Criminal Defense

In the Fourth Circuit, "[t]he reopening of a criminal case after the close of evidence is within the discretion of the trial judge. See United States v. Walker, 772 F.2d 1172, 1177 (5th Cir. 1985); United States v. Molinares, 700 F.2d 647, 652 (11th Cir....

When police operate in the shadows, the risk increases that they will abuse suspects’ rights. After all, power corrupts, including when a cop has a handgun, taser, blackjack, billyclub, handcuffs, a badge, and the power of arrest, and the suspect has none of those. Praised...

Bill of Rights. (From the public domain.) Why do good deeds so often go punished? Eliazer Madrigal-Valdez probably thought he was doing a soldier a favor by dropping him off at his military base in Fort Lee, Virginia. Instead, when Mr. Madrigal was unable to produce a...

After practicing criminal defense for many years, a lawyer can get jaded by some of the more cockamamie-sounding urgings from clients, including the absence of fingerprints when ten witnesses and five videocameras caught the double-killing, and the shooting defendant was then tackled and held until...

Before now, nothing impressed me about Senator Jim Webb other than that he was less worse than George Allen of macaca-gate infamy. On March 26, 2009, Webb introduced the National Criminal Justice Act of 2009. It is good that more people than criminal defense lawyers...

In what way is our payment of taxes for the salaries of uncaring and unjust prosecutors any different from Kevin Bacon’s imploring "Please sir, may I have another [whack on the butt]" in Animal House? Too often, prosecutors refuse to hear from my witnesses to help...

As liars go, Lucy van Pelt was a pro. How else did she repeatedly convince Charlie Brown to try to kick a football that she always pulled away a split second before his foot touched the ball? Being human, prosecutors, judges, criminal defense lawyers, and...

Bill of Rights. (From the public domain.) On the one hand, I think peeping camera laws have gone too far to to the point of chilling legitimate photography and other legitimate activities that have no lascivious intent and no intention of capturing intimate images. On the other...

Many criminal defendants naturally wish to know an attorney’s fee — or at least a ballpark or fee range — over the phone or email before taking up to several hours to drive roundtrip to meet with the lawyer. Criminal cases often are scheduled for quickly-approaching...

Police are well trained to break down people’s assertion of their Constitutional rights, including: – "If you are innocent, why do you need an attorney, and at such unnecessary expense?" – "If you have nothing to hide, why not pop open your trunk for me...