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Legal analyst on state attorney prosecutions: ‘If weight is not there, can’t bring the charge’

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — Osceola County Sheriff Marcos Lopez announced Thursday that his deputies arrested 73 people last year for trafficking illegal narcotics, but none were prosecuted – a blame that falls on the state attorney.

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However, State Attorney Monique Worrell said the sheriff’s position isn’t true.

It comes a day after Worrell defending herself during a news conference for not prosecuting a teen arrested for a deadly shooting outside of a football game at Jones High School.

A legal analyst told Channel 9 that, putting aside the back and forth, the State Attorney has to follow the law, and if there isn’t enough to prosecute a case, she can’t move forward with it.

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Worrell said, in response to Lopez, that her office has started going through cases from 2022, and found they prosecuted two for drug trafficking.

Legal analyst Bill Sheaffer said the issues between the two aren’t cut and dry.

“Often times, police officers make an arrest but the state attorney has to consider, ‘Can I prove this case beyond and to the exclusion of every reasonable doubt?’ If they can’t, the Supreme Court of Florida has mandated they not file charges,” Sheaffer said.

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Worrell said that in two of the cases the sheriff brought up, prosecutors found that there was no weigh to information from FDLE, a requirement in order to charge for drug trafficking.

“If that weight is not there, then the state attorney’s office can’t bring that charge,” Sheaffer said. “And if they did bring such a charge. and even if there was a guilty verdict. what would happen is the appellate court would reverse the conviction on appeal.”

See the full story in the video above.

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Adam Poulisse, WFTV.com

Adam Poulisse joined WFTV in November 2019.