Most criminal defense lawyers have a high number of clients who actually committed a criminal act. That reality does not automatically preclude an outright acquittal or dismissal....
For years, drug convictions have risked the loss of federal financial aid for college students. Prior efforts to repeal this hurdle have failed, and the current repeal effort needs all voters' support to make the repeal a reality....
In this taped interview, Georgia state legislator Allen Peake admits to lawbreaking to bring medical hash oil across state lines. ...
We need to reverse the expansion of our police state by including marijuana legalization....
Let us not have high federal conviction statistics become self-fulfilling prophesies. Criminal defense lawyers can reassure their federal prosecution clients, and all clients, that each case needs to be reviewed and prepared individually for the chances possibly to obtain the same excellent results that Daniel...
The criminal justice system at best masquerades as more just than it is. In the American criminal justice system, countless presumed-innocent people are caged on no bond or excessive bond pretrial; too many acts that should not be criminalized are criminalized (for instance marijuana, prostitution,...
Yesterday, the United States Supreme Court unanimously reversed a federal controlled substance analogue conviction, because the trial judge watered down the necessary jury instruction for obtaining such a conviction, in this instance involving so-called ‘bath salts’. Far from a liberal for criminal defendants nor foranyone else,...
Police and prosecutors routinely have a knee-jerk claim that a few ounces of marijuana coupled with a few thousand dollars amounts to intent to distribute the marijuana. Let us say that police lawfully stop a suspect's car, lawfully find two ounces of marijuana and a few...
Pot legalization takes effect tomorrow in Washington, D.C., when the District's marijuana referendum becomes effective law. Thanks to Mayor Muriel Bowser and all city councilmembers who did not bow to threats from a few U.S. House Republicans warning about Mayor Bowser's risks of federal prosecution in...
The District of Columbia and Maryland have decriminalized marijuana. The two jurisdictions have also moved forward in their own peculiar ways in giving limited protection to medical marijuana use. Neighboring Virginia lags far behind. For marijuana consumers working in and near Washington, D.C., Virginia's disadvantageous criminal...
The District of Columbia and Maryland have decriminalized marijuana. The two jurisdictions have also moved forward in their own peculiar ways in giving limited protection to medical marijuana use. Neighboring Virginia lags far behind. For marijuana consumers working in and near Washington, D.C., Virginia's disadvantageous criminal...
Plenty of people sell imitation items that they claim to be such real illegal drugs as cocaine. The top motivations for doing so likely are seeking a higher profit margin, not having the real product available to sell, not knowing that the product is fake...
The recently-passed federal spending bill bars the United States Justice Department from trying to prevent states from implementing medical marijuana laws. However, this does not automatically mean that the Justice Department will not continue to raid and prosecute non-governmental entities that grow and sell marijuana ostensibly for...
Last week, a California appellate court overturned a trial judge's determination that cannabis concentrate -- also known as dabs and wax -- is not marijuana under California's Compassionate Use Act ("CUA"). The appellate court concluded: Because “concentrated cannabis” is “marijuana” for purposes of the CUA, the trial court...
Law enforcement and tough-on-crime politicians rely too heavily on testing for alcohol to determine whether one has violated the drinking and driving laws, rather than to return to the sensible days when breath and blood testing (with breath testing already being highly flawed) was but...
Where I practice law, the potential incarceration penalties and collateral stigma are stiffer for a conviction of possession with intent to distribute illegal drugs ("PWID"), versus for a drug possession conviction, with the PWID penalties being as stiff as for actual drug distribution. Often, prosecutors will...
The countless hours and decades of sweat by drug law reform supporters has been paying off in a whirlwind during the recent years in particular, with Washington state and Colorado's marijuana legalization laws, yesterday's marijuana legalization referendum wins in Washington, D.C. and Oregon (see here and here, too), and...
Criminal convictions and sentences can be fraught with immigration land mines for non-United States citizens, and also with land mines for United States citizens wishing to travel abroad. For instance, and counterintuitively, a drug paraphernalia conviction can be more of an immigration kiss of death...
No sooner did Congress get out of the way of marijuana decriminalization passed by the District of Columbia city council than a ballot initiative (Initiative 70 - see text here) legalizing marijuana is likely to pass by a large margin this coming Election Day. Initiative 71 does...
My 2007 blogposting on the above-referenced topic merits updating, as follows: The financial aid analysis must include a review of the federal financial aid statute, at 20 U.S.C. § 1091(r), which says in relevant part: A student who is convicted of any offense under any Federal or State law involving the...
