{"id":237,"date":"2018-02-27T17:38:43","date_gmt":"2018-02-27T22:38:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tampacriminallawyer.net\/?p=237"},"modified":"2026-01-07T08:32:01","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T13:32:01","slug":"bb-gun-handgun-florida-supreme-court-weighs-armed-robbery-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/bb-gun-handgun-florida-supreme-court-weighs-armed-robbery-case\/","title":{"rendered":"BB Gun or Handgun? Florida Supreme Court Weighs in on Armed Robbery Case"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Florida criminal laws include quite a considerable number of lesser offenses when it comes to being charged with a crime. Getting a charge knocked down to a lesser offense can mean the difference between years behind bars and months in jail or simple probation, in some cases. The state Supreme Court recently took up a Florida robbery <a href=\"https:\/\/cases.justia.com\/florida\/supreme-court\/2018-sc16-1738.pdf?ts=1517500922\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">case<\/a> that illustrates just how nuanced the legal arguments can be in determining whether a person convicted of a crime should be sentenced for a lesser offense.A defendant (D.D.) was convicted of two charges of robbery with a deadly weapon, which is a first-degree felony that can come with as much as 30 years behind bars, for his role in two alleged robberies in Florida. A state appeals court eventually ordered the trial judge to reduce the convictions to robbery with a weapon. The court explained that the evidence presented at trial showed only that one weapon was used in the robbery:\u00a0 a handgun or a BB gun that looked a lot like the real thing.<\/p>\n<p>Affirming the decision on further appeal, the Florida Supreme Court first noted that D.D. had never actually been charged with robbery with a deadly weapon. Instead, the court said that he had originally\u00a0 been charged with robbery with a firearm. Since it was unclear whether the weapon involved was an actual handgun or a BB gun, the court held that the trial judge should have knocked the charge down to robbery with a weapon.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/bb-gun-handgun-florida-supreme-court-weighs-armed-robbery-case\/#more-237\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading \u203a<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Florida criminal laws include quite a considerable number of lesser offenses when it comes to being charged with a crime. Getting a charge knocked down to a lesser offense can mean the difference between years behind bars and months in jail or simple probation, in some cases. The state Supreme Court recently took up a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1254,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-armed-robbery"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>BB Gun or Handgun? FL Armed Robbery Case<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Learn why the BB gun vs. handgun decision matters in Florida armed robbery cases and how this can affect your sentence and strategy.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/bb-gun-handgun-florida-supreme-court-weighs-armed-robbery-case\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"BB Gun or Handgun? 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FL Armed Robbery Case","twitter_description":"Learn why the BB gun vs. handgun decision matters in Florida armed robbery cases and how this can affect your sentence and strategy.","twitter_image":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/bb-gun-vs-handgun-florida-armed-robbery-featured.webp","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Hanlon Law, PA","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/bb-gun-handgun-florida-supreme-court-weighs-armed-robbery-case\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/bb-gun-handgun-florida-supreme-court-weighs-armed-robbery-case\/"},"author":{"name":"Hanlon Law, PA","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/8b1bbe17dcab105246cd4cb867e91837"},"headline":"BB Gun or Handgun? 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