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Nuances with police can be many when the suspect uses English as a second language (ESL / ESOL0. Fairfax and the rest of Northern Virginia teems with people speaking English as a second language. Yet, many police officers repeatedly do not ask criminal suspects with...

Narrowing reliance on police testimony is an important pursuit for criminal defense lawyers. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I expect many judges, jurors and prosecutors to treat the testimony of most law enforcement officers (LEOs) as worthy of reliability. In that regard, it was wonderful...

Accepting responsibility (AR) is a big deal at sentencing. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I know that AR is part of Virginia's advisory sentencing guidelines, and that judges always consider AR. Virginia's Court of Appeals confirms that a sentencing judge may not hold against a criminal defendant...

Scrutinize statutes. That is my watchword as a Fairfax criminal lawyer. A statute at first blush may seem to criminalize what it does not. That is underlined by Terry Eugene Michel's 2-1 Virginia Court of Appeals reversal of his animal cruelty felony conviction. Michel v....

Satisfying misdemeanor complainants to recommend a judicial dismissal is critical for you and your Virginia attorney to consider. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I have lawfully obtained many misdemeanor dismissals by bypassing the prosecutor, and negotiating a civil settlement with the complainant. This is a...

Virginia probation agents (VPAs) can make their probationers' lives a living hell, or not. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I know that VPAs have many demands on their schedules, including directly supervising probationers, preparing presentence reports (PSRs), drafting probation violation reports, appearing in court for...

Police tactics are many for extracting confessions from criminal suspects, consenting to searches by law enforcement officers (LEO), and agreeing to engage in field sobriety testing (FSTs or SFSTs) for Virginia DUI investigations. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I know you have a Fifth and...

Avoding voluntary police testing can spell the difference between acquittal and conviction. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I know that when, for instance, police suspect a person of violating Virginia Code § 18.2-266  (driving under the influence (DUI) of alcohol and/or drugs or driving while...

Pretextual inventory searches of police-stopped automobiles -- where the real police motive is to conduct an unlawful search -- are inevitably going to take place in this climate where appellate court caselaw allows police to stop a motor vehicle for a moving violation, where the...