evidence
Exploiting adverse witness absence- Fairfax criminal lawyer speaks
Exploiting the absence of essential prosecution witnesses is essenital for the accused. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I know that such absence does not always mean victory, because sometimes the witness shows up after all, sometimes the prosecutor finds a workable alternative witness or peace...
Videotape evidence – Virginia DUI lawyer on its benefits & limitations
Videotape evidence is essential for a DUI lawyer/ criminal defense attorney to obtain, except in the rare circumstances where the evidence can be sufficiently expected to be more harmful than helpful AND where the prosecution will not have such evidence absent the defense's seeking it....
Tape recorded evidence is crucial says Virginia DUI lawyer
Tape recorded evidence should be commonplace in police encounters with criminal and DUI suspects. As a Virginia DUI lawyer, I know that the United States Park police and the Pentagon police are among the law enforcement agencies that routinely do not videotape DUI and other...
Virginia discovery rules finally open more for felony defendants
Fairfax criminal lawyer on big improvements for Virginia felony criminal discovery. Virginia discovery rules are set for mid-2019 to expand substantially for Virginia felony criminal defendants. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I know this is big news, in the Commonwealth, which up to now is...
Whether criminal defendants will throw their lawyers under the bus and other tales
Early in my criminal defense career, two different public defender lawyers who were much more experienced than I at the time opined that (1) many of our convicted felony clients are seriously mentally ill and (2) many of our clients will not hesitate to do...
Virginia DWI defense- Challenging credentials of the person drawing blood
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...
Whether police who clam up with the defense honor suspects’ decisions to clam up
In Virginia, as but a for instance, it is common for many police officers to hesitate to talk with defense lawyers about the evidence rather than referring them to the designated prosecutor to obtain information.
Virginia sex crime defense – civil incarceration
Incarceration for those convicted of certain sex offenses does not automatically end at the expiration of the prison sentence. The law governing federal proceedings, Virginia, and other states enables the respective governments to seek continued incarceration of such convicts under so-called "civil commitment" laws.
Justice Dept & FBI trash PCAST forensic evidence report for findings they did not want to hear
The Justice Department's and FBI's trashing of PCAST's Report is the very definition of confirmation bias, through trashing a Report whose findings the Justice Department and FBI did not want to hear.
When a judge makes an improvident evidentiary ruling at trial
Trial judges have nothing to lose and often much to gain by permitting at least brief voir dire/cross examination of prosecution witnesses before a damning exhibit is offered into evidence.