Williams v. State

Robert Williams petitions this court for a writ of habeas corpus, challenging the trial court’s order of pretrial detention after he failed to appear for calendar call in connection with his charge for failure to redeliver a hired vehicle.1 We grant the petition.

Williams offered an explanation for his failure to appear for calendar call in October 2010: as a member of the Florida National Guard, he was called up early in September by his special forces unit and was given only twenty-four hours notice to go into Africa, to a location where he had no opportunity to call his lawyer until…