Underdog Blog – Fairfax Criminal Defense Lawyer | Virginia DUI Attorney

Many of my clients breathe a sigh of relief when they learn that a prosecutor has offered a plea deal that is likely to result in much less incarceration time than through a trial loss, when they believe that the risks of a trial loss...

Trial lawyers: Beware when your opponent cuts you off — aside from merely making a non-speaking objection — when you are explaining an objection or other legal argument during a trial or motions hearing. When judges have a busy docket or long day ahead of...

Photo from website of U.S. District Court (W.D. Mi.). Thirty-five years after I started studying and practicing French, I find Spanish much more beneficial to my professional practice. To be sure, speaking any two languages is much better than speaking just one, and I soaked...

The presumption of innocence, and the requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt in criminal cases, must seem to be a very foreign concept to countless criminal jurors. Hopefully Twelve Angry Men (not this 12 Angry Men) will convince more people of these critical principles of criminal justice....

Thanks to the Esquire magazine staffer who recently sent me the May 2011 issue that briefly covers the magazine’s interview with me about why writers’ and others’ confessions about crimes involving drugs and other activities do not automatically translate into prosecutions and convictions. I answered...

Ever since launching my website in 1999 and then my blog in 2006, I have made my life more transparent than ever, usually in various Sunday postings.   Last Thursday and Friday I went to the gathering and funeral for my grandmother Esther Zimmer. Her obituary is...

Image from public domain. LSD once was lawful earlier in the Sixties. Now it is not. K2/Spice remains lawful in the majority of states, but Virginia just added itself today to the list of states outlawing it. D.C. police have threatened crackdowns on K2/Spice stores. Although LSD...

Supreme Court’s spiral staircase. Copyright Jon Katz (photographed October 2010). Today, the United States Supreme Court substantially retreated from Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004), in determining that the Sixth Amendment’s Confrontation Clause was not offended where the state trial court allowed into evidence the victim’s dying...

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...