Is car a deadly weapon? State’s high court hears issue

Legal distinction could add up to 15 years on prison terms

Can a Cadillac be used as a weapon? What seems like common sense — a car turns into a deadly weapon if used to run someone down — isn’t always true under the law in Florida.

The state’s appellate courts are split.

The question: Should cars be considered as weapons so charges of manslaughter, or unintentional killings, become more serious felonies?

That answer likely will come from the Florida Supreme Court, which is expected to resolve the dispute.

And it’s a significant legal distinction: Branding a car as a weapon can add up to 15 years on a prison sentence.

Debbie Poklemba of Fort Myers hopes the high court clarifies that cars are weapons so no other heartbroken mother has to endure what she has.

Last year, a state appeals court based in Lakeland ruled that the Cadillac CTS that hit and killed Poklemba’s daughter Tia in 2008 could not be defined as a weapon.

That cut Luis Gonzalez’s 30-year prison

sentence for manslaughter in half; however, a 30-year term for leaving the scene was affirmed.

The appellate court pointed to a 2004 Florida Supreme Court finding that an “automobile is not commonly understood to be an instrument for combat against another person.”

Try telling that to Poklemba, whose 25-year-old daughter was left for dead an hour after meeting Gonzalez at a tiki bar.

“He ran over my daughter three times,” she told the Sun Sentinel. “You’re not going to tell me the car’s not a weapon. He used it as a weapon. That’s all there is to it.”