Underdog Blog – Fairfax Criminal Defense Lawyer | Virginia DUI Attorney
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Virginia DWI Defense – Challenging Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus Testimony
The horizontal gaze nystagmus test ("HGN") is routinely included among the field sobriety tests. Even if the test's name sounds scientific, in reality the test involve's the police officer having the DWI suspect follow a pen or other stimulus with the suspects' eyes, while the...
Our Police State Must Be Dismantled, One Step at a Time
How do we reverse the Nation's oppressive police state of affairs? As I have blogged for over a decade, we start by shrinking the overgrown criminal justice system, starting with steps as simple as legalizing marijuana, prostitution, and gambling; heavily decriminalizing all other drugs; eliminating...
Human potential is extraordinary in Virginia court and beyond
My Virginia criminal defense work is about harmonizing and reversing difficult situations and liberating my clients, from their charges. from their risks, and from their potential and actual incarceration. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I repeatedly experience the great things that can happen from recognizing...
The necessity of communicating confidentially about a criminal defendant’s case
Over four years ago, I blogged about the truism that the courthouse walls and halls have ears. The courthouse hallways are swarming with police in plain clothes, prosecutors and judges dressed similarly to defense lawyers, news media reporters, and other criminal defendants and their supporters...
Virginia DWI defense – Mere brief weaving is not sufficient for a police traffic stop
Mere momentary, short and limited weaving is not sufficient for a police traffic stop. Moreover, Virginia has not recognized a community caretaking ground to allow a police traffic stop (to assure the welfare of the driver of a car driving less than perfectly). Barrett, 250...
Prosecutors’ Foregone Conclusion Argument Against Fifth Amendment Opposition to Decrypting Computers
Seizing and searching computers is big business for law enforcement, for such investigations as child pornography, terrorism, and online copyright infringement. At the same time, computer encryption technology continues advancing, to the point that law enforcement cannot always crack such encryption, leading law enforcement to...
Virginia cocaine and handgun defense – Mere presence of contraband in glovebox does not make driver liable
Some unpublished cases need to be published, including this month's Virginia Court of Appeals opinion concluding that the evidence was insufficient to convict a man driving a rental car without authorization, where the glove compartment contained a handgun and twenty grams of cocaine. Roy v....
SCOTUS – Unlawfully detained people may sue under Fourth Amendment
For decades, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit bucked the path of eight circuits now, by generally barring a Fourth Amendment lawsuit claim in federal court over unlawful pretrial detentions. Today the United States Supreme Court corrected that erroneous Seventh Circuit...
Criminal Law and Immigration – Importance of Asserting the Fifth Amendment by Undocumented People
With the Trump administration likely will come a continued increase in immigration raids. Hopefully the subjects of those raids will know their Fifth Amendment right to refuse to state their immigration status. This all reminds me of my immigration law professor's emphasis on the importance...
The Hobson’s choice of agreeing to unsavory probation conditions or risking a more severe sentence
In 2008 in Grayson County, Virginia, Circuit Court, Lara was convicted of aggravated sexual battery of a mentally incapacitated victim. He was sentenced to twenty years suspending seventeen of those years, conditioned on probation obligations including participating in psychological counseling. U.S. v. Lara, ___ F.3d....