Criminal Defense
Fourth Circuit: Individualized sentencing assessment must be put on the record
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...
Peer-to-peer file sharing as distribution
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...
Protect your rights against document subpoenas by clamming up always
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...
Overhaul the Grand Jury System
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...
When SunWolf speaks, gems emerge
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...
Watch out about opening doors
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...
When may a prosecutor reopen the case in chief?
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....
Expose police abuse far and wide
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...
Unlawfully entering the United States does not enable a conviction for visiting a military base
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...
Listen to your client, or else
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...