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Criminal Law

Criminal Defense

Current issues in state and local criminal defense, including commentary on cases of national interest.
By Brian Tannebaum, Esq.

Post Frequency: 1.2/day

Last Entry: March 30, 2011 at 07:59:00

A Disgruntled Prosecutor Seeks Advice

Posted on September 12, 2010
In this "tough on crime" "Law & Order" world we live in, there is a notion that prosecutors and cops (except the ones who are taser happy) are the good guys, and defense lawyers are "the problem." It is assumed that all prosecutors are in the right, doing the right thing, and committed to the concept of convictions and jail...

A Public Defender Rants

Posted on September 07, 2010
Many many years ago, like 5 years ago, the blogosphere was different. Lawyers came here to write, to express opinions on the issues of the day, to pass on other posts and news items from other blogs. Sure there were marketers, but it wasn't like it is today, where lawyers race to start a blog for the sole purpose of getting the phone to ring, evidenced by the cheesy style of the poor-content, heavy links to the firm, blog...

The Stale Anonymous Argument Against/For/Criminal Defense Lawyers

Posted on August 29, 2010
My post below on The Core of a Criminal Defense Lawyer was about recent thoughts I've been having about the genesis of my career and a desire to spend some more time going back to basics and representing indigent clients. That was the point. The point was not that I am tired of private practice, or that I want to go back to being a public defender, or as my anonymous commenter thought, that I had a conscience problem and was maybe thinking about not being a criminal defense lawyer...

The Core Of A Criminal Defense Lawyer

Posted on August 26, 2010
Something's been happening lately. Questions have been swirling around my head about my role as a criminal defense lawyer.I started as a public defender, my mornings all the same - rows of mostly men, in jumpsuits green or orange or hopefully not red, walking amongst the sounds of chains entering the courtroom and sitting in the jury box...

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Re-elected Bond-Duty Judge Gets Standing Ovation

Posted on August 26, 2010
Support for good judges comes from all kinds of places.Brian Tannebaum is a criminal defense lawyer in Miami, Florida practicing in state and federal court, and the author of The Truth About Hiring A Criminal Defense Lawyer.a2a_linkname="criminal defense";a2a_linkurl="http://www...

The Right To Remain: Judge Version

Posted on August 25, 2010
Florida's state court trial judges are elected every 6 years. In most rural and smaller areas, there are no contested elections. You don't run against a sitting judge. Period. In South Florida, mainly Miami for a long time, things are different. Judicial races are crowded with ethnic politics (a term that gets me in trouble) where the hypothetical Judge Joe Smith, a long-time respected jurist, can be defeated by the hypothetical Marisol Gonzalez, a 5 year lawyer with little experience...

How's Your Practice?

Posted on August 19, 2010
"Things are slow" It's almost the required response these days to the question.As most criminal defense lawyers go, "business development" or "practice management," are things we ignore, except to complain about. We can talk to a client about their case, read case law, and argue in court, but the business side of the practice is something we either do terribly wrong, or think we are doing right...

ICE Takes Page From Len Berman: "And Nobody Got Hurt"

Posted on August 16, 2010
Last week ICE Agents went looking for a drug suspect. Rule #1 in searching for a drug suspect: assume they are armed. Law enforcement need no information that the suspect is armed, just an assumption. It's somewhat understandable. When we read more and more that law enforcement can't even pull someone over for a traffic citation without being blown away, there is no sense in assuming that any suspect is unarmed and will go guietly...

"To Seek Justice" Does Not Include An Acquittal

Posted on August 11, 2010
Several years ago I moderated a panel on ethics in criminal justice. A former senior prosecutor-turned judge said that he believed professionalism had diminished due to the atmosphere in "the office" that it's all about winning.From The National Center for Prosecution Ethics National Rules and Standards:3-1...

3 Years And 14 Days to Justice

Posted on August 08, 2010
I don?t spend much time here talking about my cases. This isn?t a billboard for my practice. It?s a place for me to express thoughts, joke, and do whatever the hell I want to do. Lawyers who can?t have a conversation without telling their own ?war stories? are annoying, and mostly full of crap...

A Friday Musical Interlude

Posted on August 06, 2010
Brian Tannebaum is a criminal defense lawyer in Miami, Florida practicing in state and federal court, and the author of The Truth About Hiring A Criminal Defense Lawyer.a2a_linkname="criminal defense";a2a_linkurl="http://www.criminaldefenseblog.blogspot...

A Crack

Posted on July 29, 2010
Yesterday Congress decided black people shouldn't go to prison for a significantly longer period of time that white people for using different forms of cocaine.No, that's not a snarky way to describe what happened, it's what happened:From the Washington Times:Congress on Wednesday changed a quarter-century-old law that has subjected tens of thousands of blacks to long prison terms for crack-cocaine convictions while giving far more lenient treatment to abusers, mainly whites, caught with the powder form of the drug...

Is The Blogosphere Getting Too Personal?

Posted on July 26, 2010
There's been a recent shift in the blogosphere. From a place where we find way too much robotic marketing and self-promotion dressed as blog posts, now comes a slew of deeply personal posts from some well respected writers, and all very recently.CBS's Andrew Cohen, one of the best journalists around for political news, writes about the love of his life marrying, someone else...

The Hatred Of Being In Trial

Posted on July 21, 2010
I never understood it.A criminal lawyer is prone to try more cases than a civil lawyer. It's what draws us to the profession. Yet I hear every day lawyers bitching and moaning about being in trial. It's not because they don't like trying a case (which some don't), it's mainly the private practitioner that believes it's a burden on the "practice...

