Drugs

Virginia LEO (law enforcement officers) do not automatically get the right under the Constitution's Fourth Amendment to search a car or other place merely for seeing an alcohol bottle that is not sealed together with some drug contraband, because that is not probable cause by...

Fairfax drug defense -- as well as in the rest of Virginia -- continues to be a critical aspect of criminal defense, despite the wonderful inroads with marijuana in the commonwealth, in such respects as eliminating penalties for personal possession of up to one ounce...

Police hassling exasperates me as a Fairfax criminal lawyer, civil libertarian, and human being. Having police is part of the so-called social contract where society relinquishes vital aspects of its freedom in order to receive protection from the government apparati. However, police and government are...

Contraband possession convictions can result from unlawful possession of drugs, weapons, obscenity or other unlawful material. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I know that such possession is defined as knowledge, dominion and control over the material. Based on that, knowing presence near unlawful substances unrelated...

Virginia crime suspects who do not assert their Constitutional Fifth Amendment right to remain silent are often shooting themselves in the foot, and rarely do more good than harm when talking with the cops without having a lawyer who arranges a debriefing agreement that provides...

Virginia drug dealer identification is the topic of the one of this month's Virginia Court of Appeals opinions. Dwayne Allen Ray, Jr., v. Commonwealth of Virginia, ___ Va. App. ___ (Feb. 1, 2022). As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I know that courts are not as demanding...

Virginia drug possession law is harsh with Schedule 1 & 2 drugs, making that crime a felony. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I know that such a harsh penalty not only exposes criminal defendants to the risk of substantial incarceration time and significant suspended jail...

Virginia drug dismissal conditions under the Virginia Code are taken very seriously by judges for § 18.2-251 / 251 dismissal option sentencing. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I know you proceed at your own possible peril to wait until your dismissal date for the first...

Virginia drug prosecutions are big business for police, prosecutors and state drug lab workers in the commonwealth. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I have successfully defended hundreds of defendants in the nation's decades-long failure of a drug war that threatens alleged drug traffickers and manufacturers...

Virginia conspiracy prosecutions enable prosecutors to pursue convictions for both allegedly completed and uncompleted crimes, and therefore to expose criminal defendants to higher overall incarceration terms. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I dissent that the criminal conspiracy definition is not set at a higher threshold,...