UNDERDOG - Criminal/DWI Attorney for Fairfax/Northern Virginia/Md. & beyond.

By Fairfax County/Northern Virginia/Maryland/Beltway criminal defense lawyer Jon Katz. Defending DWI/ DUI/ Drunk Driving, drugs, marijuana/medical marijuana/cultivation, sex cases, felonies and misdemeanors. Fighting tirelessly for the best possible results for his clients. http://katzjustice.com.

My son at one with the moment, the scene, and his camera. (Copyright 2012, Jon Katz.)

The moment is the only reality we have. Consequently, it is in the moment that we must persuade.

Here are some of the many reminders I use to stay in and return to the present moment:

- My son, who lives in the moment, including here, recently being one with the camera and the scene while taking a picture with his iPod.

- "A Japanese warrior was captured by his enemies and thrown into prison. That night he was unable to sleep because he feared that the next day he would be interrogated, tortured, and executed. Then the words of his Zen master came to him, 'Tomorrow is not real. It is an illusion. The only reality is now.' Heeding these words, the warrior became peaceful and fell asleep." From Zen in Martial Arts. "The Present Moment".

- Rushing back to work from lunch on a busy day in 1990, an old purple Cadillac approaches me with a large gray-longhaired hippy messenger. The California license plate counsels AMOMENT.

- Eliminating fear, and being powerfully and persuasively fulfilled and joyful, calls for summoning, keeping and tempering the fearlessness of one's child within, filled with wonder and living in the moment, as detailed in the Zen story of the man and the two tigers: A man is chased in the wilderness by two tigers, only to be forced off a cliff, hanging for life from a vine. One tiger waits above and the other below for a human meal. Two field mice start gnawing away at the vine. The man espies a wild strawberry growing from the side of a cliff, and, with his life hanging in the balance, reaches for it, tastes it, and for the moment can only think of and experience how delicious the strawberry tastes.

- Returning to the moment can be as simple as focusing on one's breath.

By Fairfax County/Northern Virginia/Maryland/Beltway criminal defense lawyer Jon Katz. Defending DWI/ DUI/ Drunk Driving, drugs, marijuana/medical marijuana/cultivation, sex cases, felonies and misdemeanors. Fighting tirelessly for the best possible results for his clients. http://katzjustice.com.

The National Criminal Defense College and the Trial Lawyers College heavily focus on storytelling throughout the trial. Most people organize their thoughts and decisionmaking along storytelling lines. Most law schools try in a huge number of respects to teach students to unlearn their humanity, think logically in all respects, argue both sides of a case with equal persuasion, and leave feelings at the door. How many non-lawyers, though, make decisions as unfeeling technocrats, divorced from humanity, storytelling, and common sense? How many people distrust lawyers by seeing them as hired guns who will argue on behalf of the highest-bidding potential client rather than from their conscience? Consequently, the NCDC and TLC help lawyers get back on the path to being humans first, and becoming better lawyers through becoming better humans, including through persuading through storytelling.

Persuading through storytelling within the circle of the story –- including becoming my client as best I can for a substantial chunk of the process of developing the story -- and in the moment can feel scary at first, when turning away from the law school method of cold logic. With storytelling, the lawyer often has no choice but to fill in the blanks, just as an improvisational musician needs to find how to fill in the notes. Storytelling in the foregoing fashion is like doing trapeze work without a safety net, or skydiving without a backup parachute, but is exhilarating to see how well it works. The persuasive arguments unfold -- a counterpoint to my folding origami peace cranes -- from the honesty and passion of storytelling rather than grasping for argumentative straws through cold logic in a sterile way of thinking.

When a lawyer tells a persuasive story, the decisionmakers (judges, juries, and prosecutors (when negotiating)), have less to push against than when the lawyer is arguing from pure legalese. How can one push against an honest story?

To tell a persuasive story requires the lawyer to be fully absorbed with the story, to practice the story, to be in the moment, and to fully know and care about his client. When a lawyer truly believes in his or her client and the client's cause, s/he is at a better advantage to tell a convincing story. As the amazing pianist Cecil Taylor (whom I have experienced up close and in conversation twice) said: "You practice so you can invent. Discipline? No! The joy of practicing leads you to the celebration of the creation."

With the foregoing backdrop, I recount a successful drug felony sentencing that included substantial storytelling. I do not have any idea how much my presentation had to do with our successful outcome, versus the judge's view of the case and my client's busting his butt in fighting for a successful sentencing. I do know that storytelling at this sentencing helped the persuasive story and argument more naturally and honestly unfold.

