Underdog Blog – Fairfax Criminal Defense Lawyer | Virginia DUI Attorney

Suspects and everyone else have the right to remain silent with police. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I have seen too many criminal defendants create their own nooses by not keeping their mouths shut with police. Even in states requiring a person to identify himself...

Sobriety testing -- also known as standard field sobriety testing, SFST or FST -- is a tool relied on by police in deciding whether to arrest a person for DUI and reporting on such cases, and then relied on by prosecutors in trying to obtain...

Voters on June 11 favored reform-talking challengers over incumbents who had previously received the seal of approval of their long-serving predecessors, in Fairfax County and Arlington/Falls Church. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer who has maintained a sidelines wait-and-see view about how much more good than...

Driving restrictions are onerous for a DWI conviction under Va. Code § 18.2-266 and pour salt in the wounds of already having such a conviction, and even more so for those receiving active jail time for such a conviction. As a Virginia DUI lawyer, I...

Waiving rights with police is all too common by criminal suspects who do not have attorneys. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I know that it rarely benefits an unrepresented criminal suspect to relinquish his or her rights to remain silent with the police, to have...

Intox EC/IR II (Intox) testing is the sole breath test machine approved by the Virginia Department of Forensic Science (DFS) in DWI cases. As a Fairfax DUI lawyer, I know how essential it is to aggressively challenge the admissibility, reliability and meaning of such test...

Breath testing is the preferred method of alcohol testing by police officers in Virginia DWI cases. As a Virginia DUI lawyer, I know that a full-court press needs to be pursued against breath testing results in such cases. Breath testing is fallible both with the...

Testifying in Virginia criminal court requires thorough and intelligent preparation Testifying for the criminal defense is no merely simple exercise of engaging in questions and answers, which I know as a Virginia criminal lawyer. This is the second of a two-part article. The first part...

Testimony in court by criminal defendants needs to be carefully and thoroughly prepared in tandem with the defendant's attorney. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I know that the decision whether to testify -- thus waiving the defendant's Fifth Amendment right to remain silent -- is...

Protecting the preliminary hearing (PH) right is critical, as underlined in my last blog entry. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I know that prosecutors sometimes will try to avoid a PH by direct indicting, by seeking a nolle prosequi/ non-prejudicial case dismissal (which cannot be...