Tampa Stolen Car Defense Lawyer

Tampa Stolen Car Defense Lawyer

Michael D. Kenny, Attorney

Brad Post: Welcome to floridadefense.com podcast. We are speaking to Tampa stolen car defense lawyer Mike Kenny. Mike how are you?

Michael D. Kenny, Attorney: I’m doing well. How are you?

B: Good. Mike is with the Bauer, Crider, and Parry, law firm out of the greater Tampa area. And we have been in this series talking about a robbery, burglary, and theft, property crimes and we’re going to wrap it up with stolen vehicle, stolen cars.

M: So, in the state of Florida stolen cars is characterized as a grand theft of a motor vehicle. Any time a person takes a car, or endeavors to take a car, he commits a third-degree felony.

B: Doesn't depend on the value of the car at all?

M: No. You can steal a Hyundai, or you can steal a Cadillac, and it’s basically the same punishment. Now, it’s funny that you mentioned that. Because one of the issues that comes up on every criminal charge, a person gets convicted of a crime is ordered to pay any restitution as a result of that that criminal act. So, that maybe the restitution in the theft of Hyundai, and the damage to that vehicle might be not as significant as it is on a more expensive car. So, that something to think about. That might be the difference financially, but other than that, they’re punished the same. So it’s the grand theft of a motor vehicle. As I said before, it’s a third-degree felony which means it has a five-year cap, punishable by up to five years in prison. There is no minimum mandatory prison sentence for it. So, a person essentially can get probation, up to five years in prison.

One unique thing with a car type theft, we were talking about various types of theft charges and robbery charges when you combine a robbery with a car theft you get what we commonly refer to as carjacking. In Florida statute 812.133 there is a carjacking statute. Carjacking is the taking of a motor vehicle, which may be the subject of theft, for instance from someone else, and that a person uses force, violence, or assault, or putting in fear. Almost a same exact reading that the robbery statute has. Most of the time when I’ve handled carjacking cases, both as a prosecutor and otherwise, I usually see some type of weapon is used. And that's significant because if a firearm or other deadly weapons is used, then a carjacking is a felony of the first-degree punishable by imprisonment not exceeding life, meaning punishable by life.

So if a person uses a gun, or if the person uses a knife, or any other object to take a car from another individual, that person has just graduated into a punishable by life felony. A regular carjacking, if there's no weapon used, is still a first-degree felony punishable by up to 30 years in prison. So, carjacking becomes a very serious crime. When we start talking about the Florida criminal punishment code and what things are punishable by, you generally have three degrees of felonies. You have a first-degree, a second-degree, and a third-degree. First-degree is pretty serious. That means it’s the most serious degreed crime punishable by up to 30 years in prison. And carjacking, any type of carjacking is a first-degree felony. Then you can do something to go past that 30 year cap, and make it a life felony, and that's if you are using a firearm. So carjackings are punished very severely. I can remember when I was a prosecutor, years and years and years ago, like I said like robberies are crimes of desperation. Some elderly woman was getting her car in a grocery store to go shopping. Another person got inside the car and began to drive off, but the woman unfortunately wasn't able to get herself unhinged, either her purse, if I can remember correctly, somehow got hooked into the car and this person drove, and ended of dragging her behind the car for some period of time. And I can remember being a prosecutor, the first thing prosecutor says, “Wow! Carjacking.” That is serious, and a prosecutor is going to come at you pretty seriously. Then add to that any damage or harm by another person, and needless to say, this person can face a very significant term of years the Department of Corrections.

It's one of those cases that, if you're involved in something like this, you’re going to want to make sure that you have somebody who knows what he's doing, who knows the differences between the degrees, and what the State has to prove to establish a carjacking, and how this can be resolved most favorably.

B: Could you think of maybe one of the most interesting cases and that you've worked?

M: The most interesting case that was probably theft related. I’ve had plenty of theft-related cases on the defense side, and quite frankly that’s a lot of what I do. Especially when you start to get into some of the white-collar thefts. But, those aren’t always exciting. For some reason as a prosecutor you get to see the most exciting