Maryland Criminal Defense Lawyer

DUI & DWI Defense in Maryland: Protect Your Freedom and Driving Privileges

Maryland DUI and DWI prosecutions are serious, and call for starting your defense early, including obtaining the best possible lawyer for your needs. DUI and DWI (where DWI is a lesser offense of DUI) accounts for nearly one-third of Jon Katz's law practice, and criminal defense is 99% of his practice. Jon is among a small percentage of DUI defenders who is a member of the essential National College of DUI Defense or its equivalent. He is among an even smaller percentage of lawyers who have been trained by one of the nation's top trainers to police in administering field sobriety tests (FSTs) to people who have consumed alcohol.

When you hire Jon Katz to defend you for your DUI case, he takes to your defense like a dog to red meat, obtaining evidence in your case, working with you as a team, and developing the strongest possible defense in your favor. He knows that being offered a DWI guilty plea (and to drop your more serious DUI charge) with no prosecutorial objection to a probation before judgment (PBJ) is very often not worth simply proceeding to trial if your likely trial outcome is winning at best, or obtaining a PBJ on any drinking and driving counts for which you do not obtain an acquittal.

At trial, Jon is ready to challenge whether the police had reasonable articulable suspicion to stop your car in the first place, whether you may have consumed alcohol after driving (if there are no witnesses to your driving, whereby post driving alcohol consumption should not be considered against you for a DUI prosecution), whether the judge or jury should consider the field sobriety testing (for instance, if the administering police officer is not sufficiently trained, the argument can be made to exclude the FST evidence), whether police ruled out whether you have physical impairments or other health issues to interfere with your coordination and balance, whether police had probable cause to arrest you, whether the breath test results are admissible, and whether those results are reliable.

A DUI conviction -- and sometimes even a DUI PBJ -- can spell headaches or worse for security clearance and public trust holders, uniformed military members, and health care professionals, in particular.

Drug Charges in Montgomery & Prince George’s Counties: Challenge the Evidence

A drug conviction -- and even a PBJ for a drug offense -- is a scarlet letter that you do not want. When you are charged with drug possession, drug dealing or trafficking, or drug manufacturing, Jon Katz scours your possible defenses with a fine-toothed comb. He pursues arguments and motions to suppress the stop and seizure of you, searches that reveal alleged drugs, search warrants, and your arrest. He challenges reliability and admissibility of drug analyses, chain of custody claims, and claims of non-contamination of analyzed alleged drug evidence. Jon challenges the use of drug dogs, the legality and constitutionality of canine sniffs, and the very ability of a drug canine to be accurate or not with such alleged detection. Your lawyer wants to be ready to challenge whether you even had knowledge, dominion and control over the alleged controlled dangerous substances.

The drug wars spurred Jon Katz to transition from corporate law firm work in the early 1990's to fully and spiritedly defending those charged with drug offenses and other felony and misdemeanor offenses.

Assault and Violent Crimes Prosecutions: Defend to the Hilt

In many instances, the perpetrator of a fight will rush to the court commissioner to pursue a criminal prosecution against their victim, perhaps in the hope that this will minimize the assailant's prosecution exposure. Do not rely on a Maryland assistant state's attorney / prosecutor to know who is telling the truth against a criminal defendant. Being human, they have no omniscience in the matter. Even if you know that you are as innocent as the light of day, know that too many innocent people suffer jail and prison terms for wrongful convictions. The sooner you obtain the best possible criminal defense lawyer against your assault or other violent crime prosecution, the sooner you can prepare your testimony, decide on your best theory of defense, and enable your lawyer to determine what will bring you the best possible outcome in court.

When a jury sees images of serious and even severe injuries to an alleged crime victim, that can trigger serious emotions that call for a level-headed criminal defense lawyer to talk sense into the jury not to convict the wrong person, which means to acquit in the presence of reasonable doubt of the defendant's guilt. Of course it is vital for your lawyer to pursue the following possible defenses with you against assault charges: It did not happen. It was an accident. Some other dude did it (the SODDI defense). It was consensual (for instance with consensual BDSM activity). It was reasonable and proportional self defense, or such defense of other(s). Defenses are not enough, when it is ideal for the jury (or judge for a bench trial) to feel gut-wrenching discomfort at the prospect of convicting the wrong person.

