Case recordHistorical context · Library of Congress ↗
The Chillingworth case across three Florida counties
Two victims, two prosecutions and three counties. The court records show how the Chillingworth case moved beyond Palm Beach.
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Florida
Behind the cases.
Court decisions, historical records and original companion pieces. Follow a source, consider the evidence, and explore the wider story.
Stories behind the places.
Case record
Case recordHistorical context · Library of Congress ↗
Amy Billig: still missing from Coconut Grove
Amy Billig disappeared from Coconut Grove at seventeen. Her official missing-person notices preserve identifying details and a route for anyone with information.
Read the articleWhy a Florida Bay trail bears Guy Bradley's name
At Flamingo, a waterfront trail remembers the Audubon warden killed while protecting birds in 1905, decades before Everglades National Park opened.
Read the articleA guide to the record.
Court opinion
The McDuffie verdict in a later civil-rights case
Read Dees v. City of Miami as a later civil-rights decision, with a guide to its summary-judgment posture and the limits of its McDuffie context.
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Aileen Wuornos: reading the Richard Mallory appeal
A guide to the Florida Supreme Court’s 1994 Mallory decision, separating the direct appeal, trial claims and other alleged crimes.
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Rothstein: why the law firm’s bank accounts mattered
Read the 2013 Rothstein forfeiture appeal through the dispute over mixed bank accounts, the bankruptcy trustee and criminal proceeds.
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Dalia Dippolito: publicity, jury selection and the 2014 appeal
A guide to the reversal of Dippolito’s first conviction, focused on jury selection and the difference between a new trial and an acquittal.
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The MacIvor murders: reading Thomas Overton’s direct appeal
Read the Florida Supreme Court’s 2001 Overton opinion as a review of trial rulings and death sentences in the MacIvor case.
Read the guide →Court opinion and later legislative record
Robert DuBoise: a 1988 appeal is not the end of the record
Place DuBoise’s 1988 appeal beside the later official record of his exoneration, without treating the old opinion as the final account.
Read the guide →Court motion and order
The Groveland Four: a motion, an order and a corrected record
Read the 2021 Groveland Four motion and court order together, distinguishing the prosecutor’s request from the relief the judge granted.
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Jordan Davis: what Michael Dunn’s self-defense appeal asked
A guide to Dunn’s 2016 appeal, focused on the motion for acquittal and the court’s review of evidence rebutting self-defense.
Read the guide →Habeas opinion concerning pretrial release
Dan Markel: reading Katherine Magbanua’s pretrial-release decision
Understand the 2021 Magbanua habeas decision as a pretrial-release ruling, distinct from a verdict or later criminal appeal.
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Teresa Sievers: the limits of direct appellate review
Read Mark Sievers’s 2022 direct appeal through the court’s treatment of trial claims, witness credibility and sentencing review.
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Judy Buenoano: one appeal, one judgment, other-crime evidence
A guide to the 1988 Goodyear appeal and the distinction between admitting evidence about other deaths and adjudicating those separate cases.
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