Criminal Law

Work as play/ Play as work.

Posted on October 21, 2008
  For fewer than two years between leaving the Maryland Public Defender's Office and becoming my own boss, I worked at a civil trial law firm. I learned many good things there. However, I realized that I would be able to spread my wings the farthest by being my own boss...

Should fingerprint evidence be banned from court?

Posted on October 20, 2008
 Bill of Rights (From public domain.) Should fingerprint evidence be banned from criminal trials? Yes, says Maryland public defender lawyer Patrick Kent, who also is a forensic expert.  Last May, Kent said that DNA evidence is scientific, but that fingerprint analysis is an art that is too filled with error to permit fingerprint testimony at trial...

Announcing our additional office in McLean, Virginia.

Posted on October 19, 2008
 For many years, I have been defending about as many criminal cases in Virginia as in Maryland. In Virginia, I defend more criminal cases in Fairfax County than anywhere else in the commonwealth.  Most of the counties where I practice in Virginia are a close drive to my office and home...

Announcing our branch office in Fairfax County, Virginia.

Posted on October 19, 2008
 For many years, I have been defending about as many criminal cases in Virginia as in Maryland. In Virginia, I defend more criminal cases in Fairfax County than anywhere else in the commonwealth.  Most of the counties where I practice in Virginia are a close drive to my office and home...

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Obama and McCain on Civil Liberties: More like Tweedledum and Tweedledee?

Posted on October 17, 2008
 Bill of Rights (From public domain.) Had Ralph Nader not run for president in 2000, Al Gore would have beaten George Bush, II. Nader knew he would not win the presidency, but also had a powerful message that most Democratic and Republican candidates and officeholders are more fundamentally alike than they are different, maintaining most of the status quo of the government-military-industrial complex...

Criminal juries may not make up the governing law.

Posted on October 16, 2008
 Bill of Rights (From public domain.) Around fourteen years ago, at the post conviction/habeas corpus stage, I won a retrial in a Maryland trial court for a man convicted of burglary for breaking into his grandmother's house with the intent to rape her, and of raping her...

Finding points of commonality with opponents.

Posted on October 15, 2008
   It is human nature to avoid unpleasant people and to seek out pleasant ones. That is why I avoid Barney and am transfixed by the Dalai Lama. No matter how much I myself could not stomach prosecuting or being a cop, I have to deal daily with those serving such functions...

Can lies be turned on and off?

Posted on October 14, 2008
 Bill of Rights (From public domain.) Once a liar always a liar? How many jurors except cops from that maxim when the cop's lie is designed to elicit a confession to a crime? Last week, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals affirmed a conviction following a most egregious police lie to obtain a confession, but warned that the police tactics presented a close call...

When a judge stops being an impartial adjudicator.

Posted on October 13, 2008
 Bill of Rights (From public domain.) When I started working as a public defender lawyer in 1991, I observed about fifteen minutes of a felony jury trial being presided over by a then-longtime sitting judge. I was astounded to see the judge -- in front of the jury -- silently and emphatically mouthing words, apparently to coach the prosecutor during the prosecutor's cross examination, without any objection from defense counsel...

We will be open Columbus Day

Posted on October 12, 2008
 FYI, our law firm will be open on Columbus Day, October 13.  The only reason thus far that I have identified to justify closing on Columbus Day is to give my staff a well-deserved day off. Other than that, I do not agree with the holiday, particularly when no federal holiday exists to remember the Native Americans who suffered tremendously from the lengthy brutal and unjust treatment that followed over the years and centuries after Columbus's arrival in the Western Hemisphere...

Why plead guilty when pleading innocent is not much more risky?

Posted on October 10, 2008
 Photo from website of U.S. District Court (W.D. Mi.). Most people in my neck of the woods go to court without a lawyer for non-jailable criminal matters. However, even non-jailable convictions can come back to haunt people. For instance, a conviction for possessing a pot pipe is deportable for non-U...

We are closed today for Yom Kippur.

Posted on October 09, 2008
 Today is Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement, when I will continue my three decades-long practice of a completely dry fast from sundown last night to sundown tonight; focusing on harmony with others, nature, and myself; and focusing on continuing to improve daily in treating my fellow humans and other living things justly, caringly, and kindly, including a continuation of my two decades of strict vegetarianism...

When indigent criminal defense funding dries up, shrink the criminal justice system.

Posted on October 08, 2008
Clarence Gideon. Two weeks before I was born, the United States Supreme Court mandated that the states provide lawyers to indigent criminal defendants. Gideon V. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963). (Listen to the later-to-be, short-lived Justice Abe Fortas -- when he was a name partner at one of Washington's still most highly-regarded huge corporate law firms -- arguing for inmate Clarence Gideon who beat all odds by obtaining the rare right to Supreme Court review after having filed a pro se petition for writ of certiorari...

Max Hardcore sentenced for obscenity conviction.

Posted on October 07, 2008
 Photo from website of U.S. District Court (W.D. Mi.). What is obscenity? Nobody knows until the jury rules, because obscenity cannot be sufficiently defined. A jury across the courthouse hallway might even reach an opposite conclusion. Therefore, the Supreme Court's obligatory Miller obscenity test gives little First Amendment protection...

Mu: The power of nothingness.

Posted on October 06, 2008
The Chinese script for the character "mu," which means nothing. Why are so many intricate brush strokes needed to convey nothing? (The copyright was relinquished by this animated symbol's creator. The symbol also is available here.) At first blush -- at least from a traditional Western perspective -- irony would be apparent in the concept that nothingness can be powerful...

