Underdog Blog – Fairfax Criminal Defense Lawyer | Virginia DUI Attorney

Alcohol and drug programs are big business for DUI cases, other court cases, and non-court cases, employing a large percentage of people in Virginia and beyond. Yes, those programs often are better than if the only other choice is jai, but their very existence means...

Search warrants do not automatically preclude successful Fourth Amendment challenges. Today, Ian Christian Carlson happily saw that truism applied to his benefit. Carlson v. Virginia. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I know that police generally are barred from investigating for possible criminal activity by going...

Contraband abounds in terms of such material as weapons and drugs. As a Virginia criminal lawyer, I berate myself that after the bar exam and two years before becoming a criminal defense lawyer I made the error of bringing a friend's locked suitcase to Singapore...

Acquittal is the ideal goal of going to trial. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, my view is to go to trial rather than entering a guilty, no contest or Alford plea, where the benefits and possibly lower risks of doing otherwise are not...

Capital punishment in the United States has proceeded somewhat away from an arbitrary and capricious system that previously allowed judges rather than juries to decide a death sentence, and for people to be executed for crimes other than murder. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I...

Private prisons and private jails abound in the United States, and are popular with many investors. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, my concerns about private prisons include the risk that the prisons will put investors' profit interests above treating inmates right, and about possible limited...

Ralph Northam is rightfully in the news over the 1984 photograph accompanying his medical school yearbook entry, depicting a person in a KKK hood next to another in black face makeup. Other writers have already written much of Virginia governor Northam's admitting and later denying...

Virginia drug law is tough on defendants. As a Fairfax drug lawyer, I know that merely possessing a Schedule I or II drug is Class 5 felony carrying up to ten years in prison. Marijuana possession remains a misdemeanor jailable up to thirty days, with...

Criminal discovery reform in Virginia finally achieved a breakthrough in 2018, when the commonwealth's Supreme Court directed a mid-2019 substantial discovery expansion for felony criminal defendants. This Virginia discovery reform needs to be seen as but a first step, seeing that it does not cover...

Dirty urines are a risk for any controlled substance user on supervised probation before their court date. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I know that staying off illegal drugs is easier ordered than followed. Fairfax criminal lawyer warns criminal defendants not to throw in the...