Underdog Blog – Fairfax Criminal Defense Lawyer | Virginia DUI Attorney
Fairfax Criminal Lawyer / Virginia DUI Attorney- Highly-Rated
Pursuing Your Best Defense Since 1991
Former Virginia government Bob McDonnell obtains rare Supreme Court prison stay
Sentenced to two years in prison for public corruption, former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell has by now spent substantially more funds than any financial benefit he obtained from his convicted corruption, on top of great angst and likely losing any chance of becoming president or...
In Trial Battle, Relax and Practice, and Be Ready for Vomit and Other Messes
My blog entries on trial practice boil down to relaxing and practicing, just as amazing taijiquan teacher Ben Lo reminds his students that the key foundation of excelling in taijiquan is “relax and practice”. For relaxation, I mean active relaxation, not collapsing. Certainly, brittleness is...
Critical Crossroads for Overhauling the Police State, Supporting Good Policing and Speaking Out Against Police Abuse
The United States is at a critical crossroads for overhauling the police state, supporting good policing and speaking out over wrong policing, in the face of widespread police abuse, with some of the starker recent examples being the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner,...
Virginian-Pilot Quotes Jon Katz On First Amendment – Violative City Council Rule
Sticking a thumb in the eye of open and transparent government, democracy, and First Amendment protection, a majority of the Portsmouth, Virginia, city council took it upon itself, in haste all the worse, to add the following abomination to the city council rules of order...
Virginia Ct. App. okays limits on challenging identification of a robber
People misidentify others all the time. We think we see our best friend in the grocery store and realize it is a stranger. We meet a group of people and mistake two from the crowd for each other. We pay a store clerk at one moment...
Voice of America Afrique radio (French) interviews Jon about the rising U.S. murder rate
Interview of Jon Katz about the murder rate in the United States.
Fourth Circuit reverses conviction of pro se defendant, due to no sufficient waiver of counsel
Today, the United States Court of Appeals confirmed that said court has “never held that counsel can be relinquished by means short of waiver.” Consequently, the trial court’s finding of forfeiture of counsel by felony defendant Phillip Ductan’s uncooperative pretrial behavior during his criminal trial was...
Sifting intelligence gems out of police hollering
Recently, I asked a police officer a few very direct questions about his actions with my client. Had I asked the questions more gently, I may have gotten no less a beneficial result, but I asked them as I did. The officer got irritated. He...
Police suspects risk harmful misinterpretations of their non-verbal actions
George Lee Hawkins was stopped for a moving violation. Once stopped, the police saw a bulge in his shirt, and asked him if he could raise his “‘shirt up a little bit so [the police officer could] see how it sits.’” Hawkins then “extended his arms completely out to his sides...
The wind of a prosecutor’s condescending words
One day I was speaking with a taijiquan teacher about yelling people. He replied: “Why try to figure them out? It is just wind.” That advice is great for staying powerfully calm and unrattled in the face of someone exploding in an unjustified tirade. However,...
