How to Set Aside Your Florida Conviction When Deportation Threatens

Since the September 11th terrorist attacks, the newly formed Department of Homeland Security has decided that the best way to secure the homeland is to deport as many people as possible. This horror is inflicted on our most productive and hardest working residents with tragic results. Here’s how the system now works: If you have a felony conviction in your past you are sure to be contacted and sent a removal notice. The removal notice begins deportation. If you have a felony conviction in Florida, contact a South Florida criminal defense attorney and ask about the procedure to withdraw your plea and vacate the conviction. In Florida the procedure is known as post-conviction relief under Rule 3.850 of the Florida Rules of Criminal Procedure. The formal name is a Motion to Vacate, Set Aside or Correct Sentence. Contact a Florida criminal defense lawyer and ask what grounds exist to file a 3.850 motion and set aside your conviction. There is a two year rule that begins two years after your conviction, or two years after you become aware of the defect in your plea. There are other methods of appealing and extending the two year rule: for example ineffective assistance of counsel or a violation of the constitutional requirements of a plea colloquy. Call a Florida criminal lawyer for help and get started immediately. Make sure the Florida criminal lawyer you hire has extensive experience in appeals and post conviction work. It is often easy for a newby to miss an issue which can get your sentence set aside.