What do you do if you have been charged with a crime but cannot afford to hire your own private defense attorney? You can ask the judge to see if you qualify to have a court appointed attorney represent you. The court will look at your overall current financial status and based on that will determine if you qualify to have a public defender represent you in your criminal case.
It was recently reported that Nikolas Cruz, the mass shooter at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018, will be receiving $864,929 from a life insurance policy.
Nikolas has been charged with 17 counts of first-degree murder and 17 attempted murder counts.
Apparently Nikolas tried to qualify to have the judge appoint him an attorney. However, it was determined that receiving this large amount of money makes Nikolas ineligible to have the Broward Public Defender’s Office represent him since they are statutorily prohibited from representing a non-indigent client.
Do you have a legal question? We are here to help you.
Attorney Edgar J. Guzman
GuzmanLegal.com
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