Exclusionary Rule
Virginia High Crime Area Night Presence Helps Okay Cop Handgun Patdown
Virginia high crime are presence at nighttime are two factors that might increase your risk of being police-frisked for weapons, now that the Virginia Court of Appeals this week okayed such factors to be considered in evaluating the legality of such a patdown. As a...
Sure outcomes rarely exist in criminal defense – Virginia Supreme Court
Sure outcomes are rare in criminal defense, says Fairfax criminal lawyer. Sure outcomes should never be relied upon in criminal defense. We need look no further than the many split decisions of the United States Supreme Court to know that, being human, judges and jurors...
Search warrants are the police tool for finding contraband in homes
One may consider his or her house to be her castle, but police often use search warrants and alleged exigent circumstances to disturb our privacy and serenity in that castle. One such approach is for police to get an excuse to enter a home (for...
Criminal defense – Exclusionary rule does not apply to finding contraband with un-Mirandized voluntary admissions
In 2004, the United States Supreme Court bitterly divided 5-4 (with a plurality of three justices and a concurrence of two more justices) in declining to apply the Exclusionary Rule to evidence obtained by police through voluntary but un-Mirandized admissions about the location of contraband....
5-3 Constitution-shredding SCOTUS decision underlines the dangers of a Trump presidency
In making judicial nominations to the Supreme Court and lower federal courts, a president Trump will pay little heed to civil liberties concerns, and instead play to his own arrogance, delusions of grandeur and, at times, perceived constituency, which a president Trump would do in...
