Homicide Lawyer in Orlando

Providing Criminal Defense Services Against Murder Charges

Panella Law Firm Accepts Cases Throughout Florida

If you were arrested and charged with homicide, it’s essential that you contact an experienced criminal defense attorney immediately so you have a chance to avoid the severe consequences that come with a criminal conviction. Depending on your specific murder charge, you could be sentenced to life in prison or even the death penalty. This is why you need legal help from skilled Orlando homicide lawyers who understand what’s at stake for you and will work hard to prove that you’re not guilty as charged.

At Panella Law Firm, our criminal defense attorneys truly care about the outcome of your case. Over the years, we’ve aggressively fought serious criminal charges for numerous clients, helping them avoid life-changing penalties when they faced murder charges. Contact our Orlando law firm to schedule your free consultation with dedicated murder defense lawyers.

What Are the Possible Homicide Charges in Florida?

The right criminal defense angle for your case will depend on what you’ve been charged with, so your criminal defense lawyer will ensure you understand your homicide charge at the beginning of your case. The homicide charges you might face in Florida include:

• First-degree murder
• Second-degree murder
• Third-degree murder
• Voluntary manslaughter
• Involuntary manslaughter

All of these accusations fall under homicide charges, because homicide is defined as one person killing someone else. However, homicide is not always considered a crime, since sometimes a person kills someone else in self-defense. This is why homicide charges are classified into different categories depending on what circumstances led to the crime, with intent and motive being important details to consider before charges are decided.

In Florida, homicide charges are typically classified as either murder or manslaughter. Murder charges are the most severe accusations you can face because they state that you intentionally took someone else’s life. In the Florida court system, murder charges are broken down into first, second, and third-degree charges.

On the other hand, a manslaughter charge suggests that you unintentionally killed someone else. Since it’s assumed that you didn’t mean to take someone’s life and didn’t plan out the crime beforehand, manslaughter is a less serious charge than murder, but it can still result in prison time if you’re convicted. For this reason, you should contact Orlando criminal defense lawyers for legal guidance whether you’ve been accused of murder or manslaughter.

What Are the Degrees of Murder in Florida?

The criminal justice system in Florida categorizes murder charges as first, second, or third-degree. First-degree murder is the most serious charge, and this is reflected by the chance of life imprisonment or the death penalty if convicted. However, second and third-degree murder charges can also lead to several years of prison time, so it’s essential that you hire an experienced criminal defense lawyer for your Florida murder case. As you await your free case review at our law office, consider the differences between the three types of murder charges.

First-Degree Murder

The most serious charge is first-degree murder, which is a murder that was premeditated. This means you’re accused of planning the murder ahead of time, with the intent to end the victim’s life.

However, in some cases, you can be charged with this crime even if it’s clear there was no planning or intent to murder. For example, if you unintentionally killed someone while committing a different offense, such as arson, armed robbery, kidnapping, or aggravated abuse, you could be charged with murder in the first degree.

The punishment for this felony is often life imprisonment. If there are aggravating factors in the case, you could end up with life in prison without the possibility of parole, or even the death penalty. If there are no aggravating factors, you could be imprisoned with the possibility of parole in the future. Either way, you need an experienced murder lawyer to represent you in your case.

Second-Degree Murder

Second-degree murder is not premeditated, so it’s a slightly less serious criminal charge than first-degree homicide. In some cases, the prosecution team will request this charge if they believe you killed someone with a depraved mind, meaning you showed no respect for human life.

You can also be charged with this crime if you’re an accomplice to a felony murder, which means you helped someone kill a person while committing a felony. Regardless of the reason you’re charged with this crime, a conviction can result in life in prison and a fine of up to $10,000. Hiring an Orlando criminal defense lawyer can help you reduce or avoid these penalties, so contact our Central Florida law firm for a free consultation to discuss your murder case.

Third-Degree Murder

You might be accused of murder in the third degree if it’s believed that you unintentionally killed someone while committing a felony, such as arson, kidnapping, burglary, or aggravated abuse. If you’re convicted of this crime, you could be sentenced to a prison term of up to 15 years and a fine of up to $10,000.

Regardless of the degree of homicide you’re charged with, you deserve the chance for your side of the story to be told so you can avoid harsh, life-changing penalties. When you contact our Orlando criminal defense lawyers, we’ll review the details of your case and formulate a criminal defense strategy that makes sense for you. Call us to schedule a free initial consultation at our Orlando law firm.

How Does Florida Law Define Manslaughter?

The other type of homicide you could be charged with in Florida is manslaughter. While this is still a very serious charge, it’s not considered as serious as murder, because it’s suggested that you did not plan or intend to kill the victim. You can be charged with either voluntary or involuntary manslaughter.

