Domestic Violence Trial: Dismissed

No court on Monday. No jury selection, no battery trial. Why? A prosecutor did the right thing. After far more months of effort than it should have required:

Full case number, personal identification information and fact pattern redacted. Here is the problem with Florida criminal law. 

This domestic violence case should have never been charged. However, it really isn't the police officer's fault: they are required by statute to determine a "primary aggressor" and then somebody is going to jail. That's the law in Florida. If the police are called on a domestic, someone goes to jail.

And when it was investigated, guess what we learned: "the witness did not observe the events that occurred within the premises."  

Also - this is omitted from the Nolle Prosequi -  there was no "victim" in the case, thus no desire to testify. 

The State really tried to crush a Pre-Trial Diversion out of my client. This is now a common practice of how bad cases are handled by the government - a diversion offer where there should be an unconditional dismissal. We had to fight for this result.

Yet at the end of the day, because we were absolutely ready for trial, for the second time in two weeks, a false domestic violence charge was dismissed. When confronted with the facts, the State Attorney agreed to do the right thing on a charge they prosecute seriously.