Criminal Defense
First Amendment slays spam conviction
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...
When Miranda Does and Does Not Come to the Rescue
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...
Red lights, dogs and the Fourth Circuit
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...
Calling the Dogs Means a Detention
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, ___...
When release is conditioned on drugging
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,...
Where to Check Speedometer Calibration
Here are some Northern Virginia businesses that have been reported to me as providing speedometer calibration checks. I tend to recommend such checks for clients accused of jailable reckless driving based on excessive speed. This list is a few years old at the time of...
Defending criminal copyright infringement cases
Computer hard drive. (Image from Pacific Northwest Laboratory’s website). According to a posting at lawyer Allan Ellis’s website, the United States Sentencing Commission reports that 94% of federal criminal cases result in guilty pleas. This week, my client and I bucked that trend by proceeding...
Does the First Amendment prohibit convictions for juxtaposing lawful images of children with adult sexual images?
Bill of Rights (From public domain.) NOTE: The following blog entry was written before the awful May 19 Supreme Court decision in U.S. v. Williams (May 19, 2008). This blog entry follows up on my previous discussions of child pornography defense here and here. With the current...
When a Jailer Suffers the Justice System’s Injustices / How Prepared Should a Prosecutor Be?
When I started practicing criminal defense, I spoke with a very experienced criminal defense lawyer who told me that he had never prosecuted, but expected he would love it if he had such a job; this was a variation on a theme of some former...
In praise of Ernie Lewis
Every criminal defense lawyer should attend the National Criminal Defense College’s Trial Practice Institute, known in shorthand as Macon for the program’s location. At least when I attended in 1994, competition for each Macon slot was very high among state-level public defender lawyers. The program sough diversity...