Criminal Defense

Last June, the United States Supreme Court determined that Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004) strictly limits prosecutors’ ability to present to the jury a homicide victim’s testimonial hearsay, even though the victim could have testified at trial had his or her killing not been...

Photo from website of U.S. District Court (W.D. Mi.). When I started law school in 1986. my legal research class included researching weighty tomes with such titles as Supreme Court Digest, F.2d Digest, and A.2d Digest, which used key numbers to find various categories and...

Photo from website of U.S. District Court (W.D. Mi.). Wesley Snipes and Paul Little (a.k.a. Max Hardcore) both are actors — very different actors, at that —  with pending federal criminal appeals from the Middle District of Florida. Their similarities end there both with the...

Image from Virginia Forestry Dept’s website. Halloween treats came before sundown today with the following favorable criminal rulings from Virginia’s Supreme Court, which issues opinions around every six weeks: – Virginia’s Supreme Court reversed a rape conviction where not more than a scintilla of evidence...

Max Hardcore -- the stage name for Paul LIttle -- in 2008 received a 46 month prison sentence on his federal court obscenity conviction that followed a jury trial. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer deeply opposed to obscenity due to free expression and First Amendment...

Computer hard drive. (Image from Pacific Northwest Laboratory’s website). Thanks to the lawyer(s) who last Friday won a First Amendment-based reversal of a spam conviction in Jaynes v. Com., ___ Va. ___ (Sept. 12, 2008), http://www.courts.state.va.us/opinions/opnscvwp/1062388.pdf. The Jaynes victory reverses the February 2008 Virginia Supreme Court...

Bill of Rights. (From the public domain.) Many of my clients complain that the police never read them their rights. I wish the police always had that obligation when questioning a person, but that is not the situation. Generally, the police must advise a suspect of...

Bill of Rights. (From the public domain.)  Police love when suspects drive cars. The driver is bound to violate one traffic law or another, thus justifying a police stop of the car, and an attempt to reveal criminal activity afoot. Police also love to bring "drug" dogs to attempt...

Bill of Rights. (From the public domain.)  Praised be Virginia’s intermediate appellate court for generally finding that a detention takes place once a police officer tells a person that s/he is having a drug dog come to search the suspect’s vehicle. In Middlebrooks v. Virginia, ___...

Bill of Rights. (From the public domain.)  More commonly when I was a public defender lawyer, from time to time I would have clients who were at great risk of being ordered by the judge for a psychological evaluation — e.g., for being seriously delusional, and, therefore,...