Body Cams are Coming to the Charlotte County Sheriff’s Department

Crimcourts has long advocated for expanded use of body cams by law enforcement agencies. They have been added at some major departments in Southwest Florida with a great deal of success, including city police for Fort Myers, Cape Coral and Punta Gorda. The Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office has been working on instituting body worn cameras for it’s deputies, and with funding in place, expects to have them in use by the end of the summer. We applaud this effort by Sheriff Prummell and his department.

Not only do body cams provide for accountability for law enforcement, they also provide protection when there is an officer wrongly accused, as we’ve covered before on crimcourts. They can provide more evidence in cases, especially DUI cases that are very subjective. And when officers do violate rights, that can help lead to accountability, as we saw this week in Minneapolis. Another case seems to demonstrate the live risk of an officer where a body cam shows that a suspect who was shot was armed. While undoubtedly a tragedy, body worn cameras will help accurately determine the facts to resolve the investigation. As I’ve said in this space many times before, the pros far outweigh the cons.

We are glad to see CCSO is joining the ranks of camera wearing agencies, and encourage other agencies to do so, as well.

Man Charged with Killing Fort Myers Officer Intends to Claim Insanity

Wisner Desmaret

Wisner Desmaret, the man accused of taking the gun from and killing officer Adam Jobbers-Miller in 2018, has filed a notice of intent to rely on insanity as a defense in the case. This was expected, as he was caught on the scene, as well as on body cams, and Mr. Desmaret has an extensive mental health history. Desmaret had previously been declared incompetent to stand trial on prior offenses. Insanity is different from incompetence, and is an affirmative defense. That means the Defendant concedes the underlying action, and then the burden is on him to prove that he should be excused by the defense. To demonstrate insanity in Florida is difficult to prove: not only must the defense demonstrate the “mental infirmity, disease, or defect”, the Defense must show that the issue was so great that the Defendant did not know what he was doing or that what he was doing was wrong. It’s insufficient to merely claim that one is insane… it has to be proved that the mental issue is very extreme.

Desmaret could be facing the death penalty if he is found guilty.

Governor DeSantis may have to Testify in Naples Election Hacking Case

Anthony Steven Guevara was arrested and charged with two felonies for allegedly hacking into the voter registration system, and changing the address information for Governor Ron DeSantis back in October, shortly before the election. DeSantis found out when he showed up at the poll to vote, and was initially turned away (though he was eventually permitted to vote). Guevara is being prosecuted in Collier County, where he lives.

Anthony Steven Guevara

It was revealed this week that Mr. Guevara’s attorney Mike Carr has sought to subpoena Governor DeSantis to testify. At a pretrial conference this week, he sought to have the judge order the Governor to appear, anticipating that he would not. The judge declined to do in advance, but indicated he may order him to comply with the subpoena at trial. The prosecutor countered that service by certified mail may not be sufficient or verifiable, which may mean that the Governor is not compelled to testify.

The Defense had sought to resolve the case by putting Mr. Guevara into the diversion program, also known as deferred prosecution. Some great reporting by Stefany Matat reveals that the prosecutor told the defense that they were not offering diversion because Governor DeSantis would not agree to it. The Florida Constitution requires that prosecutors take the victim’s wishes into account, so it is not unusual that they would decline to offer diversion where a victim did not consent. The State did make a probation plea offer for 24 months, but that offer was set to expire earlier this week. (The details of the plea negotiations are a little bit of a peek behind the curtains that is not usually available on a criminal case, which ups the interest level, here.) The case has been set for a possible trial the week of April 26, though trials are very restricted right now due to Covid, and could end up being pushed back. It remains to be seen if the Governor will be in attendance, as sought by Guevara’s defense.