Underdog Blog – Fairfax Criminal Defense Lawyer | Virginia DUI Attorney

Camera image from U.S. Geological Survey website.   Today, I appeared around 2:30 p.m. EDT, pre-recorded, on BBC TV Channel 1’s South East Today, on the Christopher Tappin extradition case that I have discussed here and here. The interview at BBC’s Washington, D.C., bureau was about...

Photo from website of U.S. District Court (W.D. Mi.). When I started practicing criminal defense in 1991, the phrase “guilty plea” sounded like a dirty word, but I already knew that such pleas are a major part of the criminal “justice” system which otherwise would...

To those in the Washington, D.C., television area, watch me tonight around 5:15-5:30 p.m. on Fox 5, Washington DC, about Redskins owner Dan Snyder’s libel suit against the City Paper. The First Amendment rules, of course, always. The lawsuit filed yesterday in New York. I...

Image from National Institute of Standards & Technology. Last year, I blogged about a 6-5 Virginia intermediate appellate court opinion affirming a drunk driving conviction where the DWI was allegedy committed on private property not used as a thoroughfare, and not committed in the presence...

Today, the Fourth Circuit ruled that a marijuana disposition under Va. Code § 18.2-251 (also known as 251, which I fully discuss here) is not always a conviction for immigration purposes. Crespo v. Holder, 631 F.3d 130 (4th Cir., Jan. 11, 2011) . Crespo says: “We thus start...

  Bill of Rights. (From the public domain.) Thanks to a listserv member for citing to a 1965 Supreme Court decision that underlines the unconstitutional overbreadth of statutes criminalizing one’s not obeying a "lawful order" of a police officer, where the statute does nothing to narrow such orders...

Image from the Government Printing Office’s website. District of Columbia v. Heller applies the Second Amendment to the individual right to possess firearms for home protection. Heller, 128 S. Ct. 2783 (2008). What happens when a person possesses a firearm at home in contravention of...

In Virginia, a felony trial generally must commence within five months after probable cause is found at a preliminary hearing (or indictment if no preliminary hearing is held) for defendants detained pretrial, and nine months for those not detained. Va. Code § 19.2-243. Virginia’s Court of Appeals...

Image from National Institute of Standards & Technology. Recently in a Virginia District Court drunk driving trial, the judge agreed with me not to find a blood alcohol level level higher than a 0.20 despite the 0.21 reading made by the state’s blood examination expert...

On December 2, Maryland’s Court of Special Appeals reversed a conviction based on the prosecutor’s comments on the credibility of his police witness. Sivells v. Maryland, ___ Md. App. ___ (Dec. 2, 2010). Sivells also addressed the test for probable cause: This Court recently discussed the concept...