Criminal Defense
Winning at trial with the smoking video
For defending criminal and DWI prosecutions, the defense early on needs to move to preserve and obtain video, audio and photographic evidence of and related to the incident. At first blush, the criminal defense lawyer might ask whether it is better to try to make...
The battle is about the battle, not about personalities
In court and beyond, we are offered many opportunities to react angrily to others' seeming trespasses and lack of consideration. Some police and prosecutors try to talk uncalled-for trash about my clients. Other cars cut us off on the road. Others at restaurants and elsewhere...
The genius of Virginia courtrooms that have jurors in front of the judge
Human nature leads jurors to look to the trial judge for reassurance, comfort and guidance, in the midst of warring lawyers, legalese, and witnesses running from the dull to interesting to incomprehensible and everything in between.
Federal criminal defense during Jeff Sessions’ time as attorney general
Criminal defendants and everyone else are not in for a pretty time during Donald Trump's presidency. Trump is no friend of the Bill of Rights and civil liberties and is likely to nominate plenty of candidates for the Supreme Court and lower federal courts who...
Being a prosecutor does not automatically mean credibility and reliability
Being a prosecutor or police officers does not automatically mean that person is credible nor reliable. Judges, jurors, and everyone else must remember that. Criminal defendants' lives and liberty too often unjustly are crushed by an unwritten presumption that too many people give to police...
Virginia – Question whether a judge has jurisdiction to violate probation in the first place
In law school, we learn legal rules, legal tests, legal analysis, legal counter-analysis, legal theory, legalese, and legal jargon. As criminal trial lawyers, we often spend so much time dealing with evidence, investigation, discovery and persuasion that we need to remember at each step to...
5-minute Dakota War capital trials underline the need for eternal civil liberties vigilance
My public elementary school teachers taught us about "Honest Abe" Lincoln. None of my teachers ever taught me about Lincoln's approval for a mass hanging of thirty-eight Dakota Indians in 1862. Arising from the Dakota War, United States military commission trials of 392 American Indians...
The attorney-client relationship is the foundation for a strong criminal defense
Essential to a successful criminal defense is a strong attorney-client relationship. This maxim is at once basic and essential to repeat again and again. Great criminal defense lawyers live this maxim as naturally and essentially as the air they breathe. Sadly, I have had some...
Keep eyes on the prize rather than on the prosecutor’s strengths and weaknesses
Many prosecutors talk tough in the courtroom hallway or on the phone, but deliver seemingly lackluster, cookbook, tepid or even timid performance at trial or at hearings. The strength or weakness of an opponent' performance is a distraction
The Persuasive Power of Transcending Reactivity by Quantum Levels
Our days are filled with opportunities to react negatively or less than positively, when cars cut us off, restaurant servers disappear after delivering the wrong pricey order, people spout bigotry. some police officers act suitably for a fascist regime, some prosecutors take delight in their...