Criminal Defense
Love Your Jurors – Know Your Jurors
“You do not have the right to quit trying. (The universe wobbles when you do.) You have the right to quit Toxic People. (They’re contagious.) .” Dr. SunWolf (who confirms to me that this ubiquitous quote is indeed hers). In Practical Jury Dynamics, amazing human,...
Sex and consent: A continuum from full consent to no consent
When I interview candidates to work for me, I inform them that a passion for civil liberties heavily drives my choice of cases. That means that I have never rejected a client merely because s/he is accused of a heinous act, even when I strongly believe s/he has...
“Warfare is the way of deception”- Sun Tzu
Criminal defense is battle — and sometimes war — pure and simple. I have no business taking on a client unless I will take off the boxing gloves and focus on victory at every turn, within the bounds of professional conduct rules, without concern about decimating the...
Beware speed radar and laser testimony
When police stop a car using radar or laser for speeding charges, I ordinarily only step into the picture for motions to suppress the stop and for jailable reckless driving charges in Virginia, as I do not tend to defend non-jailable moving violation charges. When I...
The Fourth Circuit rejects giving ESP powers to searching cops. Was this a Walking While a Young Black Male patdown?
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond is particularly conservative, unfortunately. Even though a president can try to overcome the Fourth Circuit’s conservative reputation by appointing judges not expected to be conservative, the Fourth Circuit’s judges may not overturn the court’s...
When a police search is valid today, but would be invalid under later 4th Amendment jurisprudence
Today, the Fourth Circuit ruled that objectively reasonable police reliance on later-overruled binding appellate precedent on searches and seizures, precludes exclusion of the evidence at trial. U.S. v. Wilks, ___ F.3d ___ (4th Cir., July 28, 2011). Wilks finds the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent Davis...
Criminal defense lawyers should be immune from testifying against their clients at their criminal trials
Mario Turner got convicted — and sentenced to several years in prison — for aggravated malicious wounding and use of firearm during the commission of a felony. Turner v. Virginia, ___ Va. App. ___ (July 26, 2011). Standing out most about Turner is neither his conviction...
When a capital conviction is reversed over the wrongful striking of one potential juror
On July 14, 2011, I blogged about Norfolk federal trial Judge Raymond A.] Jackson’s reversal of Justin Michael Wolfe’s capital conviction, primarily due to his finding of serious failures of the prosecution to disclose exculpatory/Brady evidence. It is ironic that a case opinion as important as this...
Federal judge gives full teeth to Brady v. Maryland
Six weeks after my birth, the United States Supreme Court issued the landmark opinion of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), requiring prosecutors to disclose material exculpatory evidence upon the request of the defense: “We now hold that the suppression by the prosecution of...
Defendants retain their Fifth Amendment right to remain silent at sentencing
A criminal defendant’s right to remain silent does not go out the door through a conviction following a guilty plea or trial. Mitchell v. U.S., 526 U.S. 314, 119 S.Ct. 1307 (1999). Mitchell is black letter law, despite the firm dissent of four justices therefrom....