Prosecutors
Winning through non-anger, compassion and forgiveness
When I blogged about using threat ability a as a key component of winning, a non-lawyer friend told me he saw a glaring absence of my addressing compassion, which subject is essential for me as a person and Fairfax criminal lawyer. That point is well...
Criminal defense & persuasion benefit from a clear mirror
Criminal defense and persuasion benefit tremendously from a clear mirror. That mirror can be the magic mirror, where others are not likely to do any better than we give them the faith to do. That mirror can also be the spiritual mirror of the heart...
Criminal Defense – Beware Trusting Prosecutors
During the Cold War, the United States and Soviet Union did not trust each other, but instead negotiated with each other because each had enough nuclear weapon firepower practically or actually to decimate humanity. Similarly, criminal defense lawyers and their clients must beware trusting prosecutors,...
When Prosecutors and Police Interfere with Defense Efforts to Speak with Prosecution Witnesses
Prosecutors and police are here to serve the public, and not the other way around. Too many of them forget that. Power corrupts too many people. Criminal defendants are members of the public, as are their lawyers. Prosecutors and police should tread carefully to ever...
Judges and prosecutors should accommodate press access to the courts
The New York Times's Shaila Dewan recently depicted the sad circumstances, at best, about judicial and prosecutorial efforts to thwart journalists' access to and coverage of court actions.
When Prosecutors and Judges Want To Go To Lunch
Prosecutors, judges and everyone else are human. When their stomachs rumble with hunger and when their blood curdles at frightful testimony, they are going to have a human response. The best judges and prosecutors temper that response.
Criminal Defense – Negotiating with a poker face and battling with equanimity
A poker face is preferable with negotiations, so that the opponent does not see when the criminal defense lawyer is flinching or exulting. A good example from cinema is in Pretty Woman, where Richard Gere's and Julia Roberts's characters arrive at an agreed price for...
Being a prosecutor does not automatically mean credibility and reliability
Being a prosecutor or police officers does not automatically mean that person is credible nor reliable. Judges, jurors, and everyone else must remember that. Criminal defendants' lives and liberty too often unjustly are crushed by an unwritten presumption that too many people give to police...
Part II – Pausing Before Hiring a Former Prosecutor/Former Member of the Opposing Army
In seeking a criminal defense lawyer, one might ask what motivated the lawyer to the criminal defense path, and whether and why the criminal defense lawyer will stick with and fight like hell for his or her client through thick and thin, through all the...
The illusion of needing to hire a former prosecutor for criminal defense – Part I
The passionate, committed, and winning criminal defense lawyer does criminal defense because it is in his or her blood, and s/he thrives with such work.
