Underdog Blog – Fairfax Criminal Defense Lawyer | Virginia DUI Attorney

The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides, in part, that no person “shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.” However, over thirty-five years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that witnesses can be compelled to give immunized testimony even...

A survey would likely find infinitely more arrests for finger flipping than finger pulling. However, the First Amendment protects finger flipping, as confirmed earlier this year by the Western District of Pennsylvania: By 2006, numerous federal courts, including a United States District Court in Pennsylvania,...

Having finished high school before the D.A.R.E. program, how did I stay away from using illegal drugs other than ultimately smoking marijuana literally a handful of times? It did not hurt that I always found tobacco-cigarette smoking gross, and joint-smoking even uglier, since joints looked...

Thanks to Barry Scheck for posting about the injustice of the death penalty, which continues to ensnare innocent people, and for referencing a recent in-depth New Yorker article presenting the case that Cameron Todd was innocent of arson, but still executed in 2004 for the...

Virginia and Maryland have statutory provisions requiring defendants, pretrial, to demand the presence at trial of drug chemists and breath technicians, or to waive that right otherwise. Yesterday, Virginia’s Court of Appeals made clear that such a requirement is met when the defense files a...

Sentencing judges often are fond of "treatment", without sufficiently considering how beneficial the treatment will be. Too many treatment providers are overly paternalistic, bureaucratic, and barely hesitant to tell on probationers to judges. Who wants to spend years to obtain counseling degrees and licenses only to become tattle-tales to judges?...

A few weeks ago, I blogged about the need to engage one’s opponent, the judge and the jury. Here are a few more thoughts on the topic: – How can we persuade without engaging our audience? How do we engage without listening to what is...

When the prosecution tries to use documents to prove speeding in its case in chief — for instance in a jailable Virginia reckless driving case — consider responding with the following pre-Melendez cases that limit hearsay evidence to establish such proof: Royals v. Commonwealth, 198...

Here are some ideas some colleagues recently suggested for responding in Virginia and beyond to prosecutorial objections about a defendant’s hearsay submissions at sentencing: – Argue that if the presentence report is considered at sentencing, as well as any other hearsay from the prosecution, then...

Bill of Rights (From public domain.) With a vengeance, Virginia’s legislature and governor have pushed through their Constitutionally questionable response to Melendez-Diaz. The bill, HB 5007, was signed into law last Friday, and provides that it takes immediate effect. A year and a half ago, when...