My client entered a guilty plea to three hand-to-hand cocaine sales to an undercover police officer. I wracked my brains out trying, without success, to figure out how to win such a case before a jury when lawyers in this jurisdiction are not permitted to argue jury nullification, and where the jury pool in this particular county is not the ideal pool for a jury nullification argument.

The voluntary sentencing guidelines in my client's cocaine sales case called for substantial active incarceration time. The sentencing judge has been known to be one who usually sentences within the guidelines. The amazing SunWolf always reminds me that reality is no obstacle, so I made sentencing arguments geared both to sentencing below the guidelines and to enable my client to do home detention or work release if the sentence were not below the guidelines.

Whenever I defend a client charged with a drug offense, I know I am on the side of the angels, starting with the injustice of the drug wars. More broadly, when I represent any criminal defendant, as long as s/he is not snitching, I know I am on the side of civil liberties. The adrenaline and moral rush that I feel in being on the side that I believe in helps me all the more in summoning my energy, internal best and magic -- as emphasized at the National Criminal Defense College -- in finding the road to victory.

All well and good, but how to convince a judge to keep my client out of jail on three separate cocaine sales? Our road to fighting for a suspended sentence started with countless hours of preparation by my client, who accepted and fully followed my advice to enter and complete drug education, get weekly clean urine drug tests, perform a huge number of community service hours, get some great recommendation letters, and bring some very upstanding friends to court. On top of that, my client already had a compelling story of pulling himself up by his bootstraps to put himself through several semesters of college before his arrest, and to have his dream intact of finishing college and being a further success in the working world. It helped that, aside from my client's guilty plea in this case, his criminal record was otherwise crystal clean and he is otherwise an ordinary person leading an ordinary life, as opposed to a life on the edge that might be perceived by a sentencing judges as more at risk of running afoul of the law.

My client's having given me so many good factors to work with, it was easier for me to weave a compelling story that persuasively unfolded -- the opposite of unraveling -- at sentencing. Storytelling must permeate the entire defense of a trial -- including sentencing if an acquittal is not achieved -- including finding the persuasive story, redefining and reframing it as needed, and refining it along the way, all in close teamwork with the client and with brainstorming with other lawyers and non-lawyers. The persuasive story can and must be incorporated into the defendant's sentencing memorandum filed before the sentencing date, with live argument before the judge requiring being in the moment, reading the judge as best as possible for what the judge's concerns are about sentencing, and addressing those concerns.

For felony cases, it is common for the judge to order a presentence investigation report. The lawyer must thoroughly prepare the client for the presentence investigation interview with the probation officer, particularly in jurisdictions where judges and PSI writers are reluctant to permit the presence of the criminal defense lawyer at such interviews. A default approach is to tell the PSI writer and client in writing and orally that the client will not discuss the incident for which s/he has been convicted, because that is to be addressed directly to the sentencing judge, without the filter of the PSI writer's memory, head, perception, and pen. The lawyer must also be ready to contact the defendant's family members to say that the PSI writer is likely to contact them, to help them anticipate the questions coming in order to minimize their being anything but accurate.

Some PSI writers have a penchant for doing the PSI reports at the last moment. It is essential for criminal defense lawyers to insist on a sufficient time buffer for receiving the PSI report, fully reviewing it with the client, encouraging the PSi writer to correct any incorrect items in the report, and to file exceptions to the report with the court.

Next comes drafting a persuasive sentencing memorandum, one that comes alive with humanizing the client, and that tells a story of how the defendant got to the point in life where s/he committed the crime being sentenced, how the defendant will extricate himself or herself from the factors that caused the crime, and how a happier ending is around the corner if the judge holds probation and a suspended sentence over the defendant's head as a hammer rather than slamming the defendant with substantial incarceration.

To go to sentencing without a sentencing memorandum -- with attached recommendation letters, proof of participation in relevant programs (including drug education programs in drug cases), and other relevant documents -- is at a lawyer's peril and a disservice to the sentencing judge by not giving the judge more time to consider and absorb the material and arguments being presented. Moreover, a judge easily can interrupt oral arguments in court, but cannot interrupt a sentencing memorandum or other legal memoranda.

