Criminal Defense

Coercion by police is among the first things I look for as a Fairfax criminal lawyer pursuing the suppression of my client's statements to law enforcement. In 1986, the United States Supreme Court ruled that a Fifth Amendment or Miranda violation does not take place...

Double jeopardy protections apply not only to successive prosecutions on acquitted conduct, but also for multiple duplicative counts for the same act. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I know the necessity of always looking for double jeopardy defenses. Howard Groffel learned the hard way that...

DUI defense in Fairfax County, Virginia has its own similarities and differences to nearby counties. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I deal with each county's differing courthouse landscape in defending against DWI and other criminal charges. I have written previously about handling criminal investigations, dealing...

Larceny / theft / false pretenses / embezzlement / financial fraud (collectively "larceny" or "theft") prosecutions threaten one's reputation, career path, immigration status, and security clearance options, let alone the serious sentencing consequences that can come from a larceny conviction. As a Fairfax criminal...

Underage drinkers and users of false identification risk prosecution under statutes that carry possible jail time. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I know that the days are over when the legal drinking age in many states through the 1980's was eighteen, and when using a...

Prevailing over the odds and obstacles is what I strive for as a Fairfax criminal lawyer. This means not looking for a fair playing field, a judge who will help me obtain justice, a prosecutor who will not have ice in his or her veins,...

Harmless error analysis often is used by appellate courts to deny relief to criminal defendants. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I know that sometimes appellate courts find the trial evidence of a criminal defendant's guilt so overwhelming as to make it unnecessary to provide relief...

Clicking an Internet link from a questionable source can be a risky proposition. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I know that images run rampant online that can be prosecuted and convicted as child pornography, obscenity, or both. Moreover, clicking even one website with such content...

Barring criminal defense witnesses is a risk for a trial judge. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I know the importance of convincing the judge to permit defense witnesses to testify and to preserve the appellate record in the event the trial court bars any defense...

Nude photo requests by adults to minors is a crime in Virginia. As a Fairfax criminal defense lawyer, I know that even if the seeming minor is not a minor but the requestor has reason to believe it is a minor, that is still a...