Criminal Defense
The courtroom persuasiveness of a powerfully respectful approach backed by strength
When a client urges the necessity of my destroying an opposing witness on cross examination, I respond that the backlash from destroying the opposing witness can be much more harmful than my telling the defense story through cross examination, bringing out important evidentiary points, and...
Virginia malicious wounding- Non-consensual tattooing is disfigurement
Alexander Michael Edwards in 2016 was convicted in Campbell County, Virginia, Circuit Court for malicious wounding for the non-consensual tattooing of two minors, and for conspiring to murder them to avoid their testimony against him at trial. The elements of malicious wounding under the Virginia...
Virginia criminal defense – Three hour delay to arrest does not amount to stale probable cause
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution limits police authority to stop, seize, and search people and their property. Sadly, the United States Supreme Court over the decades has limited the strength of the Fourth Amendment in numerous ways, including the horrendous Terry v....
Judging goes a long way with good judicial temperament, patience, wisdom, humanity, humility, listening & lack of bias
Being a judge is a privilege with awesome responsibility and power. Once a judge stops seeing judging as a privilege, it is time for the judge to hang up the judicial robes. Judging can be exhausting work. The criminal and civil lawsuits do not stop...
Virginia Marijuana Law – The Commonwealth Crystallizes It’s Law Allowing CBD & THC-A Oils For Epilepsy
Virginia is far behind the medical marijuana states that have made marijuana possession and use lawful for numerous medical ailments. Virginia law limits legal marijuana medicinal use (only in the form of cannabidiol oil ("CBD oil") and THC-A oil) to epilepsy, and pursuant to a...
Virginia criminal defense — More on search limits on police following a positive drug dog alert
Using police drug sniffing dogs is fraught with unreliability. as further addressed here, here, and here. Despite this unreliability, Virginia law poses substantial hurdles to a criminal defendant's obtaining by a records subpoena data about the training and performance of the case's drug dog. Fortunately...
Criminal defense- The danger of following a police order to hand over contraband
What should a person do when a police officer orders the suspect to hand the cop an item (other than ordering a driver to hand over one's driver's license and registration) or to empty one's pockets? If complied with, that order amounts to a search...
Criminal defense – Exclusionary rule does not apply to finding contraband with un-Mirandized voluntary admissions
In 2004, the United States Supreme Court bitterly divided 5-4 (with a plurality of three justices and a concurrence of two more justices) in declining to apply the Exclusionary Rule to evidence obtained by police through voluntary but un-Mirandized admissions about the location of contraband....
Virginia criminal defense – DWI with child as a passenger is not automatically felony child endangerment
Yesterday, the Virginia Court of Appeals confirmed that a parent transporting a child while under the influence of alcohol is not automatically in violation of the felony child endangerment statute, Va. Code § 18.2-371.1(B)(1). Instead: "Policing the line between the ever present 'possibility' of serious...
Motions, Testimony & more – Virginia Criminal Lawyer
Motions and other key procedures are part of the essential bread and butter for criminal defense. If a jury convicts for a felony or Class 1 misdemeanor, the jury will recommend a sentence, only permitted to recommend active jail time and/or an active fine amount....