Alicia Andrews Hearing Suddenly DELAYED… Judge Stops Everything | Criminal Lawyer Reacts

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:00]Hey guys, Lisa Figuero here, board certified criminal defense attorney in Florida, or as somebody said, I should say Flo Raida. Anyways, here today to talk to you about Alicia Andrews. Now, if you haven't subscribed, please do.

[00:00:12]But we wanted to talk about the big hearing that was scheduled for today.

[00:00:16]Everybody's waiting for. We were wondering, is she going to be granted a new trial? Are they going to move forward to sentencing? Codefendants were just all found guilty. And now, what happened? But wait, before we get into that, I really want to clear up something and set the record straight because everybody keeps saying, "Oh, she better be careful or she's gonna get slammed or they're going to get her for murder or she should just be lucky and thankful that she got what she got."

[00:00:39]It's going to get worse. In Florida, thankfully, once someone is found guilty of a lesser charge, they can't retry you on the higher charges. So, those are just gone dead in the water. They can't come back on the murder charges. The best the state could do is if she gets a new trial now, they have to go forward with the manslaughter charge. And honestly, I don't know how they could look a jury straight in the face and make an argument for manslaughter under these facts. But maybe, hey, um, and it's possible that at that point they might extend some kind of offer because maybe they don't care so much about Alicia Andrews anymore now that they got the codefendants. All four have been found guilty. They're about to start the death penalty phase to pursue death against the codefendant. So, will they continue pushing forward on Alicia Andrew's case? I don't know.

[00:01:32]Also, they had filed something new because when I was trying to find out what happened today, I saw that they filed a certain motion and I was like, "Oh, wait. What's this?" But I'll tell you about that in a second. So, yeah.

[00:01:41]But either way, we've been waiting to find out what's going to happen today.

[00:01:43]Today, the hearing was on all the motions that the defense had filed. a motion for judgment of acquitt, a motion for new trial, a motion to revisit some of the things that had been denied by the prior judge. And we've been so waiting on this. We've done several videos leading up to this where we broke down each of the motions. And then today, crickets. I'm like, what's going on? Nothing's happening. And then I see something about May 22nd that sentencing. And I'm like, how is sentencing happening? Did the judge already deny it? and they're just moving forward with sentencing or what happened in court. So, I was looking everywhere to find out what had happened and I didn't see any footage, but I've been in and out of court today and I did find out from a credible source though that the hearing did happen. But, interestingly enough, the hearing was somewhat delayed. The defense team arrived in court today. The state advised the court that Julio Julio Fulio's mom uh mother was traveling from Jacksonville and running late. So, I didn't realize that she was attending.

[00:02:43]It is a victim's family or the victim in any case is always um has a right under the Marcy's law. They have a right to appear at any significant proceeding.

[00:02:53]And so she does have a right to be there even though they're not necessarily a a party or there's nothing where she would be involved in the court proceeding itself, but she has the right to be there. So apparently there was a delay because she's not there yet. And they're thinking, "Hey, we need to wait judge before we start the hearing." And then look what happens. The judge apparently was like, "Well, it may not matter because there was a bigger issue." And the bigger issue was that some of the evidence that the judge needs to review in order to make her decision is shell casings and different evidence that you know where it is in the codefendant's case. And remember, the codefendants case is in front of a whole different judge, the original judge on the Alicia Andrews case, Judge Cisco. So all of the evidence that was introduced at that trial is in another courtroom. and this judge doesn't have it. And so the defense obviously they had all come together and I don't I don't know where the defense team comes from but either way is in terms of travel but everyone is there and ready for this big hearing because this is the day that they're going to talk about the motion for new trial whether or not the prior rulings the judge had made in the other case were proper. They are ready to go forward. Both sides were ready except this evidence was not there. And so the defense apparently um according to this source had indicated they may agree or stipulate that they can come to terms, hey what the judge can review or not worry about reviewing. And the state seemed to agree, but that was going to take some time for them to put in writing what they are agreeing that the judge can review or not have to review before making her decision. So they were given until next Monday to prepare something and then they're going to come back on May 22nd to actually have the hearing at that time. So nothing got to be addressed in terms of what was going to happen in the case or what the ruling was going to be on the motion because they didn't have that evidence. And then that was it. All of that for nothing. Or so it seems. The judge explained that evidence previously introduced during the Andrews trial had been released for use in the trial involving the boys. So the codefendants, some of the evidence that they used in that trial relates to Alicia Andrews, but it's over there with that clerk. And remember, it's a different judge now. So it's in Judge Cisco's courtroom and those clerks are holding it in evidence and now we're over in front of Judge Fernandez supposed to be having a hearing and this judge is supposed to be reviewing that same evidence and making her decision.

[00:05:28]and the court did not yet have access to all the exhibits necessary to make a ruling. The judge specifically referenced shell casings as well as videos from teasers and truth 18. So, the judge wants to see it. That's good.

[00:05:40]Um, the court stated that she needed the opportunity to personally review and physically inspect all relevant evidence before making a decision. So, the defense team then asked uh whether the court was requesting that the hearing be rescheduled or reset. And the judge said, "Well, if you're willing to stipulate, meaning the two parties agree that she doesn't have to physically look at the shell casings, um, you know, then we don't need that." And so the defense team said, "Yeah, we're good with that, right?" Um, the court initially had planned to wait until the state's trial was over before requesting the exhibits.

[00:06:16]However, after the defense advised the court that they could stipulate or work together um to arrange the exhibits and arrange for copies to send directly to the judge, um she was okay with that, but it's going to be submitted and at that time the exhibits must be delivered by the to the court by Monday. So, she's giving them till Monday, uh the following Monday to turn that stuff in and then they're rescheduling the hearing for May 22nd.

