Criminal Defense
A prosecutor who wants justice will walk that walk, not the contemptuous path
"The duty of the prosecutor is to seek justice, not merely to convict." American Bar Association's standards for prosecutors, Standard 3-1.2(c).
Some prosecutors apply that principle so well that when they later switch to private law practice, their criminal defense lawyer colleagues welcome them into the...
Even one ounce of anger or tension can miss the winning opportunity
Yes, the world is filled with too many people too often acting like heartlessly dangerous people. Part of my job is to defuse, shrink, disintegrate, disinfect, and deflect the unseemly and dangerous actions of others, and to extract the gold that can even be found...
Hugo, Colorado police further underline the unreliability of superficial drug tests
Drug detection is about chemistry, and even prosecutors' chemists -- with a never-ending stream and often backlog of alleged drugs to test while still testifying in court -- can get drug testing wrong, particularly with being challenged by mental and physical exhaustion with their heavy...
In the criminal defense battlefield, expect the unexpected
If a court case were cut and dried, then fewer unexpected turns of events would occur, and the cost of the defense could be better contained. However, if a criminal defendant wishes to maximize his or her chances of obtaining as much success as possible,...
Enough is Enough – Fatal Police Shootings in Baton Rouge and Minnesota
I would have hoped that the only similarity between the Khmer Rouge and Baton Rouge/Red Stick, would be the word "rouge"/red rather than deadly abuse of power. We don't need nor merit police using excessive force with red sticks, blue sticks, guns, fists, tasers, nor...
How to persuade a hard-line judge or jury to see the case on its own merits
It can be scary for a criminal defense lawyer to place the fate of his or her client in the hands of the judge and jury. However, the effective criminal defense lawyer does not simply hand the defendant to the jury.
A how-to for police suspects, starting with the power of “no”
Go and enjoy the rest of the Fourth of July weekend, and remember that Independence Day has less meaning when criminal suspects do not assert their rights to remain silent with the police and to refuse police searches.
Policing is an undemocratic, militaristic culture
Policing is a necessary evil that is antithetical to a free, open and democratic society. Policing is a poison on society and the body politic when our society is overpoliced, which it has been for decades,
The lawyer is there for the client to lean on, not vice versa
If a person wants to see people stripped of their happy-face/can-do armor and stiff upper lip, practice criminal defense. If my criminal defense client was not already in a personal mess of sorts that led to his or her arrest (remembering that innocent people get...
On the Orlando Massacre and Brock Turner’s Sentence
If my blog reacted to every extreme act of violence and every controversy over court cases, my blog would cover nothing else. The Western press repeatedly focuses on violence against Westerners -- and in particular massacres -- more than against those in the rest of...
