DWI / DUI

Mere momentary, short and limited weaving is not sufficient for a police traffic stop. Moreover, Virginia has not recognized a community caretaking ground to allow a police traffic stop (to assure the welfare of the driver of a car driving less than perfectly). Barrett, 250...

Super Bowl Sunday is a time of high energy, merrymaking, drinking beer and other alcohol, chowing down, cheering when one's team wins, and regretting when one's team loses. Getting tipsy on alcohol can be fun, at least when it does not unleash one's demons and...

Those opposed to a robust criminal defense can protest all they want about defendant's getting off on technicalities. I reply that the Bill of Rights is not a technicality, nor are procedural rights that are enshrined in statutes. Criminal defendants will be happy to win...

Here is the current Virginia state of the law for taking blood draws of DWI suspects without a search warrant: Virginia statutory law tells police to advise DWI arrestees who refuse breath or blood tests of alcohol and drugs, of the criminal and civil penalties...

Virginia's Court of Appeals asserted this week that it complied with Supreme Court case law when permitting a warrantless blood draw in a DWI case where the defendant was neither asked whether he would take the test nor refused. I disagree. Wolfe v. Virginia, ___...

A DWI conviction is bad enough. If one drives DWI and in the process injures another person, the situation is all the more serious. In Virginia, it is a Class 6 felony (jailable up to five years) to drive DWI in a manner causing permanent...

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...

Rather than waiting for a president Donald Trump to wreak further havoc on immigration law and practice, I am now seeing some of my own DWI clients get their non-immigrant F-1 student and H-1B professional visas yanked BEFORE their cases are adjudicated in court.

Unnecessary sweat and worse can be caused by waiting until the last date to meet a court's filing deadline, whether that be for filing a motion, a reply to an opponent's filing, an appeal notice, an appellate brief, or any other court document.