Today is World Press Freedom Day. Caring little if at all for the First Amendment's prohibition against "abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press" Donald Trump bears utter contempt for the press. Only four days before World Press Freedom Day, Trump lumped all...
Virginia law makes it a Class 1 misdemeanor to engage in simulated masturbation in public. You read that right: "Va. Code § 18.2-387.1 Any person who, while in any public place where others are present, intending that he be seen by others, intentionally and obscenely...
In 1991, the Virginia Court of Appeals rejected First Amendment arguments against the Commonwealth's statute --Va. Code § 18.2-422 -- barring mask wearing intended to conceal one's identity. Hernandez v. Virginia, 12 Va.App. 669 (1991). The anti-mask statute apparently was focused against Ku Klux...
Snoop Dogg -- who can be hilarious paired unexpectedly with Martha Stewart -- has released a sobering, satirical video about a clown president looking like Trump whose plan is to deport all "Doggs," whereby Snoop Dogg's character responds by aiming a toy pistol at Trump...
Virginia has several criminal statutes against threats against others, including Va. Code §§ 18.2-60, 18.2-60.3, 18.2-423 and 18.2-427. Any time a criminal code criminalizes threats, a First Amendment free expression analysis is an essential part of the defense lawyer's case preparation. As recently as 2002,...
At least six journalists are being prosecued in the District of Columbia Superior Court with felony rioting, apparently while covering violent and/or vandalizing protesters during the January 20, 2017, inauguration of Donald Trump. Even though several of these journalists are from alternative news organizations, these...
I write about the inauguration because I am saddened that this is the first inauguration in my three decades in the capital area when I have heard about violent protest, including rock/brick throwing at police (and here a bottle after the police used mace), vandalism...
Criminal defendants in child pornography cases do not get much sympathy, other than from consumers producers, and distributors of child pornography; civil liberties advocates; and criminal defense lawyers who represent such defendants. I fall in the latter two categories....
If the police officer in my criminal defense case is sick and tired about his agency's purported bureaucratic nonsense, I want to know both about the alleged nonsense and the officer's dissatisfaction. The City of Petersburg, Virginia, tried to put the lid on that by...
An insider trading conviction is risked merely for gifting insider information to a close family member, without proof of expecting a financial return. The Supreme Court unanimously confirmed that today. Salman v. United States....
Jack Eugene Turner is an admitted racist who told a Franklin County, Virginia, sheriff's deputy that he hung a black person in effigy from a noose from his tree near the roadside to scare African-American people away. Turner v. Virginia, ___ Ct. App. ___ (Nov....
A North Dakota judge recently declined to allow a riot prosecution against Democracy Now journalist Amy Goodman, where at worst (if at all) she could have been charged with being on property that she was not allowed to be on...
Donald Trump's lease acquisition deal for his D.C. hotel, gave him the final option to veto any permit to demonstrate there. Boycott Trump's D.C. hotel. ...
Not satisfied simply to scare Craigslist to stop or curb its adult services ads, law enforcement is now moving in on Backpage -- apparently trying to chill other potential advertisers of adult services -- getting Backpage CEO Carl Ferrer arrested on October 6 on his...
The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit against Connecticut police for seizing a protestor's camera and criminally charging him. ...
An arrest warrant was issued against Democracy Now's Amy Goodman arising from her September 3 coverage of anti-Dakota Access Pipeline demonstrators breaking through fencing...
Today the First Amendment won with Led Zep's win, when the amendment often takes big beatings, and when Donald Trump thinks little more of the First Amendment than he does toilet paper....
The United States Supreme Court sits on a big plaza where litigants and their lawyers often gather after oral argument. However, if one wants to hand out leaflets or otherwise express their grievances outside of oral argument before the justices, they will be relegated to the...
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances....
Over a dozen years ago, I started providing First Amendment defense and other legal representation to members of the adult entertainment industry. In that regard, I have read with interest about Los Angeles's law requiring condom usage in the making of adult films. When Ed Meese was...
