For more than three years as a prosecutor of Tampa -Hills Boro County, Timothy Burns has rapidly rose a minor theft, promoting violations, and rapidly raised the primary trial of tampa violence. However, the handling of his shooting case, especially his job, which could not disclose evidence that could have helped the defendant, hurt the last few months of his job.
Former New York police officers submitted a prosecutor at the office of Susie Lopez, a state of Hills Rollo County, shortly after last summer episode. He immediately joined the Hills Boro County Sheriff Office.
Burns colleagues used a lawyer failed to dismiss it and wondered if a judge had to investigate for ethical violations, so he used it to save the case.
The defendant, who was convicted, later wrote a complaint about Burns from a state prison. However, Florida’s bar immediately rejected it and said that the problem was in the court.
Nevertheless, the case provides a unique glimpse of the mistakes in the state prosecutor’s office. It also emphasizes their professional responsibilities and strict compliance who must observe their impacts in their profession.
Battle and shooting
February 1, 2023 Late 1 called the Hills Boro County Sheriff Office.
The agent stood up to find a group that panicked around the two young men. The pair was rushed to the hospital. The agent talked to the witness, but he said that the shooting had occurred in a battle between the other two young men.
Some of the .40 -diameter bullet shellcassing and a single casing scattered in paved.
The agent learned that the pair was arranging text messages to fight each other in the warehouse parking lot. One appeared with several friends, including two shot. The other arrived with his own two friends.
When the pairs paired each other, two friends pulled their guns and started shooting before loading them into the black KIA soul.
The witness gave the agent a tag number. They tracked the car and identified the driver as Mujutaba Hashim. Other gunman was not identified.
Video surveillance gave the investigator a sufficient evidence to arrest Hasim two days later. The prosecutor of Hills Bolo has charged him in multiple counts of attempted murder or other crimes.
Gun violence unit
The incident found a way to the prosecutor group of the State Prosecutor’s Office, focusing on gun crimes.
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The gun violent unit attracted the people’s attention when Lopez held a press conference and announced its expansion in the early summer of last year.
Lopez stood in front of the prosecutor, police, community leader, and crime victim’s line, added a total of five judges to the unit together with investigators and three assistants. He said he added. The “highly specialized team” gives priority to non -fatal shooting and firearm -related crimes, and provides guidance and support to the law execution agencies after the Syritrorigar Puller.
“As a prosecutor, our biggest responsibility is for the victims of crime and the protection of public safety,” Lopez said at the time. “We need to use as much tool as possible to fight gun violence in the community.”
The standing step from Lopez was Burns. He was tall and listened to his white ears, and became a lawyer after a 20 -year career at the New York City Police Station. After Stint, who processed insurance defense, divorce, and civil lawsuits, he worked as a prosecutor in Hills Bolo County during his former prosecutor Andrew Warren, working again in 2021 in 2019.
He began as many prosecutors did and treated a mild crime in the minor sin in the office. But one year later, he moved to the Failure Court and dealt with drugs, large -scale theft cases, and more serious crimes like robbery.
By the latter half of 2023, he joined the gun violent unit. Later, he handed the Hashim case. A few months later, he sifted evidence of the case and summoned a witness.
Shaving victims
On July 9, Barns and Hasim’s lawyer Norman Kan Tejunia sitting in an interview room at the State Inspection Bureau and receiving a pre -trials from Mohamed Ahmado, one of the two victims. According to the court’s record, Ahmado identified Hasim as the one who shot him in his testimony.
However, within a few minutes after leaving, Barns received a phone call. It was Afumado. According to the court’s record, he wanted to regain what he said. He said he thought Hasim was not the right man.
Prosecutors have been fully established by lawyers and the rules of the Florida court in which lawyers are to inform the lawyer of information that may be guilty of clients. It includes statements and information on witnesses that change the situation that may question the truth of witnesses.
This is known as a Brady material named after a revolutionary Supreme Supreme Court lawsuit known as Brady vs. Maryland.
Barns, the court’s record, said he did not immediately talk to Cannella about Ahmado calls. The reason is not clear.
But the words have returned to Cannella. According to a court record, Hasim’s father told a lawyer that the victim in the case could have been repeated. Kannella dispatched a private detective to interview Ahmado.
