Underdog Blog – Fairfax Criminal Defense Lawyer | Virginia DUI Attorney
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Pursuing Your Best Defense Since 1991
Tenth Circuit: Parties are permitted to strike jurors for their drug reform views
Image from public domain. Earlier this month, the Tenth Circuit gave the green light for parties to strike jurors for their drug reform views in criminal cases. U.S. v. Judah Prince, ___ F.3d ___ (10th Cir., Aug. 5, 2011). Prince was convicted for marijuana cultivation...
When the opponent gets angry or sarcastic, know the weakness that comes with it. (And a story of a courtroom SBD.)
The life of criminal defense lawyering inevitably faces the trial lawyer with seemingly numerous unpleasant and downright distressing people and situations. They run from yelling and seemingly underhandedly scheming lawyers, to lying and nasty opposing witnesses, to numerous judges who seem to be prosecutors in...
Winning by Knowing How & When to Use Words, Silence, & All Other Trial Battlefield Weapons
Image from National Institute of Standards & Technology. Winning in court is not about brute force nor about merely believing that the client deserves victory. It is about constant preparation, devotion, practice, passion, study with others and solo, and belief in the lawyer’s client and...
Anatomy of my recent Virginia marijuana cultivation trial victory
Image from public domain. Many medical marijuana users grow multiple marijuana plants to assure an uninterrupted supply of quality medicine. When one is prosecuted for growing multiple marijuana plants in the jurisdictions where I practice (where only Maryland has an affirmative medical marijuana defense among the jurisdictions...
When a police search is valid today, but would be invalid under later 4th Amendment jurisprudence
Today, the Fourth Circuit ruled that objectively reasonable police reliance on later-overruled binding appellate precedent on searches and seizures, precludes exclusion of the evidence at trial. U.S. v. Wilks, ___ F.3d ___ (4th Cir., July 28, 2011). Wilks finds the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent Davis...
Criminal defense lawyers should be immune from testifying against their clients at their criminal trials
Mario Turner got convicted — and sentenced to several years in prison — for aggravated malicious wounding and use of firearm during the commission of a felony. Turner v. Virginia, ___ Va. App. ___ (July 26, 2011). Standing out most about Turner is neither his conviction...
When a capital conviction is reversed over the wrongful striking of one potential juror
On July 14, 2011, I blogged about Norfolk federal trial Judge Raymond A.] Jackson’s reversal of Justin Michael Wolfe’s capital conviction, primarily due to his finding of serious failures of the prosecution to disclose exculpatory/Brady evidence. It is ironic that a case opinion as important as this...
Federal judge gives full teeth to Brady v. Maryland
Six weeks after my birth, the United States Supreme Court issued the landmark opinion of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), requiring prosecutors to disclose material exculpatory evidence upon the request of the defense: “We now hold that the suppression by the prosecution of...
Defendants retain their Fifth Amendment right to remain silent at sentencing
A criminal defendant’s right to remain silent does not go out the door through a conviction following a guilty plea or trial. Mitchell v. U.S., 526 U.S. 314, 119 S.Ct. 1307 (1999). Mitchell is black letter law, despite the firm dissent of four justices therefrom....
Acquittal through storytelling from the scene
A critical part of persuasion is storytelling, including bringing the jury within the circle of the story. Of course, storytelling alone may not be persuasive enough, because trials ordinarily involve various versions of the truth and challenges to the credibility and reliability of various opposing witnesses...