Underdog Blog – Fairfax Criminal Defense Lawyer | Virginia DUI Attorney
Fairfax Criminal Lawyer / Virginia DUI Attorney- Highly-Rated
Pursuing Your Best Defense Since 1991
First Amendment slays spam conviction
Computer hard drive. (Image from Pacific Northwest Laboratory’s website). Thanks to the lawyer(s) who last Friday won a First Amendment-based reversal of a spam conviction in Jaynes v. Com., ___ Va. ___ (Sept. 12, 2008), http://www.courts.state.va.us/opinions/opnscvwp/1062388.pdf. The Jaynes victory reverses the February 2008 Virginia Supreme Court...
Before retiring tonight, don’t forget to wave goodnight to the FBI outside your window
In college, I had an excellent Eastern European politics professor — Sarah Terry — who recounted a Halloween party she attended at one of the Western embassies or other Western centers in Warsaw during the Cold War (I think in the 1970’s or 1980’s). Outside the...
When Miranda Does and Does Not Come to the Rescue
Bill of Rights. (From the public domain.) Many of my clients complain that the police never read them their rights. I wish the police always had that obligation when questioning a person, but that is not the situation. Generally, the police must advise a suspect of...
Why travel a thousand miles to learn to be more real?
In the middle of the then-four week Trial Lawyers College in its second year, I asked myself: "I have come all the way to a ranch in Wyoming miles from the nearest paved road to learn that the essence to being a great trial lawyer is...
Red lights, dogs and the Fourth Circuit
Bill of Rights. (From the public domain.) Police love when suspects drive cars. The driver is bound to violate one traffic law or another, thus justifying a police stop of the car, and an attempt to reveal criminal activity afoot. Police also love to bring "drug" dogs to attempt...
How Can a Proper Terry Patdown Find Crack Cocaine?
Bill of Rights. Recently during a suppression hearing in a drug case, the police officer testified that controlled dangerous substances fell to the ground from my client’s pants as the cop conducted a pat down for weapons, on the cop’s claimed belief that this was a...
Virginia inmate released on new non-biological evidence
Bill of Rights. (From the public domain.) A prison inmate’s case does not become quiet merely because of a conviction and a lost appeal. Many inmates next seek post conviction relief, whether the term of art for such relief applications is habeas corpus, coram nobis, or any...
Calling the Dogs Means a Detention
Bill of Rights. (From the public domain.) Praised be Virginia’s intermediate appellate court for generally finding that a detention takes place once a police officer tells a person that s/he is having a drug dog come to search the suspect’s vehicle. In Middlebrooks v. Virginia, ___...
Persuading in the First Person
The National Criminal Defense College and Trial Lawyers College focus on persuasion through storytelling. What to do, though, when a judge tries to stop the lawyer from first-person storytelling (“I was sitting there minding my own business, when he rushed at me with a meat...
What Keeps a Lawyer Practicing Law?
What keeps me practicing law, and enjoying it? Law school was not sufficient to keep me practicing law and enjoying it, with the exception that I benefited tremendously spiritually, intellectually, and growth-wise from the immigration law clinic, through which I first-chaired the first two trials of...