According to the court’s record, Ahmad told the investigator that he did not remember much about the night he was shot. But he said that the only one he saw was the black man he didn’t know.
When he returned home from his deposit, he said, “I started thinking about things.” He realized that the only reason he identified Hasim was because he told him that he was the one who shot him. He said he was not actually looking at the gunfire.
He reported that he was worried that he would be responsible for illegal beliefs, so he called the prosecutor and said he wanted to regain what he said in his deposit.
Why did he suddenly change his story? According to the court’s record, the prosecutor asked. Was he threatened or intimidated?
According to the report, Afumado said, “It was not comfortable to label someone with a criminal when he was not convinced.”
The day has passed. On July 18, Barns was called Kanella. If Hasim agreed to be convicted, he offered a 20 -year prohibition.
According to the court’s record, Kanella replied that Ahmad did not believe what Afumado had said.
“I said this to open the door to reveal that the victims have repeated the testimony of his deposit,” Kanella later wrote in the court’s paper.
Kanella wrote that Barns didn’t say anything. There was only a troublesome pause.
According to Kanella’s court paper, Kanella paid attention to Barns’ supervisors the next day. Prosecutor Justin Diaz responded to him and Burns told him about Ahmado’s engraved testimony. According to Kanella, Diaz instructed Barnes to immediately notify Cannella, but Burns did not.
It was the first time that Barnes had submitted a letter notification with Afmado after a conversation with Diaz in Cannella. He wrote to him that Ahmado had an agreement with the defendant’s family, but Afumado denied it when he was asked.
Barnes was taken away from the lawsuit, but was not before Kanella requested a judge to be accused for the “misconduct of the prosecution.”
fall out
In a court hearing in late July, Kanella argued that Barns’ action was “at the center of the ethics standards of our legal profession.”
Prosecutors have suggested that Barns should have notified Cannella of Afumado’s chopped eyes by the end of the next business day. Barns did not do it, but the Defense said long before the trial knew the information and was inappropriate because the preparation or strategy of the trial was not hindered.
Hills Boro Judge Kimberry Fernandez does not tolerate what Barns did, but decided on the nation and decided that the law did not need to be fired automatically.
“But I think it’s more or less (A) ethical into ethical into any survey by a bar in Florida,” Fernandes said.
The day after the hearing, Hasim was convicted in exchange for 15 years. But he reserved the right to appeal the judge’s ruling.
A few days after the litigation was concluded, Barns left the gun’s violence sector and was transformed into a prominent role in one of the state prosecutor’s felony. His salary of $ 96,000 a year did not change.
Shortly thereafter, he applied for an assistant lawyer at the Hills Boro County Office. This is a job that provides legal advice on representative institutions and employees in civil issues. He was hired in October.
“I’m proud of the work I went to at the State Prosecutor’s Office,” he wrote in a resignation to Lopez.
The letter does not mention the case of Hasim. It is unknown whether it was the cause of his departure.
After the Tampa Bay Time’s reporter sent an email to Barnes for the comments of this story, the spokesman of the Hillsbolo Sheriff Office responded in a policy of an institution that would not discuss the pending lawsuit.
Hasim submitted a appeal a few weeks after being moved to a state prison. In September, he wrote a letter on the Florida bar.
From the reception center in the Central Florida near Orlando, he wrote six pages of a prison area. He explained in detail in a dark and bold lettering that Barns had refrained from evidence that his claim could be useful.
16 days later, a letter from Bar’s lawyer Carlos Leon came and informed Hasim that his complaint was closed. Leon wrote that the bar was unable to take action to interfere with criminal court lawsuits. He suggested that Hasim would ask for help through the prosecution and convicted court.
“Florida’s bar is not allowed to intervene or judge in a criminal court,” Leon wrote. “Your concerns need to be addressed to the court, so the discipline system is not the right forum to rescue your complaint.”
Brian Tannabaum, a lawyer in Southern Florida, who is not involved in the case, but specializes in legal ethics and discipline issues, said the results are not particularly unusual.
He said that it was a typical thing that the bar to postpone to the judge. They may permit the opportunity to file a complaint and revive the problem if the court is certified to support the claim. However, judges tend to be reluctant.
“The judge doesn’t want to sanction a lawyer,” he said. “They believe that the bar is the right place to do it … it’s like a hot potato.”