[00:06:44]Bummer. or not. I don't know. Depends on how you look at it. But they're not able to move forward yet because the judge wants to be able to have that or have something in writing that says, "We're agreeing for you to look at this or we're agreeing for you not to look at this." Um or not to need to look at this to make your decision. And things like this as a defense attorney is always difficult because there's a lot of preparation that goes into this. I mean, this was a big hearing. not only are a lot of people watching, but even if there weren't, this is a significant turning point in this case and for the defense team's client. And so I imagine there's a lot goes into it. We've got multiple attorneys. You show up and everyone's ready to go and no hearing.

[00:07:26]They're not ready. They can't proceed.

[00:07:28]And now we got to come back and do it again. It's a it's a huge inconvenience for those involved. But at the same time, since there's so much on the line, um the judge apparently is just wanting to be thorough, but a lot of times you wonder why couldn't they told us in advance and then maybe we could have done something before now. But um there's a lot of moving pieces and obviously the prosecutors, they're there anyway. They're just going to move from one courtroom to another and then go address the codefendants penalty phase.

[00:07:55]But for the defense team, yeah, it just kind of sucked. But I did want to bring up this interesting notice or motion that they the defense also filed and it's a motion to take judicial notice.

[00:08:07]Judicial notice is anytime we can ask the court to take judicial notice means to you don't have to follow the same evidentiary rules. So you can do this for the weather sometimes for um how can I say court orders, court documents, court final judgments. And so in and what that means is that in they can get certain evidence before the court if they take judicial notice. And it's really easy when it's another court case. So they listed like eight different court cases that they want this court to take judicial notice of to recognize to accept or look at >> the defense or the state.

[00:08:53]>> And this is the defense team. So the defense team, Jeremy, for Alicia Andrews, they filed this list of cases that they're saying, "Hey judge, we want you to take judicial notice." which means that that judge will review those cases and use that in her determination of whatever it is they're going to ask for. Now, they're not saying what they're asking for in it. They're just for now using the rules of procedure that allow us to ask for the judge to take judicial notice of. But what I expect is they are trying to introduce look what happened in eight other cases that are similar where someone was found guilty of these charges or charged with murder and found guilty of manslaughter and then they got I looked at one and it was seven years uh probation. I mean seven years prison followed by eight years probation or something like that.

[00:09:45]So, the 15 got divided up. Um, and maybe eventually I'll go through and and look at all of them, but the bottom line is my take or my gut is that they're going to be asking the judge to look at this because one of the things that Florida law strives to do and to make it proper is that you don't impose disperate treatment like treat different people differently, right? So you're not abusing the fact that because someone is of one race, of one uh gender, of one social status, like this charge got this much time for these people just so they don't come and then try to slam her because of something else or vice versa.

[00:10:27]I don't know. But that's my gut. I'm thinking that they're doing that, which is interesting because this is a novel thing. This is the second pretty novel thing that this defense team has done.

[00:10:36]uh the the introduction of the social media comments that's pretty new and now taking this which is a really progressive form of criminal defense. A lot of um I'm I'm a member of the NACDL.

[00:10:48]There's these national associations of criminal defense lawyers. There's a Florida one and what they do is they're starting to have companies that are creating these databases that talk about sentencing so we can collaborate and know, hey, how much time is this person getting over here in this county and what about over there? So maybe there could be more uniformity. And even though we want people to consider our clients and our individual case separately, we got to be careful because it is amazing how differently people get sentenced. Um I was just in another county the other day and what that person got sentenced to would have never happened in Orange County and Orlando where I live. So the defense team is trying to be proactive and alert the court, hey just in case you might not know and not every judge has these or not so often and they may not remember how much they sentenced the last person that came in front of them for manslaughter. So here let me give you some examples. Does the court have to follow that? No. But it makes it it makes them have to kind of stay on their P's and Q's to not appear to be vindictive because that's the fear in this case. You have one judge that was already removed because of bias or alleged bias or not being fair and impartial and now you have another judge that is going to send in Celicia Andrews. Can she be fair? So they're saying, "Hey, look what happened in these cases." So that there's some sort of barometer, some way to measure what is appropriate, what is reasonable. Will the judge listen? I don't know, but we will see. Okay, I got a comment here. In Florida, manslaughter is generally a seconddegree felony punishable by up to 15 years 15 years in prison, 15 years of probation, 10,000 in fines. True. But if the charge is enhanced to aggravated manslaughter, the victim is a child, elderly, or disabled, involves a firearm, it becomes a first-degree felony, punishable up to 30 years or life in prison.

[00:12:48]Was this on one of ours? But either way, yes, that is true. And um I've had those cases. And so it goes up from 15 to 30.

[00:12:58]The problem is they have to actually in order to get that second that enhancement, that aggravator, you could be charged that way, but the jury has to have what's called a special finding guilty of manslaughter and then there's a special verdict form that says you believe that she possessed a firearm.

[00:13:14]Then that bumps it up. They didn't have a special verdict form for her because she never possessed a firearm, nor did the state ever make any kind of arguments or present any evidence that she ever handled or was someone who discharged a firearm, possessed a firearm at any time. So, she doesn't get that extra. If it was the codefendants, they all have that enhancement. All of theirs would be 30-year manslaughter charges, at least the three shooters that were indicated, but it doesn't apply to Alicia Andrews. So, her cap is 15. That's it. 15 is her max. 15 years in prison is the maximum she could get.

[00:13:47]She gets credit for every day that she's been in jail since she was arrested, but and it's not a minimum mandatory. So, she gets gain time as well. So, we'll see. Uh it it's a big window what the judge can do. Is she going to get a new trial? Is she just going to go straight to sentencing? Again, let me know what you guys think and we'll be back with some more videos soon and with an update on this case. Take care.