Underdog Blog – Fairfax Criminal Defense Lawyer | Virginia DUI Attorney

When a criminal defense lawyer consults with a qualified immigration lawyer conversant with adverse immigration consequences from criminal convictions, expect to hear the immigration lawyers’ analysis include risks from crimes of moral turpitude and aggravated felonies. Praised be the majority on the Fourth Circuit panel...

Prosecutors often will try to overcome bad searches by claiming such factors as inevitable discovery, and intervening events that cure any taint. Praised be the Fourth Circuit recently, 2-1, for not buying the prosecutor’s arguments over an unconstitutional stop of a car, without which the cops would...

Assault trials are a unique challenge to win for the defense, as I have learned after having defended a few hundred of them. For simple assault, sometimes they are most often winnable in a “he said-she said” testimonial situation with no witnesses and no pictures...

Bill of Rights (from the public domain) Praised be the two-judge majority that today reversed a drug conviction, finding that the police on-the-street peek into an arrestee’s underwear — and subsequent cutting off the string attaching a bag of cocaine to his penis — amounted...

Beware when a judge sees the First Amendment’s free speech clause as a hindrance to judicial administration, perhaps emphasizing that the First Amendment is not absolute and does not protect the right to cry “fire” in a crowded theater. (As it turns out, a Supreme...

Police are mere humans, and are thus bound, collectively, to make frequent big mistakes. In their true nature, dogs are here to run at large, and not to be police employees pushed and rewarded to try ferreting out drugs; that alone sets them up to make big mistakes...

Earlier this month, the lawyers.com blog emailed me some questions about defending against charges of driving under the influence of marijuana. The resulting article briefly references some of my responses. Here is more from Underdog, briefly, on defending against such an accusation, including the shibboleth...

Bill of Rights (from the public domain) Praised be Maryland federal trial judge Roger Titus for recently dismissing a prosecution for engaging in a “course of conduct that caused substantial emotional distress” to the alleged victim, through posting messages on Twitter and other websites. Not...

At least for those with jailable criminal cases against them, a large percentage of them enter the courthouse in fear. Those running and operating the courts try to maintain a sense of normalcy — at least superficially — amidst all this fear, but it remains. Some...

A jury cannot eyeball a witness to determine his or her credibility and demeanor by merely being read the complaining witness’s testimony from a prior proceeding. For a criminal defendant, letting such a transcript into evidence can be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the defense...