By Fairfax County/Northern Virginia/Maryland/Beltway criminal defense lawyer Jon Katz. Defending DWI/ DUI/ Drunk Driving, drugs, marijuana/medical marijuana/cultivation, sex cases, felonies and misdemeanors. Fighting tirelessly for the best possible results for his clients. http://katzjustice.com

Our law firm reopens this morning (Silver Spring, Marykand), unscathed from the storm. Sending good vibes to all in the storm's path. 

Our Virginia meeting locations in Tysons Corner and Arlington reopen tomorrow.

The D.C. Contemplative Law Group gathering for tonight (I coordinate these last Tuesday of the month gatherings) is cancelled as people regroup from being shut in yesterday during the storm, and many not being at their offices today. We next meet November 27, 7:00 p.m., at Skewers Restaurant, 1633 P Street NW, TOP FLOOR, Washington, D.C. 20036, (202) 387-7400. These gatherings are a great way for attendees to incorporate meditation and mindfulness into their law practices and lives, and for the attendees' positive vibes to spread to others, without even needing to say a word.

By Fairfax County/Northern Virginia/Maryland/Beltway criminal defense lawyer Jon Katz. Defending DWI/ DUI/ Drunk Driving, drugs, marijuana/medical marijuana/cultivation, sex cases, felonies and misdemeanors. Fighting tirelessly for the best possible results for his clients. http://katzjustice.com

The courts are closed today as hurricane Sandy reportedly approaches, and my office will be closed today to prevent being stranded from getting home at the end of the day in the storm.

I will be working from home today and will be fully available by phone.

As always, your messages to my extension 224 (301-495-7755) go straight to my pager.

Fortunately, my building has never lost power from any storm. If electricity does go out, I will have calls to the office forward to my cellphone or Verizon answer call.

I send good vibes to all in the storm's path, particularly to those unable to get out of its path due to economics, physical ailments, and incarceration. Sadly, when courts close, defendants held pretrial get their trials delayed often by many weeks, detained pretrial all the longer.

By Fairfax County/Northern Virginia/Maryland/Beltway criminal defense lawyer Jon Katz. Defending DWI/ DUI/ Drunk Driving, drugs, marijuana/medical marijuana/cultivation, sex cases, felonies and misdemeanors. Fighting relentlessly for the best possible results for his clients. http://katzjustice.com

UPDATE: December 11, 2012. The problem discussed below has now been solved. I circulated my foregoing blog entry to various colleagues after posting it, figuring that fixing the problem might be more likely and quick by my joining with others of like minds. Curiously, my blog post received the most support from members of the Trial Lawyers Association of the District of Columbia, which I had not associated as being a very activist group other than in advocating for laws and court procedures benefiting personal injury victims.

A bar leader and TLA-DC member, of his own volition, called an administrator involved with the courts website. The administrator said that news of pending cases would be removed, but a stream of news links continued about arrests (without counterbalancing links explaining the presumption of innocence and other basic rights of criminal defendants) and trial court results (despite the possibility that such cases will come back to trial if successful on appeal). Another leader in the TLA-DC spoke with an administrative judge of the Superior Court and forwarded my emaled ongoing concerns to the judge. Within short order thereafter, the courts' website stopped posting links about arrests, pending cases, and case results. The administrative judge called me and said he agrees with my view on this, and welcomes viewpoints on other matters involving the court's functions. Thanks deeply to the TLA-DC members who joined in the effort to fix this problem, and thanks to the administrative judge who listened and helped get the problem fixd.

It might feel invigorating to engage in efforts like Michael Moore's to even get an audience with General Motors' chief (never materialized) in Roger and Me, but is all the more effective when those in power actually listen, avoid ivory towers and make changes when they agree that changes are due.

Court websites are official voices and should be closely monitored by the judges running the courts.

Sadly, the District of Columbia's courts Internet front webpage leads off with a running feed of articles from newspapers and blogs not only about completed cases, but even about pending cases, including criminal cases, in which  all defendants are entitled to the presumption of innocence. Courts should say nothing nothing about pending cases -- to do otherwise creates additional problems obtaining impartial juries, for starters -- other than the assigned judges' words in the courtroom and in official court filings, and in making case files, dockets and schedules available to the public. Here is an image that I have archived of today’s page: http://katzjustice.com/welcomeDC.pdf .

The running articles feed on the D.C. courts website either is automatically generated (which may be the case, considering that the newsfeed this morning includes a Saturday, October 27 article link (that is, not from a business day)) -- which prevents quality control issues. If the court's website producers are specifically selecting such links to be posted online, that appears to be a misallocated use of their time.