Run Prosecutors, Run

Posted on July 19, 2010
Perusing the paper this morning, I see political endorsements are in full swing at three a day. Two of the three races mentioned today included prosecutors running for the spot.Although neither prosecutor was endorsed, there was noticeably absent any other type of lawyer, including of course a criminal defense lawyer...

My Cousin Vinny Meets A Houston Criminal Defense Lawyer

Posted on July 16, 2010
Jackie Carpenter, African American criminal defense lawyer in Houston, Texas, for a fleeting moment, is a suspect in an armed robbery case. Her story, while interesting to the criminal defense bloggers, was met with shock mostly by the non-lawyer readers, and of course the rationalization by law enforcement...

To Kill A Mockingbird Turns 50

Posted on July 10, 2010
July 11, 1960, To Kill A Mockingbird was published. Look above, and it's obvious the story has great meaning to me. The Washington Post blog has a great post about the background of the book.Author Harper Lee, known to be quite reclusive these days, sent me a message a few years ago...

No Violins Needed

Posted on July 05, 2010
I don't know where or when it started. I'm sure it started its demise before I was around, hell, Atticus Finch was never the darling of society, but the criminal defense function, not just the lawyers, has reached a level that goes beyond "unwelcome."I have been thinking about this for a while now...

My Every So Often Rant On The Media

Posted on July 02, 2010
Somewhere in the archives of this blog are a few posts about the media. As a criminal defense lawyer, I read stories differently than Mom and Pop "did you see what that guy did!" do. I laugh at the buzz words that create anger amongst the public. Routine continuances are called "another delay," and defendants who are not required to appear at arraignments are reported to have "skipped out" on the 30 second hearing...

A Shaming By Stephen Bright

Posted on June 30, 2010
You know Stephen Bright? He's head of the Southern Center for Human Rights, and a few other things. He was invited to speak this year at the Civil/Criminal Lawyers luncheon at the Florida Bar Meeting. I don't think the civil lawyers, or the prosecutors or judges there knew what was about to happen...

Where Are The Criminal Lawyers In State Bar Associations?

Posted on June 28, 2010
We have 85,000 lawyers in the Florida Bar. Someone once did some research and found that 4,500 of those lawyers had filed notices of appearance in a criminal case. I've always heard that "less than 10%" of lawyers practice criminal law, so the numbers make sense...

Inmates Want Phone Calls To Lawyers Recorded, Says...Sheriff

Posted on June 24, 2010
Cops hate criminal defense lawyers and criminal defense lawyers hate cops.That's not a true statement, but it is what most people think.Sheriff Grady Judd of Polk County, Florida, in his defense of his new policy to record inmate calls to their lawyers, didn't use the word hate, he used "lazy...

Will We Ever Fully Understand Clients?

Posted on June 22, 2010
I assume all private criminal lawyers go through the same thing; a string of great calls and clients, followed by a string of mind numbing annoying calls from those that will never become clients, or if they do, will suck the life blood out of us.I've had a week, well, a couple days, of the latter...

A Perfect Game: The Criminal Justice System

Posted on June 04, 2010
Bud Selig did the right thing. Sometimes life sucks and you get screwed. You don't go back and change things.It's too easy to compare the missed call that robbed Armando Gallaraga of only the 21st game in Major League Baseball's history to the criminal justice system, but what the hell...

The Comment I Was Waiting For

Posted on May 24, 2010
After my last post on the juvenile system, railing against children being able to determine sentences for other children, and incidences that used to be handled elsewhere flooding our courts, I waited for the comment. It didn't come right away. Then, last night, it showed up...

Our Failure: Juvenile Court

Posted on May 21, 2010
Today I will walk into Juvenile Court and accept diversion for a client who was involved in a misdemeanor battery. She will do her 15 hours of community service. The case will be dismissed.And I couldn't be more angry, for two reasons.First, when did a scuffle in school become an arrestable offense? Answer: When we as adults admitted our failure to and lack of interest in raising our children...

The Cop Lied, To Me

Posted on May 20, 2010
IN 1994, Alan Dershowitz coined the phrase "Testilying." The practice of giving false testimony against a defendant in a criminal trial, typically for the purpose of "making the case" against someone they believe to be guilty when legal technicalities weren't followed to the letter during the arrest of the suspect, or while searching the immediate area...

Cruel & Unusual: Kids Version

Posted on May 18, 2010
Few have noticed the lines blurred between child and adult in the criminal justice system. With an increase in "youth" violence over the last 30 years, the response of has been typical: throw 'em all in jail.And we have. You're welcome. Thursday I will go to juvenile court to represent an otherwise good student from a good family who got in a fight with another girl resulting in no injuries...

Supporting Arizona

Posted on May 14, 2010
Not a single happening in this country defines our broken political system more than Arizona's new immigration law.Upon it's passage, a huge gasp throughout the nation. All those who had a microphone, ran to speak. This was a "show me your papers," "Nazi Germany," unconstitutional statute that caused even those who see the Constitution as a hindrance to law enforcement to cry foul...

Because I Have To Write About Elena Kagan....

Posted on May 10, 2010
One of the things that is inherent in having a blog, is that there is a faction of the internet audience that believes you must write about what they want to read. So to avoid the "why didn't you write about Kagan question(s), here you go. I was trying to put together my thoughts on this nominee, when I ran across them on Norm Pattis' blog...

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