death penalty
Federal executions resume- Fairfax criminal lawyer advocates abolition
Federal executions have resumed this year after a 17 year informal moratorium over the course of botched executions and court challenges. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I know that defending any murder or homicide case is demanding enough as is, and defending a capital punishment...
Abolishing death penalty in Virginia- Fairfax criminal lawyer weighs in
Abolishing the death penalty has long been critical for me. Abolition is a major human rights, social justice, and racial justice issue. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer and longtime human rights activist, I bristled when eight years ago a fellow Virginia criminal defense lawyer called...
Fairfax criminal lawyer on snitch testimony causing Pruett’s execution
Why allow inmate snitch testimony to cause an inmate's execution? Testimony from inmates serving substantial prison terms can too often be expected to be manufactured for seeking to improve their lot, with little concern about the truth.Â
Dylann Roof’s quickly-imposed death sentence must not encourage quick death verdicts in other capital cases
Dylann Roof represented himself at his federal capital sentencing trial phase. He put forth no effort to prevent a death sentence, which helps explain how the jury quickly reached a death sentence verdict (within three hours of deliberation) at the sentencing phase The trial judge...
Recent Alabama execution dashes notion of painless lethal injection – And Twitter responses
Ronald Bert Smith, Jr.'s Alabama execution -- discussed separately by me today -- is an example of the fallacy that lethal injection can be assured to be painless. Alabama news reporter Kent Faulk witnessed the execution, and describes the following
5-minute Dakota War capital trials underline the need for eternal civil liberties vigilance
My public elementary school teachers taught us about "Honest Abe" Lincoln. None of my teachers ever taught me about Lincoln's approval for a mass hanging of thirty-eight Dakota Indians in 1862. Arising from the Dakota War, United States military commission trials of 392 American Indians...
Virginia as the Confederacy’s cradle should shed its history of executions, Jim Crow and slavery
How much good was it, really, that Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe earlier in April 2016 vetoed a bill to mandate electrocutions when lethal injection drugs are not available for executions, when all along he was advocating for shielding lethal injection drug manufacturers' identities, in the...
Three police officers shot in Prince William County, one fatally
Prince William County, Virginia, police officer Ashley Guindon was slain when responding to a domestic violence call,