Police Stops, Searches & Your Rights

Body camera and dash camera policies vary widely from one Polk County police department to the next, and that patchwork can matter a great deal when footage becomes evidence — or when there isn’t any.

Florida law lets an officer pull you over on surprisingly little — but “surprisingly little” is not “anything at all.” Here is what the law actually requires, and what happens when police skip that requirement.

Florida requires people convicted of felonies to register with the local sheriff within 48 hours of entering a county — a separate legal obligation from any sex offender registry, with its own exemptions and its own criminal penalty for noncompliance.

Three words decide the direction of a criminal case: guilty, not guilty, or no contest. Most people assume a no contest plea avoids a conviction — it doesn’t, and understanding what it actually protects you from is what makes the choice worth thinking through with counsel.

Florida’s husband-wife privilege can keep confidential marital communications out of court, but it has real limits — jail calls, third parties, and crimes against a spouse or child can all break it.

Your phone holds more personal information than your house does. Florida and federal courts have said, repeatedly, that police need a warrant before they can go through it — and the rule just got reinforced by a brand-new Supreme Court decision.