Here is a sample of links on the courts' newsfeed this morning that should not be there:

- A FindLaw.com link (apparently a dead or incorrect link to the Post at that) to a Washington Post article on jury deliberations in the criminal trial of a police officer prosecuted for shooting into a car. Trial judges admonish jurors not to pay attention nor read about news coverage of the cases the jurors are considering. What if a juror visited the courts' website pending deliberations to get the phone number of the jury office, only to find the link to the foregoing story. Would the juror then think that the trial judge could not have seriously meant to prohibit the jurors from reviewing coverage of jurors' trials if the courts website itself linked to such news coverage?

- A Homicide Watch blogpost on a recent homicide arrest, that then affords the reader to roam further around this blog that purports to report on all city homicides. Absent from the courts' newslink are any links about the rights of criminal defendants and criminal suspects from civil liberties group and criminal defense groups. The courts are not providing balanced links to online stories, particularly when law and order folks (including bloggers, police and prosecutors) are commenting in the stories being linked on the courts website. 

 By Fairfax County/Northern Virginia/Maryland/Beltway criminal defense lawyer Jon Katz. Defending DWI/ DUI/ Drunk Driving, drugs, marijuana/medical marijuana/cultivation, sex cases, felonies and misdemeanors. Fighting tirelessly for the best possible results for his clients. http://katzjustice.com.

Again and again, police and prosecutors try to justify car searches solely on the basis of a claim of smelling unburnt marijuana. Criminal defense lawyers must push back diligently, effectively, and persuasively (with the financial resources available to the defendant, which are not always in abundance) against such claims, including doing a marijuana smell test on the officer if permitted by the governing rules and/or trial judge; challenging the officer's training in detecting unburnt marijuana, and the officer's track record in successfully determining, by smell, the presence of unburnt marijuana; challenging claims of smelling unburnt marijuana when only a small amount of marijuana is found or unbudding plants are found; challenging whether a police officer mistakenly convinces himself s/he smells marijuana based on a tip that the suspect deals in marijuana; and challenging failure of police to preserve the marijuana and its packaging, and failure to photograph the state of the marijuana before being removed from the packaging.

Congratulations to Jonathan Stoffels, whose lawyers successfully convinced a Chicago federal trial judge to suppress a mason jar containing ten grams of marijuana in his car (seized via a search claiming the smell of an overwhelming odor of unburnt marijuana, but how would the odor emanate from a sealed jar/), and all other evidence found in the car, due to police destruction of the jar. Further congratulations to Stoffels for assembling the finances to pay marijuana smell expert Richard Doty to discount the chance that Stoffels had marijuana odor on his clothes from growing marijuana at home, since the plants were too immature to have much of an odor yet.

It appears that Stoffels is now left with defending against marijuana plants found in his home, but the suppression of the evidence found in his car thereby removes from his upcoming trial any evidence of the discovery of the ten grams of marijuana, substantial amounts of cash, drug recipes, and a sales ledger found in his car.

I found Stoffels' case online, and here are his Motion to Dismiss due to police destruction of the Mason jar, along with Exhibits A and B thereto.

By Fairfax County/Northern Virginia/Maryland/Beltway criminal defense lawyer Jon Katz. Defending DWI/ DUI/ Drunk Driving, drugs, marijuana/medical marijuana/cultivation, sex cases, felonies and misdemeanors. Fighting tirelessly for the best possible results for his clients. http://katzjustice.com

Good lawyer training sessions teach lawyers to persuade jurors by being in the roll of the thirteenth juror -- figuratively in the jury box with the jurors, being an "us" rather than an other with the jury. This path is a two-way street, starting with the lawyers' crawling under the skin and hides of the jurors, empathizing with them, having compassion for them, and attending to their needs as they endure the artificial confinement of the jury box, prohibition against discussing the case before jury deliberations have begun, and only in the jury room, and in the jury room itself, banned from leaving the room without the judge's permission.

Why not do the same with judges? Sure, judges want to be respected, lest their orders and rulings have no force beyond the value of the paper and ink that their directives are written on. However, judging can be a lonely endeavor, with a mix of people fearing the judge and his or her extraordinary power and the unknown of what the judge can or will do, with the best judges earning people's respect, and with despised judges getting people to stand for them on entering the court and getting them to call the judge "Your Honor" only out of resentful fear of doing the alternative. Judges are even limited in whom they can confide about their pending cases, lest their discussion with a friend (or would-be friend) about a tough pending case got leaked to the parties in the case or to the press.

