Criminal Defense

Evidence suppression arguments are critical to Virginia preliminary hearings (which cover felony cases) and for all Virginia misdemeanor and felony trials. As a Virginia criminal lawyer, I had thought this was a given for preliminary hearings, but in the last few months, a Fairfax District...

Victims rights (VR) must not be permitted to trample Virginia criminal defendants' rights. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I know that they should not even be called Virginia victims (VV's) -- versus alleged VV's or complainants -- before a conviction takes place. I further know...

Virginia Circuit Court judges must articulate the reason for their denying bond / bail / pretrial release to a criminal defendant, for the reasons addressed below. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I have experienced District Court judges who do not state those reasons. Their reasoning...

Virginia prosecutors not your friends when you are a criminal defense lawyer. Anyone who tells you otherwise is offering a bill of goods to be avoided like the plague. Even the Fairfax commonwealth's attorney's office and other Northern Virginia prosecutor's offices claiming a progressive bent...

Fairfax diversion is a pilot program called Taking Root, that was announced in April 2022 by county commonwealth's attorney Steve Descano, with this news release. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I have looked for but not found many details about this program outside the foregoing...

Arson investigations typically include firefighters and police. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I repeatedly analyze how the Fourth Amendment applies not only to police, but also to all other relevant government personnel, including fire fighters and government-employed emergency medical technicians (EMT's) / paramedics. Amidst horrifying...

Fairfax former prosecutor Nathan Freier claims to have been overwhelmed and undertrained to prosecute the sex crime cases he was assigned to, as stated verbatim in his email to his chief, found near the bottom of this link. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer headquartered a...

Returning allegedly stolen property is not guaranteed to avoid a theft conviction. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I know that doing so can reduce the harm to a Virginia criminal defendant, but does not by itself negate the prosecutor's ability to prove the theft element...

Flight under Virginia criminal law sometimes can be akin to putting a target on one's behind that says "kick me".  As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I know the human tendency to flee being caught by police and falsely (or even not falsely charged) before at...

Conflicting prosecution witness testimony does not always amount to an acquittal for a Virginia criminal defendant. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I know that if such testimony is not irreconcilably, materially and diametrically opposed to each other, then the matter proceeds to a jury verdict...