It was one of the two big court decisions of the year for Miami-Dade Public Defender Carlos Martinez, but he wasn't in town to celebrate.
Instead, he was on a vacation cruise.
"I joked at the office — you watch, it's going to be when I'm out of town on a boat in the middle of the Caribbean," he said Thursday after the Florida Supreme Court ruled his assistants could reject additional criminal cases when they're swamped.
Martinez, who had been anxiously awaiting the opinion since March, spoke to the Daily Business Review via Skype, which his office also uses to save time on police depositions and jailhouse interviews.
He chuckled at the timing of the opinion. "It's [as] just life would have it," he said.
In March, the U.S. Supreme Court handed Martinez's office another victory when it ruled police dogs cannot sniff for drugs from the front porch of a home without a search warrant.
Comments