Lawyers should never patronize nor manipulate anyone, whether a judge, juror, witness, opponent, client nor anyone else. Mitakuye Oyasin. We are all related, and it is an illusion and delusion to think otherwise. By taking such a compassionate, non-kowtowing approach of feeling connected to the judge, a lawyer can better persuade the judge.

Even the most Solomon-like judge can feel jaded on the days when s/he sees litigants (and even their lawyers) acting beyond petty and dishonestly, and as if the litigants' entire feeling of self-worth relies on the case's outcome, without a care for the judge's needs (including simply to end court sessions on time at the end of the afternoon).

Even the most tyrannical-seeming judges have some level of desire to be spoken well of, but are less likely to depart from their tyrannical-seeming ways with people who do not give them the benefit of the doubt that they can change for the better. A criminal defense lawyer can be effective inside the courthouse without appearing to kowtow to nor accept the injustices therein. A great example of that is my teacher and trial master Steve Rench, who applies the basic and effective lessons of the magic mirror. If a judge knows s/he has a poor reputation with lawyers, that presents all the more reason for the lawyer to empty the mind of any such thoughts, and to give the judge a clean slate that day. Oversimplistically, it is like trying to find the thorn in the lion's sole and to pull it out, rather than trying to slay the lion.

Most people relate better to people whom they do not see as threat in the physical and non-physical sense. Just as I advise my clients and witnesses to wear clothes that will enable the judge and jury to pay attention to the person and not their clothes, I advise them and me to be calm and kind in court, so that the judge and jurors pay attention to what me and my clients are saying without the distraction of seeing us with nervous and sometimes annoying ticks (repeated sniffing and throat-clearing come to mind, but some cannot avoid it and should find ways to otherwise appear as more calm and angelic).

Judges are generalists, handling a wide range of civil and criminal matters. They appreciate lawyers who have taken the time over the years to fully know the law applying to their case, and to fully familiarize themselves with the evidence, discovery, and procedural history and directives of the case at hand. A lawyer's credibility is key before judges and jurors. A lawyer of course needs to advocate, and credibility is part of that advocacy. Just as a lawyers should dress and act in a way that does not detract from the lawyers' words, a lawyer needs always to speak and write credibly and clearly, without unnecessarily excess words. That does not mean that opposing lawyers will never underhandedly or unintentionally never accuse the honest lawyer of dishonorable nor dishonest motives, but does mean that such accusations will be reduced because opponents will not want egg or worse on their faces for falsely accusing the opposing lawyer, and also means that the lawyer will have a powerful response to such baseless accusations, because the truth itself is incredibly and supremely powerful.

Even if a judge angrily barks at me that I am making a frivolous argument, as long as I know I have a solid legal and factual basis for making my argument, I can often neutralize and even turn the judge around by calmly, directly and succinctly saying my grounds for pursuing a particular argument. If the judge acts or speaks as if s/he wants to hear nothing further from me on the topic, I can sometimes still get a persuasive word in -- without running afoul of the judge's rulings -- by taking a particularly non-confrontational approach, sometimes along the lines of just simply saying: "Thank you for ruling. I just wanted to make you aware of yesterday's appellate opinion that guarantees the same protections for my client that I just argued for." How is the judge going to silence me now? Most people, judges included, do not want to lose face unnecessary. Here, I have just offered the judge and opposing lawyer a copy of yesterday's dispositive court opinion (if it were only always that easy), that they simply have not gotten around to reading yet; I have saved them time by finding the case for them, as well. 

By Fairfax County/Northern Virginia/Maryland/Beltway criminal defense lawyer Jon Katz. Defending DWI/ DUI/ Drunk Driving, drugs, marijuana/medical marijuana/cultivation, sex cases, felonies and misdemeanors. Fighting tirelessly for the best possible results for his clients. http://katzjustice.com.

By statute in New York state, taxes may not be imposed on admission fees for "dramatic or musical arts performances." However, yesterday, New York's high court decided to draw the line, 4-3, between so-called highbrow and lowbrow dancing, thereby letting ballet admissions fees avoid taxes, but not admission fees for exotic dancing, also known as stripping. In the Matter of 677 New Loudon Corp., & c., v. New York tax Appeals Tribunal, et al.

