If you have been arrested and convicted of a crime the Fort Lauderdale criminal appeals process may work in your favor. As a Fort Lauderdale criminal appeals lawyer I have been successful on many criminal appaeals but, not all. The criminal appeals process is a long process and tedious as well as analytical intensive. We are looking for an error at the trial level. This si not a re trial to prove you not guilty. You already went thru this process. What we have to do now is fine comb the entire procedure and see if there was an error within the process or with a decsion the judge made.
The process goes like this:
- Filing a notice of appeal
- Preparing the record for appeal
- Preparing the initial brief
- Answer brief and reply brief
- Request for oral argument
- Waiting for a ruling:
- Rehearing:
- Final mandate
- 30 days to seek a review by the Florida Supreme Court.
- 60 days after the mandate to file a motion to mitigate the sentence
We are looking for errors:
Fundamental Error
An error which goes to the heart of the case, and which can be considered by the court "in the interest of justice," even if the appellant fails to properly raise the issue on appeal.
Harmful Error
An error which the appellate court concludes had a probable impact on the outcome of the trial.
Harmless Error
An error which the appellate court concludes had no effect on the outcome of a trial. For example, if a defendant confesses to a murder, and the prosecution has his fingerprints on the murder weapon, the use of inadmissible "hearsay" testimony is likely to be found "harmless," due to the "overwhelming evidence" against the defendant.
Invited Error
Where the appellant asks the trial court to make a ruling which is actually erroneous, that party cannot later appeal the trial court's decision on the basis of that error.
Reversible Error
An error which causes the appellate court to overturn the lower court's decision is a "reversible error."
Keep In Mind Criminal Appeals Are Not Easy To Win
Very few criminal trial appeals are successful. We need the appeals court not only to find that an error occurred, but also that the error was clear and serious enough to affect the outcome of your trial.
For a review of your case contact The Law Offices of Guy Seligman today.