Circuit Judge Terence Perkins’s admonishing edge in his capacity as a senior judge is not being diminished by retirement. In two decisions today, Perkins denied bond to two men: one who is awaiting sentencing following a jury conviction for a hit-and-run accident that left the victim disfigured and unable to work for months, and the other who is accused of abusing his wife after she refused him sex.
On a third-degree crime, I have never granted a motion for pre-trial custody. With regard to the domestic abuse case, Perkins stated, “I am today.” That was significant for a judge who presided over Volusia and Flagler counties for ten years.
Following his initial hearing before County Judge Andrea Totten last Thursday, Michael Patrick Adams has been detained at the county jail without bond. Tara Libby, an assistant state attorney, filed a motion to hold Adams in custody pending the outcome of his lawsuit. Adams was being contested by his lawyer, Robert Rawlings.
Last Thursday, Adams, 35, of Palm Coast, was arrested on three third-degree felony counts after his 39-year-old wife of a year accused him of strangling her till she passed out after she refused to have an intimate relationship with him at that time when he was supposedly high on crack. She had previously pretended to be unconscious in order to stop him from abusing her. She claimed that she actually passed out this time.
When she recovered consciousness, she was able to call his parents and fled the house. He found her using his phone, dragged her back inside, and took her phone. When she managed to get away and hide in the car once more, he tried to open the door with a gadget and dragged her back inside against her will. She rushed to a neighbor when his parents got there, and he led her to the Flagler Beach pier, where she encountered police.
Perkins may have established a high bond if that were all. However, Hayleigh Prentiss, a detective with the Flagler County Sheriff’s office who specializes in domestic abuse cases, gave testimony. She came to talk to the suspected victim at AdventHealth Palm Coast. According to what she told me, Prentiss mentioned the violence once a week. In one instance, after she had been strangled and rendered unconscious, drugs had been inserted into her anal cavity, and there were additional signs of sexual assault in his genitalia.
The prosecution inquired as to other locations, such as her mouth or vagina.
Indeed. Adams was previously arrested in 2023 with the same victim under same circumstances. He begged. The decision was not made. Early on June 17, his probation was ended with the victim’s consent.
According to the detective, Adams frequently carries weapons in the residence, which were engaged in both events.
He claimed that he did not want to implicate himself and that while under the influence of drugs, he changes somewhat as a person. Prentiss mentioned this every time I tried to talk about what had happened that night.
In her testimony today, his wife stated that she would support a treatment program for him. However, she also claimed that when he behaved in that way that evening, she was terrified of him. In his evidence, Adams claimed that his family was losing money and that he was the only provider.
His lawyer, Rawlings, told the court that although some of the accusations are a bit more extreme than what is typically seen in cases of domestic violence, they are all essentially the same. Except in the most dire situations, I don’t believe that pre-trial detention was created to lock up those accused of third-degree felonies without a bond.
Perkins could not handle the testimonies and the history. We would be in a worse situation than we would have been if he had given bond. The judge remarked, “My first thought is, let’s not make this any worse.” Additionally, Perkins suggested that Adams receive rigorous, inpatient drug therapy. Securing that takes time. The order may be changed once it is set up. According to Perkins, he is begging for therapy and obviously needs it.
The second bond denial occurred in the case of Joao Fernandes, a 50-year-old Palm Coast man who was found guilty by a jury in mid-July of hit-and-run, which left a motorcyclist on the Belle Terre Parkway shoulder seriously injured. Fernandes had rejected a plea agreement that would have sentenced him to a year in jail. He now faces a maximum term of 15 years, although his Sept. 4 sentence is unlikely to even approach that.
Brian Penney, Fernandes’ lawyer, begged Perkins today that if Fernandes were released on bond, he wouldn’t be a flight risk because he hadn’t been able to organize his affairs prior to the sentencing. Bond was promptly revoked by Perkins following the conviction.
In order to keep Fernandes incarcerated until sentencing, Libby presented the judge with an unexpected justification: Mr. Fernandez might be involved in an automobile accident and be unable to attend sentence. We know he will be there since he is safe in the jail, but there are many other things that need him besides his family and his job. We are aware that he is not leaving. It wasn’t until then that she informed the judge that Fernandes had left the victim hurt on the side of the road, and that the victim had been hospitalized for over a month and was unable to work for longer.
Like nearly every criminal we have tried in court, he must be held pending sentencing, according to Libby.
The trial had been presided over by Perkins. The motion for bail did not surprise him. However, it didn’t make him reconsider. He denied it. According to Perkins, sentence is really the greater story. In contrast to what we’re discussing, the few weeks that separate us from sentence are insignificant.
According to Perkins, he was anticipating three very different requests: probation from the defense, no prison time, and prison time from the prosecution. He was not contradicted by the lawyers. After the pre-sentence investigation (PSI) is completed, he left open the prospect of moving the sentencing hearing to an earlier time. A PSI is a thorough criminal, career, and personal background that may affect the length of a sentence.
