Fourth Amendment

Presumptive police stops (PPSs) involve stopping a person for a purported minor reason with the intention of looking for possible evidence of more serious law violations. PPSs include stops for excessive window tint, a dangling object from one's window mirror, and not wearing a safety...

Fairfax drug defense calls for the Virginia criminal defense lawyer to be highly skilled at controlled substance defense specifically and criminal defense generally; knowledgeable about the relevant science, statutory law, and caselaw on the topic; and ready to obtain, analyze, deconstruct, reverse and tear apart...

Police hassling exasperates me as a Fairfax criminal lawyer, civil libertarian, and human being. Having police is part of the so-called social contract where society relinquishes vital aspects of its freedom in order to receive protection from the government apparati. However, police and government are...

Unlawful police seizure under the Constitution's Fourth Amendmentprecludes an otherwise vountary search from being voluntary. As a Virginia criminal lawyer, I know that many judges will disagree with when a seizure has taken place. Fortunately, we have Virginia and federal appellate court opinions to provide...

Defending against Virginia prosecutions is my profession, and is about protecting the Constitution's Bill of Rights, mainly the Fourth Amendment right against unlawful police searches, seizures and arrests; the Fifth Amendment's assurances that a criminal suspect's affirmative assertion of silence not be used against him...

Privacy protection of our home property is limited for all police movements that do not have them enter our houses. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I know that appellate court decisions for decades have chipped away at our Fourth Amendment rights regarding searches and seizures...

Virginia criminal rights need to be asserted by suspects and the accused. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I know that when defendants waive their rights, they should not give up, but instead their defense will need to include working to reverse and blunt the adverse...

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...

Virginia cops and other police nationwide are aware of the concept of a community caretaking function, which they and prosecutors try to use in the absence of any other possible justifiable grounds for searching and seizing people and their property, and for entering their homes....

Drug court judges repeatedly hear police justify stops, frisks, searches and arrests of criminal suspects based on their purported "knowledge, training and experience" and behavior consistent with criminal activity. As a Fairfax criminal defense lawyer, I know that police have no superhuman cognition. I also...