Rock Lobster

Posted on October 05, 2008
 At the Trial Lawyers College, singing was encouraged and was everywhere, some of it good, some of it mediocre at best, and some of it drowning out the rest of the conversation too much. A good point was made that by doing more singing, we are better at getting our words and arguments not only past our lips, but in a full voice that carries the message where it needs to go...

Poll the jury.

Posted on October 03, 2008
Photo from website of U.S. District Court (W.D. Mi.). Before going to trial with or without a jury, it is critical to have a good trial checklist. For jury trials, a critical part of that checklist is to have the jury polled in the event of an adverse jury verdict...

"I want to refer to non-Latino Spanish-speaking lawyers."

Posted on October 02, 2008
  Reality so often is more pathetic than fiction.  Yesterday, I was talking with a woman on the way down the courthouse elevator. She works in the courthouse, and we spoke in Spanish, her native tongue; I do not have as much of a throughout-the-day chance to speak Spanish now that I am no longer with my former law partner, whose Spanish is impeccable and whose practice heavily involves the language...

The dragnet of drug arrests.

Posted on October 01, 2008
DEA image in the public domain. In college, on-campus drug use -- and sometimes drug sales, apparently -- ran rampant. I would sometimes be right in the room or in the dorm hallway as others smoked pot or, in one instance, snorted cocaine. If I did not want to be a hermit, it was hard to avoid being with people who smoked pot; this was the early Eighties, and both pot and beer were very popular (and also unlawful for those under twenty-one to purchase)...

We are closed today, for the Jewish New Year.

Posted on September 30, 2008
 Today is the Jewish New Year/Rosh Hashanah 5769, which I celebrate every year. Therefore, our law firm will be closed today, and will reopen on October 1, 2008, to serve you.  L'shana tova/happy new year. Jon Katz.

Herman Lee Taylor, Jr.: Meet Kumar Barve and Davis Ruark.

Posted on September 29, 2008
Photo from website of U.S. District Court (W.D. Mi.). The nation's drunk driving laws became out of whack by the time the states succumbed many years ago to federal legislation requiring drunk driving convictions for driving with a blood alcohol level of 0...

David Wasserman leaves the planet

Posted on September 28, 2008
  Sadly, David Wasserman died last Thursday.  Nine years ago, I was further exploring how to get paying, versus only pro bono, clients for First Amendment defense both for criminal and civil cases. This goal fit squarely with my obsession over and passionate work on free speech issues with Amnesty International in college and law school, and my service on the board of the local American Civil Liberties Union a few years before...

Flatulent defendant; albatross of domestic military patrols

Posted on September 26, 2008
  Today I argued a felony criminal appeal before the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, Virginia where I stayed overnight, so today's blog entry is brief, but very important. As George Carlin said on his Occupation: Fool album from the early 1970's, "farts are fun"...

Do you order from my client's restaurant menu, too?

Posted on September 25, 2008
  - "I don't care what the contract says, it's my money that paid for your work and I am going to know from you what's going on in the case."- "He's my family. Blood is thicker than water, and I'm going to be involved in your discussions with my brother...

What is obstruction of justice?

Posted on September 24, 2008
 Bill of Rights (From public domain.) Among the three jurisdictions where I practice, police in Virginia seem most fond of arresting for obstruction of justice. What does the phrase mean? Last year, Virginia's Supreme Court gave some details, in Jordan v...

D.C. Jail is on lockdown status.

Posted on September 24, 2008
 (Image from Bureau of Prisons' website). The District of Columbia jail is one of the most unpleasant of the over twenty or so jails and prisons I have visited. My experience would be a picnic compared to what the inmates must endure.  Thanks to a fellow listerv member for getting the word out that the jail is on lockdown until 6 October, and that all legal visits need to be made through the staff entrance...

Unreasonable suspicion.

Posted on September 23, 2008
 Bill of Rights (From public domain.) What made me become so skeptical of cops? Certainly, plenty of socializers tried to keep me and my school classmates enamored of cops from the earliest age. I played with cop and fireman toys. I watched Dragnet, Adam-12, Hawaii Five-O, Baretta, Columbo, Police Woman, Kojak, and plenty of other entertaining police shows that shined a favorable light on cops...

Defending online copyright infringement.

Posted on September 22, 2008
Computer hard drive. (Image from Pacific Northwest Laboratory's website). On May 23, 2008, I blogged about bucking the trend of 94% of federal criminal prosecutions resulting in guilty pleas, by proceeding to a jury trial in Alexandria, Virginia, federal court for alleged criminal copyright infringement...

Welcoming your comments / Why fear someone who once wore diapers?

Posted on September 22, 2008
  Image from Library of Congress's website. Some blogs get more comments then other blogs. The Volokh Conspiracy, TalkLeft, WSJ, and Res Ipsa get constant dialogue among commenters throughout the day. My criminal defense lawyer brothers Scott Greenfield in particular, Gideon and Mark Bennett get their fair share of comments both quantity- and quality-wise, too; they post many blog entries that entice comments, and they participate with their commenters...

Being a t'ai chi bear in an otherwise stressful court.

Posted on September 21, 2008
 Yin Yang Nobody can fully and sufficiently describe what it feels like and what the best responses are to being a lawyer being berated by a judge while the lawyer's client is standing right next to the lawyer, and when plenty of other eyes and ears -- and the court reporter's record -- are focused on the action...

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