Firearms, Guns & Weapons Charges in Maryland: Serious Charges Require Serious Defense

America has a bipolar relationship with weapons, at once having the Second Amendment right to bear arms enshrined in the Bill of Rights, and with a Supreme Court that gives that Amendment teeth, but often pursuing weapons restrictions and penalties left and right. Handgun use and possession is often tolerated more in rural areas where police cannot always respond as quickly to emergencies, and weapons use for hunting is tolerated by many. Beware being charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm, or being charged with possessing a firearm in the course of a drug dealing offense.

As with drug defense, weapons defense often includes a heavy focus on challenging the seizure of the suspect, the search that finds the weapons, and whether the defendant had knowledge, dominion and control over the weapons.

Maryland Sex Crimes Defense

If a jury hears that you are being prosecuted for a sex offense, be ready for the alarm bells to go off in their hearts and guts, often thinking how they would not let any of their loved ones coming anywhere near a person who would commit a sex crime.

Of course you are presumed innocent, and you may be. Don't rely on the police or prosecutors to do the right thing for you when facing such serious charges. They might sometimes, but you need to be ready for trial, backing up negotiating a settlement that you want (which ideally is a dismissal of the charges against you). This is the place to have a lawyer who is familiar and comfortable with the courtroom and insufficiently experienced and skilled with trials.

Unfortunately, merely being charged with a sex crime can set off a chain reaction of adverse consequences, from being detained without bond pending trial, to losing one's job or being suspended from work, and getting into hot water with professional licensing and security clearance status. Work with your Maryland criminal lawyers to minimize such adverse risks and consequences.

Rape and Sexual Assault Defense in Maryland

Possible sex offense prosecutions run from unlawfully and intentionally rubbing up against another passenger on a subway car, to outright rape and forced oral sex. All the hoping in the world is not going to save you in such a predicament. Obtaining the best possible criminal defense lawyer helps set you on the path to finding the way to an acquittal at best, or else reducing your conviction and sentencing risk as much as possible.

Internet & Cybercrime Charges

Do not be lulled into a false sense of anonymity with your online activity. Federal and state law enforcement authorities are on the prowl to arrest and prosecute people engaged in alleged cybercrime offenses. Do you know how you will handle yourself if police come knocking at your door to talk with you, or to execute a search warrant for your computer hardware and software?

Child Pornography Defense in Maryland- Perhaps harder to stomach for some than murder prosecutions

With computers and the Internet being more powerful and fast than ever, plenty of people will download massive amounts of sexual material, even overnight, and sometimes only later realize that some of the most vile child pornography might be among that material. What is a suspect or defendant to do when charged with a child pornography offense? While knowing and asserting one's right to remain silent with police and to decline to agree to searches is a great start, that is not enough.

The earlier you obtain a child pornography defense lawyer, the better. My approach includes obtaining access to and reviewing the evidence (no matter how gut-wrenching it can be to review such material), fully challenging the evidence and accusations, and bringing in a computer forensic science expert to help challenge and minimize the adverse evidence. Since plenty of child pornography defendants are caught red handed and spill their guts to the police despite their right to remain silent under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments, it is often essential to obtain the assistance of a forensic psychologist or other forensic mental health professional to conduct a full evaluation of the defendant, to help explain their alleged behavior, to recommend a course of improved mental health, and to establish a treatment approach that will eliminate any further child pornography offenses.

As with such contraband defense as drug and weapons defense, make sure your Maryland criminal defense lawyer has a firm grasp of Fourth Amendment challenges to unlawful seizures, searches, and arrests, and a grasp of the Fifth and Sixth Constitutional Amendments for challenging the admissiblity of statements you did make or allegedly made to law enforcement officers (LEOs).

Homicide & Manslaughter Defense

Being charged with murder or another homicide offense can turn your life upside down. Being branded a murderer will haunt you for the rest of your life, and can lead to decades of imprisonment. No matter how progressive an approach some prosecutor's offices may take to mere first-time possession of small quantities of illegal drugs or other more minor alleged crimes, plenty of prosecutors draw a line at how harshly they will deal with those charge with and convicted of murder. Jon examines the autopsy photos and other gruesome images and evidence, because this area of defense requires it. Doing this defense is not saying that the criminal defense lawyer is cold and heartless. Just the opposite. When you have the right criminal defense lawyer, they can pursue your best defense, and help you avoid being thrown under the bus by codefendants, and police engaging in prevarication. Facing such a prosecution can feel like every man for himself. However, when you have the right criminal defense lawyer by your side, you are not alone.