A voluntary manslaughter charge is an accusation that you ended someone’s life through an act that’s not justifiable or excusable homicide, but it was not planned. So, if you killed someone in the heat of the moment, it could be charged as voluntary manslaughter. A conviction for this crime can result in up to 15 years in prison and up to $10,000 in fines.

With involuntary manslaughter, you’re accused of displaying reckless or negligent behavior that caused someone’s death. So, if you unintentionally killed someone by firing a gun, for example, you could be charged with this crime. If convicted, you could end up in jail for up to 10 years, with a fine of up to $10,000. This is why it’s essential to hire Orlando criminal defense attorneys for manslaughter, murder, and attempted murder cases.

What Are Possible Homicide Defense Strategies?

If you’re facing a manslaughter or murder charge, don’t give up hope. You still have a chance to prove your innocence so you don’t have to worry about years of jail time, but this requires you to start calling trusted Orlando criminal defense lawyers for help with your legal defense. The right team for your case will be well-versed in Florida criminal law and have years of experience handling tough cases in the Orlando court system. Whether you’re facing a manslaughter, murder, or attempted murder charge, a skilled criminal defense attorney can come up with the best defense for you.

Excusable or Justifiable Homicide

There are several homicide defense angles that your lawyer might consider depending on the details of your case. First, they might try to prove that you committed excusable or justifiable homicide in order to get the charges dismissed.

Excusable homicide is when the death was accidental or occurred in the heat of the moment and did not involve deadly weapons or unlawful intent. So, if your actions involved the normal amount of caution and were not cruel or unusual, but they led to an accidental death, you could be charged with excusable homicide rather than murder or manslaughter.

Justifiable homicide describes a situation where you killed someone in self-defense. This means you had reason to believe you or someone else was in danger of being killed, such as if someone was attempting to break into your house or was about to commit a violent felony against you or a family member. If you fought back and killed the person as a result, you may be able to avoid a murder conviction as long as your criminal defense attorney can show it was self-defense.

Challenging the Evidence Against You

If there’s no way for your Central Florida defense attorney to prove that the act was excusable or justifiable homicide, the next step is to challenge the facts of the prosecution’s case. For example, your lawyer might argue that the evidence against you was collected illegally or is not sufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you committed murder.

They can also gather evidence to show that you have a solid alibi and could not have been at the scene of the murder at the time it occurred. If there are witnesses who claim they saw you, your lawyer can argue that it’s a case of mistaken identity or that they have a motive to mislead the judge or jury, such as to protect the person who committed the crime.

These are a few ways your lawyer might work toward getting a not-guilty verdict for your case. You might discover additional defense angles when you undergo a case review with a trusted lawyer who can defend you against murder or attempted murder charges. Contact our Central Florida criminal law firm to schedule a meeting with caring criminal defense attorneys.

Are You Ready to Talk to a Homicide Lawyer in Orlando?

You deserve legal guidance from a team that has worked on numerous felony cases in the Central Florida court system. At Panella Law Firm, our murder defense lawyers understand how critical it is for you to avoid a conviction if at all possible, as your consequences will likely include a lengthy prison term, expensive fines, and a serious felony on your criminal record.

This is why you can trust us to take your criminal case extremely seriously from the start. During the initial consultation, we will carefully examine all the evidence against you to find ways to weaken the prosecution’s case so they’re less likely to prove the charge beyond a reasonable doubt. Our goal is to get your case dismissed quickly so you don’t have to worry about dealing with the criminal justice system for several months or years as the case continues.

If we can’t get the case dismissed, we will look for opportunities to reduce the criminal offense to a less severe crime, especially if you’re facing the most serious charge of murder in the first degree. We will then work on ways to show that the prosecution team’s evidence doesn’t prove that you’re guilty of the crime. If the result ends up being a guilty verdict, our next step will be to reduce your punishment, often through a plea bargain that may help you avoid the death penalty on a capital felony conviction or decrease your prison term and fines.

In short, you can trust that we’ll be by your side throughout the legal process so you don’t feel alone or risk showing up to court unprepared. You deserve a fair trial with skilled criminal defense lawyers working to get you the best outcome, so we encourage you to contact our Orlando law office as soon as possible. Our lawyers know the Florida criminal justice system and murder laws well, so you can count on us to aggressively work on showing that you were wrongly accused of felony charges.

If you’ve been accused of committing one or more serious criminal offenses, you need legal help from an experienced homicide lawyer. Orlando criminal defense attorneys at Panella Law Firm are eager to defend your rights immediately, so call us at 407-602-6559 to start your case.