Criminal Defense

A 5-4 Supreme Court majority is satisfied to give a trial judge carte blanche whether to grant a habeas corpus/post conviction hearing to a death row inmate complaining that his trial lawyer was ineffective for following his instructions not to present mitigating evidence at sentencing....

Image from Virginia Forestry Dept’s website. Virginia’s Supreme Court releases a package of appellate opinions about every seven to eight weeks. Following is an overview of some of the court’s recent key criminal decisions: A passenger’s possession of a bottle of illegal drugs — without...

The Court of Appeals is Virginia’s intermediate appellate court. Here is an overview of some recent key criminal decisions from the Virginia Court of Appeals: – Whither Boykin in District Court? This month, Virginia’s Court of Appeals confirmed — as required by the Supreme Court in...

United States courts generally treat one’s home as the closest thing to one’s castle, by making limited exceptions for warrantless home searches. (On the other hand, search warrants ordinarily are too easy for police officers to obtain, with the honesty of warrant applications generally taken by...

Beware having the accused testify in Virginia state court. When the accused testifies there, the prosecutor has appellate authority enabling the trial judge to permit cross examination of the defendant beyond the scope of direct examination. The case is Drumgoole v. Commonwealth, 26 Va. App....

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.” When I started practicing criminal defense over fifteen years ago, a repeated theme...

At a bench trial several years ago, a judge emphatically confirmed how much reliance he puts on witnesses who emphatically and — seemingly credibly — state “that’s the one” who committed the crime. Such an assertion flies in the face of the Supreme Court’s logical...

This follows up on my November 27 blog entry on child pornography defense, with more ideas about defending such cases: On November 30, I updated my original November 27 blog entry with further information about 18 USCS § 3509(m), which became law the middle of...

Child pornography prosecutions have been rampant for many years, both for possession and distribution of child pornography, and for alleged violations of 18 U.S.C. § 2257 record keeping provisions. The United States Supreme Court generally limits child pornography prosecutions to images of actual minors, rather...