Dax Cowart exemplified how an everyman can experience the most excruciating pain, transcend the pain, remain a true human, and scale great heights. He passed away two days ago, around seventy one years old. In 1995, I arrived at Gerry Spence's Dubois, western Wyoming ranch, where...
Stewart Dunn was on the board of the Washington, D.C.-area American Civil Liberties Union board when I joined it in 1992 when near the start of my criminal defense career (remaining until 1995). Stew immediately struck me as at once a devoted civil libertarian,...
Courts in Virginia always close on [Robert E.] Lee/ [Stonewall] Jackson day, which since 2000 has fallen on the Friday before Martin Luther King, Jr., Day. This holiday started in 1890 as Lee day, followed by Lee-Jackson day in 1904. The holiday later became Lee-Jackson-King...
Coach Bobby Lesser was one of my earliest inspirations at having fun while working -- followed by my public defender office mate Mitch Egber -- rather than feeling like a starch white-shirted duplicate of all the other worker bees. Were I superstitious, which I claim...
Jim Acosta's press pass recovery as seen by Fairfax criminal lawyer. Jim Acosta of CNN today won back his White House press pass, for now. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer who last week blogged on this story and has prior experience litigating injunction matters, I...
Pittsburgh is among the latest places to experience a mass murder, this time with Robert Bowers's massacre at the Tree of Life/Or L'Simcha synagogue. I do not know that I can write much more about this murder by Robert Bowers beyond what has been written by...
Benjamin Pang-jeng Lo was my greatest martial arts teacher. Recently, I learned that Ben passed away on October 12, 2018. He was ninety-one. Ben was an amazing man, not only for his being an extraordinary practitioner and teacher of taijiquan, but also for in the...
Senators confirm Brett Kavanaugh by a razor-thin margin. Senators yesterday afternoon confirmed Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court (see my views on Kavanaugh here and here) by a razor-thin margin of 50-48-1 (Sen. Murkowski announcing "present" rather than "nay" out of courtesy for the unavailable...
Cecil Taylor left his body on April 5, 2018, at the age of eighty-nine. While I only infrequently mention the passing of people on this blog, lest it become an obituary blog rather than law blog, Cecil merits this pause to deeply thank and bow...
Fairfax criminal lawyer is back to blogging Blogging returns to this website after my family had a great visit to New Mexico. Fairfax criminal lawyer on tribal courts. The first picture here is the Ohkay Owingeh Judicial Complex/ courthouse at a pueblo only a few miles...
The power of thanks/gratitude, giving/serving and compassion can never be underestimated. They are key ingredients to succeeding as a lawyer, in any other line of work, and in life. They remove us from being self centered and draw us to bring out our greatness....
On October 29, 2017, American Indian Movement co-founding leader Dennis Banks went to the spirit world, as his family recounts, after heart bypass surgery....
Our Virginia criminal lawyer website is upgraded and faster.Thanks deeply to our webmater/graphic designer Rosalina Hansen not only for seamlessly moving our thousands of static and blogpages, and emailing system, to our new sitehost InMotion Hosting but also for...
Donald Trump as president is a sad reality. He was never fit to sit in the White House. He made his money despite his perpetual thin-skinned, undiplomatic name-calling immaturity.Many talented non-Trump-admirers have joined Trump's administration, which might counterbalance Trump's excesses. Thank goodness someone at as high a...
The September 11, 2001, murders, happened sixteen years ago. Terrorists win of terror is allowed to erode civil liberties. Sadly, that erosion continues....
The world is never in shortage of ways and places to help others in dire straits, to save the planet from bellicose and environmental destruction, to improve human rights, and the list goes on. Rarely does it do any good to shine the spotlight on...
John Coltrane (above playing "Alabama", after the 1963 Birmingham church bombing) has inspired me for years to pursue beyond the seeming limits of possibility. I have searched him out through his music, at the house where he lived in Philadelphia, through his longtime pianist McCoy...
The Chinese government's June 3-4, 1989 massacre of peaceful pro-democracy demonstrators at Beijing's Tiananmen Square left an indelible mark on me. Yet, as time marches on, I myself lost track of the anniversary of this Chinese government bloodbath. So I observe that anniversary today. ...
Happy Father's Day to all fathers, and to my father, my grandfathers, and the rest of my lineage to cavepeople, apes, and before that.LAW"Ocean City [Maryland] acts to keep women from going topless at beach" - The Washington Post"You have to break the horse to...
Memorial Day -- a day of remembering those American military members who died in war -- is filled with parades, weekends away, pool openings, cookouts, and retail sales. I have experienced my share of military pomp and circumstance, including marching while playing my trumpet in...
