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Opening a judge’s and jury’s ears and beings to a lawyer’s evidence and arguments is essential for persuasion. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I know that merely throwing raw and disorganized facts and law to a judge and jury can fall on deaf ears. Judges...

Judicial influences - Virginia criminal lawyer on the importance of knowing your judge. Judicial decisionmaking is influenced by factors beyond only the courtroom and judicial chambers. As a Virginia criminal lawyer, I know that judges come to their jobs with several decades of prior life...

Marijuana field testing is junk science. As a Virginia criminal lawyer, I say so, because even a drug chemist's testimony is subject to reasonable inquiry and sometimes attack, even when the chemist is completely legitimate with his or her credentials and honesty.

Today's Bosse decision is more monumental than might first meet the eye. The United States Supreme Court has at least three justices that are very friendly to preserving the death penalty.

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court gave retrospective effect to Miller v. Alabama, 567 U. S. ___ (2012), which prohibits mandatory, versus discretionary, life without parole sentences for those who committed crimes while under eighteen years old.

On April 21, 2015, the United States Supreme Court resolved a federal circuit court split by ruling 6-3 that traffic stops must be concluded in a reasonable timeframe (already settled Supreme Court caselaw), and may not be prolonged without an independent lawful basis to do...

No matter how non-plussed, at best, that I am overall about President Obama, his two Republican opponents doubtlessly would have placed much bigger threats on the federal bench than Obama would ever nominate. On April22, 2014, the dangers of Ronald Reagan’s, George Bush I’s and...

I knew a trial judge in my home state of Connecticut starting before he became a judge, and referred to him a few times to a family member as the “hanging judge”, because I was not fond to learn that he apparently was okay with the...

Yesterday, I kept pinching myself in ecstasy over the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision requiring police to have probable cause to believe the existence of relevant criminal activity before taking a drug-sniffing dog to the front door of one’s home. Florida v. Jardines, ___ U.S. ___...