Florida violates teenage victim's right to an attorney under Marsy's Law
She invoked her right to an attorney. Instead, authorities took her into custody, arrested her lawyer, and interrogated her alone. Attorney-client privilege was used to convict her lawyer.
Two years ago she was 16 years old, a good kid. Angst-ridden like so many teenage girls, and sometimes a little depressed. She lived at home in Panama City Beach with four younger siblings. She got by with a little help from her friends and with a lot of help from her therapist named Summer.
She told her online therapist about an incident during a family vacation to Utah a few months earlier. She said that her 18-year-old brother tried to pick a fight and threatened to rape her. She also said that her brother had molested her when they were little kids living in Tennessee.
About a week later, she denied the allegations she made against her brother while suffering an emotional breakdown.
But the Bay County Sheriff’s Office locked in on her. Detectives demanded answers even though her allegations occurred outside their jurisdiction. She had gotten herself into quite a mess.
Detective Trey Fondren came to her home yelling at her mom, and threatening to take all of her children into State custody. He insisted that she go to the Gulf Coast Children’s Advocacy Center for a “voluntary” forensic interview.
Her family was terrified by the Sheriff’s Office so they got a lawyer to represent her. The Florida Constitution guarantees victims the right to an attorney under Marsy’s Law to advocate on their behalf and to give them a voice.
Even though her brother was not a threat, her biological father had gone to prison for sexually assaulting her when she was a little girl in Tennessee. There was no doubt she was a victim entitled to the protections guaranteed in Florida under Marsy’s Law.
Detectives at the advocacy center became hostile soon after she showed up with her attorney Hoot Crawford for the voluntary interview on May 6, 2022. Authorities demanded that she go into a room alone and answer questions from the Child Protective Team.
But she wanted her attorney at her side every step of the way.
It was a was a voluntary interview and they were free to leave the advocacy center at any time. Tensions rose, and the Sheriff’s Office accused her attorney of interfering with their investigation. They decided that he wasn’t looking out for her best interests.
When Crawford refused to abandon his teenage client, a supervisor from the Sheriff’s Office, Lt. Jeremy Mathis, arrived at the advocacy center. He became enraged, and called the Department of Children and Families asking them to take custody of the girl immediately.
Her attorney knew that they didn’t have grounds for emergency custody since she was not in immediate danger of abandonment, neglect or abuse. After all, she was with her parents and her attorney at the advocacy center’s “safe place” surrounded by detectives.
But the detectives were hell bent that she be alone during the voluntary interview by Child Protective Services. So Lt. Mathis called his friend at DCF and they sent an investigator named Christine Revels. She told Crawford that the girl was now in State custody.
Crawford told the DCF investigator to get a court order, and said that they would be at his office located just a few blocks away. If a judge signs off on it, he said they can pick her up there.
When they left, Lt. Mathis and Detective Fondren gave chase and arrested Crawford for interfering with the legal custody of a child.
The girl was taken back to the advocacy center where she was interrogated without an attorney by another detective named Jake Roberts. Alone in the interrogation room, Detective Roberts told the girl that her attorney was out of control. And he kept asking what they had talked about.
While in state custody over the next several days, Detective Roberts showed up with a partner on two separate days asking more questions about Crawford. The interrogations were recorded. She was afraid they were going to arrest her next. She was not allowed to talk with her family or her attorney.
The dependency judge had ordered no contact with her parents or her attorney. County Judge Joe Grammer upheld the emergency custody order on the grounds of parental neglect. The reason: They hired an attorney for her.
Two years later at trial, Circuit Judge Kelvin C. Wells refused to allow Crawford to question the legality of the State’s custody, which was his absolute defense. Judge Wells instructed the jury to find Crawford guilty if they believed he heard the DCF investigator say she was taking the girl into custody.
On the day of the trial, Judge Wells said, “I don’t want to be put in a position where I’m trying to determine whether or not it was a legal - if they had legal grounds, just whether they did it or not did it.”
Judge Wells allowed the girl’s attorney-client privilege to be used as evidence for tampering with a victim. The prosecutor added that charge after Crawford was arrested. No victim was ever identified, but the presumption is that it was Crawford’s own teenage client.
The jury instructions guaranteed a conviction on Jan. 30, and Crawford was sentenced by Judge Wells Tuesday to three years probation. The judge also imposed a psychiatric evaluation.
Crawford’s teenage client is now 18 years old. During the sentencing hearing, she stunned the courtroom during character testimony when she bravely approached the judge and spoke on Crawford’s behalf.
The Sentencing Hearing
Over the past two years, she has discovered that sometimes the same authorities who are supposed to protect you are the very ones that hurt you the most.
She stood between the judge and her beleaguered attorney who was awaiting his sentence. In a cruel twist of fate, she had become her attorney’s courtroom advocate.
“Mr. Hoot was my attorney. He was my advocate when I was going through a very hard time emotionally and helped me navigate through the legal system since it was all new to me. I was confused and afraid. But I wasn’t afraid of him, and I wasn’t afraid of my family.
I was afraid of the authorities who had taken me from my family and threatened my family unless I went to the Children’s Advocacy Center. I was afraid of the unknown. So I got a Marsy’s Law attorney to help me navigate through this traumatic time in my life.”
Judge Wells grimaced a bit and suffered through about four minutes until she was finished. The prosecutor, Frank Sullivan, hung his head but remained undaunted. The bailiff sitting by the witness stand had trouble staying awake.
When she finished, the young news reporter for WMBB-TV mouthed the word, “Wow.”
But after the hearing, the young reporter spent the better part of an hour with the prosecutors’ public information officer, Caz Cazalas. They even walked out to the parking lot together afterward.
The news story reflected the cozy relationship between WMBB-TV and the prosecutors. There was no mention of what she told the judge.
“Mr. Hoot was the only one standing between me and the authorities. They were the ones who were traumatizing me. They were demanding to talk to me alone, and I didn’t want to talk with anyone without my attorney by my side. I thought I had that right.
But when we arrived at the Children’s Advocacy Center, things became very hostile. I was so scared that I was shaking. It was clear nobody was there to advocate for me except for Mr. Hoot.”
Local news outlets never told the community any of this.
After her lawyer was arrested, she said they brought her back to the advocacy center where law enforcement interrogated her all alone.
She told the judge that her right to an attorney had been stripped away from her. The news reporter’s camera was rolling while she spoke. But it fell on deaf ears.
“I’m just baffled how all this is happening. I can’t believe Mr. Hoot has been convicted for being my lawyer. I though I had the right to attorney-client privilege. But it was used as evidence against him. I don’t think I can trust attorney-client privilege ever again.
This whole experience has made me afraid of law enforcement. If I see a cop when I’m driving, I start white-knuckling the steering wheel. I shouldn’t have to feel this way. I already had trust issues, and now they’re worse.”
Under oath, she described clear violations of Marsy’s Law, which provides legal rights established in the Florida Constitution for crime victims.
She had the right to due process and to be treated with fairness and respect for her dignity. She had the right to be free from intimidation, harassment, and abuse.
Instead, she was victimized yet again. This time, it was at the hands of the Judge, the Sheriff, the Prosecutor, the Department of Children and Families, the Children’s Advocacy Center, and the Press.
Read Part One and Part Two of this case for more context and details.