Criminal Defense

During my first year as a public defender lawyer, I arrived at the courthouse at my customary early time at least an hour before the judge took the bench, and at the courtroom customarily early. On my way to the courtroom with my ten to...

How do United States courts get extraterritorial jurisdiction over criminal prosecutions for crimes allegedly committed outside the United States? How did a United States federal trial court get jurisdiction over the prosecution of Manuel Noriega (I was not yet a criminal defense lawyer when the U.S....

"No" is an essential response by a police suspect who has no lawyer present. On the other hand, once they have lawyers, a slew of federal criminal suspects line up with their lawyers at prosecutors’ doors right away in the hopes of getting more favorable...

One would think that those driving with contraband would avoid having defective vehicle equipment — for instance burnt-out headlights and taillights — to reduce their risk of being stopped for traffic offenses. However, repeatedly my clients tell me that the police correctly reported such defects,...

Holiday time means more police on the lookout for people to arrest to meet their arrest quotas perceived obligations to the public. Watch out for speed traps, sobriety checkpoints, police watching for easy targets leaving bars, and more. Long ago, I lost track of the...

Good lawyer training sessions teach lawyers to persuade jurors by being in the roll of the thirteenth juror — figuratively in the jury box with the jurors, being an “us” rather than an other with the jury. This path is a two-way street, starting with...

Being human, jurors do not leave their biases at the door, nor do judge nor anyone else. The key is for them to overcome their biases as best they can. Congratulations to Franklin Taylor for winning a retrial today in his voluntary manslaughter case, based...

Whenever a criminal defendant faces sentencing on multiple counts, the defense lawyer should argue for concurrent, not consecutive, sentences. Congratulations to Charles Jefferson, Jr., for his appellate victory against the prosecution’s assertion that Virginia law does not allow concurrent — rather than consecutive — mandatory minimum...

Slews of people feel as emboldened to challenge a criminal defense lawyer's line of work as they do to challenge an elected politician, anytime, anywhere, and even as confrontationally as they wish. For me, this is an opportunity to get the word out on how...

"Don’t you know that litigation causes many lawyers heart attacks?", an experienced federal regulatory agency lawyer asked me when early on in law school I expressed an interest in a litigation career, including to fight for civil liberties. I suppose that heart attack risk might be higher...