea.).
If Judge Perry wanted to legally fine Jose Baez, he would have had to hold him in contempt and hold a contempt hearing. See State v. Shelton, 584 So. 2d 1118 (Fla. 5th DCA 1991) (“Only through the use of criminal contempt procedures, direct or indirect, can a trial court assess fines or costs against an attorney in a criminal case.”
. However Judge Perry specifically stated that he was not finding Jose Baez in contempt – for now. Thus his order requiring Jose Baez to pay the State Attorney’s office $583.73 was illegal."
Richard Hornsby is always right on the facts and right on the law in this matter, so I will defer to him and say I may be wrong. He is the criminal defense expert in Orlando, so he comes from a place of
knowing where I come from a place of hope.:seeya: Nevertheless, I still hope the judge stands firm.
I couldn't care less about the six hundred bucks, I care about the court order for all of the experts to file reports being followed, that is the part I want upheld.
http://blog.richardhornsby.com/category/casey-anthony/
Thank you flip flop for posting this, it is very instuctive!!! Thank you so much! I just have faith that the judge has an agle that wasn't readily apparent to Mr. Hornsby. He does not seem to ever wing it, he quotes too often from case law to worry me that he isn't on solid growd. We are all human, but I have faith he will figure it out in a way that does not cause an appeal to succeed, at the end of the day. Judge Perry did not get to his position he holds by mistake. He KNOWS what he is doing. I am sure he thought about it very seriously before imposing the sanctions. I feel confident about him and his rulings. He has only been reversed one half of one time. That record speaks for itself.
Again, I do not care about the fine, I want to see the expert reports. DO WE HAVE THOSE YET?!!!!
