Criminal Defense

On May 4, 2009, the United States Supreme Court decided to address the Constitutional limits on imposing life sentences on juveniles. So long as the court addresses the Eight Amendment issues in the twin cases — which is likely — the court’s resulting opinions likely...

Neither the Fourth Circuit nor the Virginia appellate courts are known as liberal hotbeds. That makes this week all the more sweet with the following two Fourth Amendment appellate victories from those courts: Neely v. U.S., ___ F.3d ___  (4th Cir., April 29, 2009), confirms that...

The Justice Department is moving further towards eliminating the 100:1 cocaine powder: crack disparity. On April 29, the Justice Department’s criminal division chief, Lanny A. Breuer, presented this written statement to the Senate on the matter. Breuer’s statement talks of the creation of a Justice Department-created...

Bill of Rights. (From the public domain.) A federal trial judge imposed a below-guidelines sentence for a firearms case. However, on April 27, 2009, the Fourth Circuit remanded for a resentencing, based on the trial court’s failure to "place on the record an ‘individualized assessment’ based on...

Computer hard drive. (Image from Pacific Northwest Laboratory’s website). On April 27, 2009, the Fourth Circuit joined other circuits that consider peer-to-peer file sharing to qualify as distribution under federal Sentencing Guideline § 2G2.2’s sentencing provisions for distribution of child pornography: "While this circuit has not...

Computer hard drive. (Image from Pacific Northwest Laboratory’s website). This past Saturday, we took our boy to the Thomas train fiesta at the Baltimore Railroad museum. For his peers, this is akin my excitement at the prospect of seeing the Police perform live once again. Among...

Among my biggest complaints about the grand jury system — at least the way it is run on the federal level, which is similar to the way it is run in the state-level jurisdictions where I practice — is that the whole show is run...

Courtesy SunWolf: A criminal defense lawyer’s criminal defense lawyer, showing lawyers the powerful path to humanizing our clients, through storytelling, kindness to all, summoning our inner magic, and a reminder that “reality is no obstacle.” Dr. SunWolf — the great storytelling lawyer who proclaims that...

Often prosecutors are fond of proclaiming that defense counsel "opened the door." Which door is the prosecutor talking of, seeing that hundreds of thousands of doors exist within as little as a  mile radius of many courthouses. Paying homage to Lucy van Pelt, prosecutors of...

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....