Clearwater Criminal Defense Law Blog

A Pasco County judge ordered a new penalty phase for a man on Florida's Death Row last week based upon a motion for relief filed by Bjorn Brunvand. Senior Judge William Webb granted the order for resentencing in favor of Phillup Alan Partin, who was sentenced to death in December, 2008 by a jury vote of 9-3 after being found guilty of first-degree murder in July of that year. While non-unanimous jury votes were frequently allowed to advise judges to pass death sentences in years past in Florida, a United States Supreme Court ruling last year determined that Florida's capital punishment...

A Wesley Chapel woman was apprehended last week after police say she left the scene of an accident she caused while driving drunk. Florida Highway Patrol troopers say Wendy Ann Rogers was driving east on State Road 56 at Maple Parkway when her 2013 Ford Edge rear-ended the 2017 Ford F-250 of James Pittman, also of Wesley Chapel, shortly after eight o' clock last Tuesday evening. The 21-year-old Pittman was stopped at a red light when the 48-year-old Rogers struck his vehicle with hers, according to troopers. They say she then left the scene of the accident and was apprehended a short time...

A Florida Supreme Court ruling has cleared the way for a retrial of a former executive at Jabil Circuit, Inc. who is accused of murdering his wife and her friend. Patrick Albert Evans of Saint Petersburg Beach was a vice president at Jabil in 2008, and married to Elizabeth, a sales director for the firm. She filed for divorce from Patrick that year and moved to a separate residence. Authorities say that he confronted Elizabeth and coworker Jerry B. Taylor at her condo after the pair had gone on a date, firing upon and killing both. Evans first stood trial in 2011, where he was convicted of...

Eight people were injured and a ninth was killed in a fiery car crash that officers of the Florida Highway Patrol say was the result of a Pinellas Park man drunkenly driving the vehicle several of them occupied. Eighteen-year-old Donavan Leigh Patterson is accused by authorities of driving his 2008 Dodge Caliber while intoxicated last week. They say Patterson had five others in his vehicle at the time, all of whom were minors, when he struck the Ford F-250 driven by Dalton Cox. The crash, which occurred at the intersection of Curlew Road and McMullen-Booth Road in Oldsmar, occurred at two...

A Lakeland dance instructor was sentenced to a dozen years in Florida prison last Monday after being found guilty of DUI manslaughter. Deputies from the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office say Brian A. DeFreitas was driving home in early October 2015 when he collided with the pick-up truck being driven by Maria Luisa Olivas. They say he was driving his Dodge Avenger home from work at speeds of over 90 mph that evening on State Road 60 in Plant City when he struck the 45-year-old Olivas' vehicle. The collision allegedly sent the truck tumbling, ejecting Olivas and injuring her two children,...

A St. Petersburg man is dead and a Tampa man is facing a charge of DUI manslaughter after a collision last Sunday afternoon in Pinellas Park. According to police, Anthony Robert Davis was driving a blue Ford Mustang on Gandy Boulevard at Grand Avenue at around 4:40 that afternoon when, upon proceeding through the intersection after the traffic signal turned green when he attempted a lane change. Police say he turned left against a red left-turn signal at the intersection, crossing in front of a late-model black Mustang convertible driven by Roshell Rivas and a Harley-Davidson motorcycle...

After being sentenced to life in prison for first-degree murder almost three decades ago, a man convicted of a Polk county murder has been given the chance to put new evidence before a court that he and his attorneys believe may prove to exonerate him. Leo Robert Schofield, Jr. was 23 years old when he was sentenced to a lifetime of incarceration for the murder of his first wife Michelle Saum. Michelle was eighteen when, after leaving her job at a fast-food restaurant, she was stabbed twenty-six times. Her stepfather found her corpse three days later in a canal. No physical evidence linked...

An argument last week landed one St. Petersburg man in jail facing charges of first-degree murder and another in the morgue. According to authorities, Thomas Peruchi drove to the St. Petersburg home of Trevor Scott last Monday, initially intending only to pick him up. However, police say the 23-year-old Peruchi assailed the 22-year-old Scott with a knife instead, stabbing him. The mortally wounded Scott was able to exit Peruchi's vehicle, at which point Scott fled the scene. Scott was taken to Bayfront Health St. Petersburg, where he succumbed to his injuries. As Scott was being taken to the...

Deputies of the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office made an arrest last Thursday in the 2015 slaying that ended an alleged love triangle. Priscilla "Dawn" Houck of St. Petersburg is alleged by authorities to have shot to death the long-time boyfriend of a woman with whom she was having an intimate relationship. According to detectives, Christopher Wayne Rotenberger impregnated his girlfriend Stephanie Dalrymple while she was in a relationship with Houck, and the resulting friction between Rotenberger and Houck escalated from a fistfight to premeditated murder. The 24-year-old Rotenberger was...

A corporal of the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office was terminated last month after deputies from her department arrested her on suspicion of DUI. JoAnna Michelle Barker was stopped by deputies at Gulf Boulevard and Coral Avenue at a quarter to two o'clock on the morning of February 20. They say her 2013 Chevrolet SUV was traveling 67 miles per hour in a 35-mile-per-hour zone. Upon yielding to deputies, Barker informed them that she was an off-duty detention corporal in the PCSO's Department of Detention and Corrections. They say the 35-year-old showed signs of impairment at the time, and...