Praised be the 677 New Loudon dissent for panning the highbrow-lowbrow distinction. Moreover, having represented some exotic cabarets in the past, I have seen firsthand the First Amendment-protected expressive performance in such dancing and lapdancing, often with dancers who are obviously very talented and classically trained since years ago. More importantly, with the above-referenced statute, without even conceding that exotic dancing is lowbrow, there should be no highbrow-lowbrow distinction.

By Fairfax County/Northern Virginia/Maryland/Beltway criminal defense lawyer Jon Katz. Defending DWI/ DUI/ Drunk Driving, drugs, marijuana/medical marijuana/cultivation, sex cases, felonies and misdemeanors. Fighting tirelessly for the best possible results for his clients. http://katzjustice.com.

Being human, jurors do not leave their biases at the door, nor do judge nor anyone else. The key is for them to overcome their biases as best they can.

Congratulations to Franklin Taylor for winning a retrial today in his voluntary manslaughter case, based on the trial judge's refusal to strike a potential juror who was unable to sufficiently demonstrate that he would do anything other than believe police more than other witnesses merely because they are police. Taylor v. Virginia, __ Va. App. _ (Oct. 23, 2012).

The Court of Appeals found reasonable doubt about whether the potential juror could fulfill his oath to impartially assess each witness, and confirmed that any reasonable doubt about a juror's qualifications must be resolved in favor of the criminal defendant.  

By Fairfax County/Northern Virginia/Maryland/Beltway criminal defense lawyer Jon Katz. Defending DWI/ DUI/ Drunk Driving, drugs, marijuana/medical marijuana/cultivation, sex cases, felonies and misdemeanors. Fighting tirelessly for the best possible results for his clients. http://katzjustice.com.

The September 11, 2001, terrorist acts have led to extraordinarily disproportionate, extensive and intensive grants of power to the United States president and government to combat terrorism, with civil liberties repeatedly trampled as a result, and with rampant warmaking, killing with drones, rendition, U.S. government sponsored torture, and the list goes on.

After September 11, the United States government has maintained no-fly lists, constantly updated with the virtually or totally unbridled discretion of the executive branch, ripe for mistakes and abuse and damage to those on the list.

A case in point is the multi-day ordeal of Wade Hicks, Jr., who boarded a plane in California without incident, to go to Japan, but learned during his layover in Hawaii that in the interim he had been added to the federal no-fly list. He was stranded for days until he was removed from the list as mysteriously as he was added. Was Hicks added for hsi disagreement from the September 11 commission's conclusions? If so, that  would be a violation of Hicks's First Amendment right of free expression, which opinion hardly suggests a terrorism risk.

Sadly, neither Romney nor Obama seem to have any interes in running on a platform of reversing the abuses of the U.S. government's war on terrorism. Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

By Fairfax County/Northern Virginia/Maryland/Beltway criminal defense lawyer Jon Katz. Defending DWI/ DUI/ Drunk Driving, drugs, marijuana/medical marijuana/cultivation, sex cases, felonies and misdemeanors. Fighting tirelessly for the best possible results for his clients. http://katzjustice.com.

George McGovern passed away today.

Would McGovern have beaten Nixon had Woodward and Bernstein broken their story well before the 1972 election? How much is Jimmy Carter's subsequent 1976 presidential win a result of people paying penance for not having timely realized how dangerous Nixon was to the American people (only to be followed with Reagan's landslide over Carter, and subsequent Democratic winners being in the moderate molds of Clinton and Obama)?.

I think my favoring McGovern against Nixon (at the age of 9 in 1972) had little to do with McGovern and more to do with my virulent aversion to Nixon. Since Nixon’s role in the Watergate story had not broken yet, why was I so opposed to him? Was it Nixon's ongoing pursuit of war in Vietnam?  Was it Mad magazine's frequent lampooning of the man (when I religiously read the magazine)? Was it my view that the break-in was unlikely without Nixon’s advance knowledge if not outright complicity?

As an aside, from 1974 to 1996, I started bumping into McGovern-related and Nixon-related history. In April 1974 – just around four months before Nixon resigned lest he be removed from office by impeachment -- my family took our first trip to Washington, D.C., staying at the Washington Hilton north of Dupont circle, apparently the location where Reagan was shot seven years later. Within two hours of our arrival, Nixon showed up for some meeting or press conference. As much as I reviled the man, then at age eleven, he had some sort of persuasiveness (or else I was just following the crowd) that when he waved heartily to the awaiting crowd outside, I waved back.

