Criminal Defense
Criminal law & immigration – Keep state & local governments out of enforcing federal immigration law
Every time I visit a client in the Fairfax County, Virginia, jail evening lawyer visiting section, I cringe over the first of three booths, with a sign that it is reserved for ICE (immigration and customs enforcement) interviews. I cringe not because this means that...
Police outrageous conduct — An elusive defense for criminal defendants
Do we as a society want to tolerate police engaging in oral sex and sexual intercourse with prostitutes in order to nab them, smoking crack with addicts to arrest them, and busting heads of rival gangs to arrest members of gangs to which the police...
Virginia criminal defense- Cases for challenging searches after a traffic stop
When I started doing criminal defense in 1991, I was reminded that drug cases often are won or lost by whether the drugs get suppressed. Seeking suppression of physical evidence is important in any criminal case alleging possession of contraband, and beyond, which is why...
Withdrawal of felony counsel and marijuana 251 license suspension
Virginia's 2017 legislative session concluded with the following two important criminal law bills: 1. On February 18, 2017, I blogged that legislative efforts failed to exempt marijuana 251 dispositions (enabling an ultimate dismissal of a drug possession charge after a finding of facts sufficient to...
Virginia criminal defense – Beware dealing with probation agents
Being convicted of a crime is no picnic. When a probation agent is involved, the picnic can seem to gather even more red ants. Talk about potential and actual sentencing with criminal defendants often focuses so much on the length of active jail time --...
In criminal defense, take nothing for granted & seize the opportunities
Many criminal & DWI defendants at first may feel like they have been thrown to the lions. Beyond the veneer of smiling prosecutors, police and judges in the courthouse, is a criminal justice system ready to eat alive those who go to court alone or...
Colorado makes Equal Protection headway against criminalizing bared women’s breasts
On February 22, 2017, a Colorado federal trial judge bucked the nation's widespread judicial decisions permitting the criminalization of bared women's breasts. Free the Nipple - Fort Collins v. City of Fort Collins, Civil Action No 16-cv-01308-RBJ (D. Co., Feb. 22, 2017).
Judge R. Brooke...
When Prosecutors and Police Interfere with Defense Efforts to Speak with Prosecution Witnesses
Prosecutors and police are here to serve the public, and not the other way around. Too many of them forget that. Power corrupts too many people. Criminal defendants are members of the public, as are their lawyers. Prosecutors and police should tread carefully to ever...
Capital punishment- SCOTUS denies relief on lethal injection, & then finds ineffective counsel on race-based evidence
example along with the constant execution machines of China, Iran and Saudi Arabia. In all likelihood, Trump's Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch will help allow the nation's death penalty machine to proceed virtually full speed ahead.
This week, the Supreme Court denied relief to a...
Virginia criminal defense- The power of asserting speedy trial rights
Virginia is not the most hospitable of places for criminal defendants, with its crabbed criminal discovery rules that lead to trial by fire, its harsh presumptions of no pretrial bail for too many felonies, and its absence of an automatic appeal from a felony trial...