Criminal Defense
Since 1993
Since 1993
Resisting an Officer Without Violence Gets Its Own Diversion Program
If you’re a sports fan, how many times have you watched your team lose to a worse team? Think about it. The best team lost the game. It happens all the time. Sure, we assume that the best team always wins–but that’s not how the world works. There is an element of chance involved.
There are now great statistics on this for poker players. With so much poker being played online, the poker computers that host the matches can actually see whether or not the best hand wins.
So, how often does the best hand win?
The best hand wins 12% of the time.
So, what are the chances that the State Attorney’s Office will ever make a policy that would benefit someone arrested for a crime? Well, I’ve been defending criminal cases since 1993, and with that sample set, we can say that some progress has been made with DUI diversion and Battery DV diversion. Two things that didn’t exist when I first started defending DUI’s and domestic violence cases.
Now, we have some good news to add to that very short list. Orange and Osceola County’s State Attorney, Aramis Ayala. Ms. Ayala recently announced a new diversion program for resisting an officer without violence charge. The new program will lead to your resisting charge to be dismissed or nolle prossed if you qualify.
Here’s how to qualify.
First, your resisting an officer charge must be in Orange or Osceola County. Second, the resisting charge can be the only charge, or it can come paired with a drug charge. If there are any more charges attached to it, you do not qualify for this diversion program.
For most diversion programs, a client must have a clean criminal history to participate. But that is not necessarily the case with this resisting an officer without violence diversion program. You may have a prior criminal history to enter this program, but you cannot have taken the program within the last six months.
If your attorney can get you into the program, completing the program is not complicated. The State Attorney’s Office has a video on their website, and you can view it for free. Once you’ve viewed the video you’ll be able to print a completion certificate. The video only takes about half an hour to watch, and your attorney will have to present the completion certificate to the prosecutor and then your case is dropped. Done.