Passing checks on insufficient funds risks a theft conviction. Va. Code § 18.2-181. As a Virginia criminal lawyer and as a former commercial bank examiner/auditor during the year before law school, I know that passing bad checks is all too common. Fairfax criminal lawyer on the...
Danger abounds when insufficiently armed for court, says Fairfax criminal lawyer. Danger lurks around every corner in a criminal courthouse. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I know it is essential to go to court fully prepared for battle. Criminal defense is not an exercise for...
Drug field testing should not be used to justify pretrial detention nor a conviction, says Fairfax criminal lawyer. Drug field testing is used by police to claim probable cause to search and arrest suspects, and by prosecutors for making pretrial detention/bail/bond arguments, and by Virginia...
Risks must be taken in criminal defense, says Virginia criminal lawyer. Risks can abound in criminal defense. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer having defended over three thousand criminal defendants since 1991, I fully know that. For my clients who actually committed the crime for which...
Qualifying a proposed expert witness for a Virginia criminal trial both rests in the sound discretion of the trial judge, for starters. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I also know that qualifying an expert witness for a criminal trial requires the following: If scientific, technical,...
Witness unavailability for the prosecution will not automatically avoid a conviction for a criminal defendant, which I have said many times as a Fairfax criminal lawyer. Mitchell Larnell Bennett learned that lesson when the Virginia Court of Appeals last week affirmed his felony drug distribution...
Coach Bobby Lesser was one of my earliest inspirations at having fun while working -- followed by my public defender office mate Mitch Egber -- rather than feeling like a starch white-shirted duplicate of all the other worker bees. Were I superstitious, which I claim...
DUI arrests are opportunities to go to battle rather than throwing in the towel, says Fairfax DWI lawyer. DUI arrests and all other arrests present the criminal defendant with no choice other than to proceed with a full court press for his or her defense....
Judges usually will not question jurors after post-verdict polling, says Fairfax criminal lawyer. Rarely do judges question jurors on their verdicts after they are polled -- within moments of the jury verdict being read in open court -- to assure that this verdict was indeed...
Jim Acosta's press pass recovery as seen by Fairfax criminal lawyer. Jim Acosta of CNN today won back his White House press pass, for now. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer who last week blogged on this story and has prior experience litigating injunction matters, I...
Video evidence is embraced by Fairfax criminal lawyer. Video evidence preservation is one of my first focuses after being hired to represent a criminal defendant. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I know the importance of obtaining the appropriate discovery order, issuing and delivering the proper...
Theft prosecutions need to be defended tooth and nail, says Fairfax criminal lawyer Theft prosecutions cannot be obtained in Virginia without proof beyond a reasonable doubt of the date of the crime and that the item(s) allegedly stolen had at least some value. Wright v....
Pittsburgh is among the latest places to experience a mass murder, this time with Robert Bowers's massacre at the Tree of Life/Or L'Simcha synagogue. I do not know that I can write much more about this murder by Robert Bowers beyond what has been written by...
Benjamin Pang-jeng Lo was my greatest martial arts teacher. Recently, I learned that Ben passed away on October 12, 2018. He was ninety-one. Ben was an amazing man, not only for his being an extraordinary practitioner and teacher of taijiquan, but also for in the...
Magic in the courtroom sprouts out of reality, says Fairfax criminal lawyer. Magic is within each of us to discover, invite, cultivate and unleash, which I know as a Fairfax criminal lawyer. This approach of finding and incorporating our magic was implored by Deryl Dantzler...
Judicial influences - Virginia criminal lawyer on the importance of knowing your judge. Judicial decisionmaking is influenced by factors beyond only the courtroom and judicial chambers. As a Virginia criminal lawyer, I know that judges come to their jobs with several decades of prior life...
Abolish capital punishment. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer and since long before, I have fully supported the abolition of the death penalty. Former prosecutor Helen Fahey is being touted for her pioneering DNA work as a prosecutor in the announcement of her upcoming Arlington bar...
Fighting DUI prosecutions always is essential. As a Fairfax DUI lawyer/criminal lawyer, I know that DWI convictions dog those convicted of such an offense. As a Fairfax DUI attorney, I know that arresting police officers and court magistrates (being very busy and not having to...
Discretion of prosecutors- Fairfax criminal lawyer weighs in Discretion of prosecutors in settlement negotiations, providing discovery beyond what is required by the governing rules, and trial stipulations can change from Virginia county to county, case to case, prosecutor to prosecutor, and moment to moment....
Senators confirm Brett Kavanaugh by a razor-thin margin. Senators yesterday afternoon confirmed Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court (see my views on Kavanaugh here and here) by a razor-thin margin of 50-48-1 (Sen. Murkowski announcing "present" rather than "nay" out of courtesy for the unavailable...