By Fairfax County/Northern Virginia/Maryland/Beltway criminal defense lawyer Jon Katz. Defending DWI/ DUI/ Drunk Driving, drugs, marijuana/medical marijuana/cultivation, sex cases, felonies and misdemeanors. Fighting tirelessly for the best possible results for his clients. http://katzjustice.com.

Whenever a criminal defendant faces sentencing on muliple counts, the defense lawyer should argue for concurrent, not consecutive, sentences.

Congratulations to Charles Jefferson, Jr., for his appellate victory against the prosecution's assertion that Virginia law does not allow concurrent -- rather than consecutive -- mandatory minimum sentences for multiple counts of a first offense of producing child pornography. Jefferson v. Virginia, __ Va. App. _ (Oct. 16, 2012).

The crime for which Jefferson was convicted is reprehensible. His appellate victory was the right result.

By Fairfax County/Northern Virginia/Maryland/Beltway criminal defense lawyer Jon Katz. Defending DWI/ DUI/ Drunk Driving, drugs, marijuana/medical marijuana/cultivation, sex cases, felonies and misdemeanors. Fighting tirelessly for the best possible results for his clients. http://katzjustice.com.

On October 16, 2012, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia reversed Salim Hamdan's military commission conviction, for retroactive use of antiterror laws. Hamdan v. U.S., _ F.3d _ (D.C. Cir., Oct. 16, 2012).

The opinion says the United States is allowed to detain enemy combatants for the duration of hostilities. When will the United States ever say that hostilities with Al Queda and cohorts are over?

By Fairfax County/Northern Virginia/Maryland/Beltway criminal defense lawyer Jon Katz. Defending DWI/ DUI/ Drunk Driving, drugs, marijuana/medical marijuana/cultivation, sex cases, felonies and misdemeanors. Fighting tirelessly for the best possible results for his clients. http://katzjustice.com.

Prosecutors should overdisclose rather than underdisclose evidence. That is the best way for them to assure compliance with the governing discovery rules in their jurisdiction, and with Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), requiring prosecutors to disclose material exculpatory evidence upon the request of the defense. Such disclosure also serves justice because prosecutors should not be agents of secret justice/injustice.

Overdisclosure of discovery by prosecutors can also encourage settlement of cases by showing defendants the extent of damaging evidence that prosecutors have against them (at least in cases where the evidence is strong for the prosecution), and can foster smoother trials that minimize discovery disputes, mid-trial, that irritate the judge.

Such overdisclosure by prosecutors can also prove to be time efficient, by simply showing or providing the defense the prosecutor's file, or a copy thereof, rather than spending time redacting the prosecutor's file.

By Fairfax County/Northern Virginia/Maryland/Beltway criminal defense lawyer Jon Katz. Defending DWI/ DUI/ Drunk Driving, drugs, marijuana/medical marijuana/cultivation, sex cases, felonies and misdemeanors. Fighting tirelessly for the best possible results for his clients. http://katzjustice.com

A frequent question posed to criminal defense lawyers is "How can you defend THOSE people?" The question is sometimes phrased and asked as brazenly as that, even in the middle of otherwise enjoyable gatherings among relatives and at friends' homes (asked by their invitee(s)); sometimes worded and asked in a more neutral way, searching for answers; and sometimes for sport by people not convinced that it is better to be silent than to be irritating when at a loss of words for how to make small talk at a cocktail gathering.

Slews of people feel as emboldened to challenge a criminal defense lawyer's line of work as they do to challenge an elected politician, anytime, anywhere, and even as confrontationally as they wish. For me, this is an opportunity to get the word out on how honorable is criminal defense work. I have addressed my response to this question here and here, including that plenty of my clients are charged with actions that I feel are overcriminalized (and sometimes should not even be criminalized) in the first place, including illegal drug possession and sales, drinking and driving, and prostitution. A good number of criminal defendants did not commit the alleged crime -- and often are targeted on the basis of race or socioeconomic circumstances - or should be acquitted for insufficient evidence or reasonable doubt. All convicted criminal defendants are entitled to vigorous defense at sentencing, and at appeal if they choose to appeal (which is usually wise if convicted at trial, other than in jurisdictions where the appeal is a trial de novo from a misdemeanor conviction). By now, of course, I can feel comfortable defending a person against any criminal charge, no matter how allegedly heinous, even if I am convinced my client did the alleged crime.