Criminal Defense
When lawyers focus on serving potential and actual clients rather than competing with colleagues
When a potential criminal defense client visits me, s/he is looking to obtain the best possible defense, to relieve hsi or her feelings of distress, and to get his or her pressing questions answered about the case. The potential client is not interested in the...
Federal criminal defense – Trump’s attorney general goes full throttle for the highest sentencing ranges
It came as no surprise -- but disappointing nonetheless -- when this week Sessions reversed course on the Obama administration's efforts to reduce efforts to seek the maximum possible sentencing ranges against non-violent drug dealers. This week's memorandum (text here) on the topic from Sessions...
When a security clearance/public trust holder is hit with a criminal or DWI charge
Repeatedly, I get clients who have -- or want in the future to obtain -- security clearances or public trusts (collectively "Security Clearances"). That is to be expected with so many people in the area working for the federal government and for federal government contractors,...
A defense objection bars amending a Virginia charging document to change the character of the alleged offense
A conviction cannot be obtained without a charging document that sufficiently puts the defendant on notice of the crime with which s/he is being accused. Raja v. Virginia, 40 Va.App. 710 (2003). The Virginia charging document for misdemeanors in District Court will be a warrant...
Virginia trial judges will hesitate to amend or dismiss criminal counts, until Starrs is better clarified
In 2014, I though I had died and gone to heaven, when the Virginia Supreme Court seemed clearly enough to authorize trial courts -- after a finding of guilt but before conviction -- to amend the guilty count to a lesser offense or even to...
Virginia criminal defense – Intermingled DNA by itself does not prove guilt
Praised be the Virginia Court of Appeals's May 2, 2017, decision reversing a robbery conviction that rose or fell on DNA found on items that a masked knife-armed robber discarded near the scene of a gas station robbery. It turned out that others also left...
Jordan Edwards – Where do the unjustified police shootings end?
One 2014 day when I entered a nearby courthouse, a sheriff's deputy lamented the backlash of public opinion against police after police shot dead Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. The unjustified police killings continued, including Eric Garner's death on Staten Island following a police chokehold,...
“What legitimate purpose does it serve to hold any human being in solitary confinement for 40 years awaiting execution?”
Praised be Justice Stephen Breyer, apparently the United States Supreme Court's strongest skeptic on the death penalty's Constiutionality, who emphasized on April 24, 2017:
"What legitimate purpose does it serve to hold any human being in solitary confinement for 40 years awaiting execution? What does...
Virginia- Unlawful firearm discharge means negligent discharge
Most crimes cannot be proven merely by committing the act -- known as actus reus -- but also require proof of criminal intent, known as mens rea. Generally, one of four levels of mens rea is required before a conviction may be obtained, namely purposeful,...
Death row inmates’ champion Steve Bright always inspires me
In 1991, I was still yearning to re-direct my career from the 25-lawyer corporate law firm that I had joined two years later, to something more meaningful. Ever since finishing law school, I went out of my way to meet birds of a professional and...