Criminal Law

Limiting prejudice from prior convictions in trials for being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Posted on December 23, 2009
For trials of charges of being a felon in possession of a firearm, prosecutors would love nothing more than for the jury to hear all the details about the prior felony conviction.  The best way for the defense to avoid prejudicing the jury over the prior felony conviction is to hold severed trials of the firearm possession charge and the charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm...

Preserve speedy trial rights by objecting to continuances and other delays.

Posted on December 22, 2009
Trial lawyers are familiar with the general obligation to timely object at trial, in order to preserve an evidentiary issue for appeal.  To preserve speedy trial rights, it is critical not only to make timely speedy trial motions, but to object clearly on and in the record to trial date continuances and other trial delays...

Don't bring a gun to a snowball fight, in Duke Ellington's neighborhood at that.

Posted on December 21, 2009
 This past Saturday morning around 10:30, the snow got so heavy that I made a U-turn back to my home in the Washington, D.C., suburbs when visibility got too difficult through my ice-covered windshield wipers and rear window that kept getting covered despite my defroster, with many side streets still unplowed...

Thich Nhat Hanh's "You Are Here: Discovering the Magic of the Present Moment"

Posted on December 20, 2009
Recently, I started reading Thich Nhat Hanh's You Are Here: Discovering the Magic of the Present Moment. It apparently was first published in French in 2001, and not published in an English translation until this year.  Some of You are Here's key teachings include:  - "Compassion is not possible without pain and and suffering...

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Conviction affirmed where the prosecutor?s question ?strayed from the track? established by MRE/FRE 5-704(b), but the witness's answer did not.

Posted on December 18, 2009
Fewer prosecutors would play fast and loose with rules of evidence if they saw appellate courts more frequently give appellate relief for such transgressions. In that regard, unfortunately Maryland's Court of Appeals today affirmed a PCP with intent to distribute conviction, acknoweldging that the prosecutor's question to its police drug sale "expert witness" ?strayed from the track? established by MRE/FRE 5-704(b), but the witness's answer did not...

Thich Nhat Hanh-following nuns and monks in Vietnam need your petition signatures now.

Posted on December 17, 2009
Please sign this petition for human rights of Thich Nhat Hanh-following clergy in Vietnam. Full details are here.   No matter one's religious views or persuasion, robust religious freedom is critical worldwide. As to Thich Nhat Hanh specifically, his words and deed have been particularly empowering and helpful for me...

Shoveling sh*t in the battlefield for justice is better than slipping and falling into sh*t.

Posted on December 17, 2009
While I was applying to law schools, my father recognized that I was not hip on a traditional corporate law firm path, even though I ended up working for a traditional corporate law firm during my third year in law school and two years thereafter. He knew I was big on civil liberties and civil rights, and told me about a lawyer in his office building in Bridgeport who practiced such law...

An ABA Journal Blawg 100 vote for Legal Satyricon is a vote for robust, unvarnished blawgspeak.

Posted on December 17, 2009
On the surface, the Legal Satyricon's Marc Randazza joyfully throws F-bombs, zealously bestows asshat awards, and routinely disses the residents of his former state of abode. Deeper down, he cares deeply about justice, and about lending a hand or idea to his fellow lawyers fighting on the same side of the Constitution...

Justice delayed is better than justice denied, even when delayed for three decades.

Posted on December 16, 2009
Congratulations to Donald Gates for finally being released from decades in prison over a murder he did not commit.  Thank you to former D.C. Superior Court Fred Ugast -- who presided over Mr. Gates's trial -- for granting this release, and for urging an investigation into other innocent people who might have been convicted on the basis of false testimony from the same FBI hair analyst who got Mr...

Civil liberties protection is better than an $8 million settlement.

Posted on December 15, 2009
Following on the heels of a multimillion-dollar settlement over unlawful detentions during the April 2000 IMF/Word Bank protests, the District of Columbia has reached an $8 million settlement over an unlawful roundup and detention of demonstrators in Pershing Park in September 2002...

Will D.C. real estate values mushroom with the coming of legal medical marijuana?

Posted on December 14, 2009
Image from public domain. The District of Columbia and the surrounding Beltway/Route 495 are a true center of the dreaded government-military-industrial complex. On an individual level, many participants in the G-M-I complex are wonderful people, with many doing good things for society...

If Ganesh were a trial lawyer.

Posted on December 13, 2009
Ganesh. Copyright holder permits copying and distribution of the image.  A client who was born in India recently gave me a beautiful framed painting of Hindu god Ganesh, created with simple red brush strokes on beautiful textured paper.  My client knows of my interest in Eastern and Western spirituality, including my fascination with and admiration for the late Neem Karoli Baba, Ram Dass, and Baghavan Das, with the first having been an Indian holy man, and the next two having learned closely and deeply from him since the 1960's and having been great teachers in their own rights...

Loving life.

Posted on December 13, 2009
 Seizing the moment last week on Saturday: My boy and I making a mini-snow-turtle/buddha.

Supreme Court improperly gives short-shrift to trial judge's essential function in eyeballing witnesses at a suppression hearing.

Posted on December 11, 2009
Appellate judges repeatedly refuse to disturb trial judges' sound discretion in assessing witness credibility in denying a criminal defendant's motion to suppress evidence.  Consequently, appellate judges should also refuse to disturb trial judge's sound discretion in assessing witness credibility in granting a criminal defendant's motion to suppress evidence...

Discovering and addressing marijuana's benefits and harms: Four perspectives.

Posted on December 10, 2009
Image from public domain. Recently, I spoke about marijuana's safety and marijuana laws with a forensic chemist who typically testifies for the criminal defense side. He believes very strongly in keeping marijuana illegal -- even for medicinal use -- and that its benefits are far outweighed by its risks and harms...

If so many eyewitnesses really "will never forget that face," then why do so many people mistake Albert Einstein's face for Marilyn Monroe's?

Posted on December 09, 2009
Unfortunately, countless innocent people are wrongfully convicted on the testimony of an eyewitness saying "I will never forget that face" when the witness never had a chance to process the image of the suspect's face and other features in the first place, when the visual and sound observation totaled only seconds at best, and when the witness's first priority was to emerge safely, rather than to be a photographic-memory witness...

If you want more privacy, stay off the Internet and off the phone.

Posted on December 08, 2009
Corporations repeatedly invade customers' privacy for profit -- and perhaps sometimes out of a feeling of patriotism, as well -- and the government invades privacy in the face of a population that does not stand up resolutely and united enough against such invasions...

Private security company owner wins federal court standing to sue the D.C. government to prevent further arrest efforts over gun possession.

Posted on December 07, 2009
Robert L. Ord owns a Virginia-based private security company. As the D.C. Circuit tells it:  "In 2007, the Virginia Circuit Court of Orange County appointed appellant Robert Ord a Special  Conservator of the Peace (SCOP). That order authorized Ord to carry firearms while acting in the course of his duties...

Suggestions for taking law school exams.

Posted on December 07, 2009
For me, law school was in many respects unnecessarily and overly fraught with unpleasant bootcamp aspects on the road to getting my degree and fighting for justice.   As time has passed, I have recognized that law school -- and bar exam preparation -- can be more pleasant and bearable the more that a law student prepares and thinks like a lawyer...

Spreading peace with a soft voice, drum, and powerful example.

Posted on December 06, 2009
  Numerous times I have written about my friend and teacher Jun Yasuda (see all articles here).  My fateful 1991 meeting with her as she fasted across from the White House, for peace during Persian Gulf War I, was a critical turning point. It came near the time that Ram Dass came more fully to my attention, a few months before t'ai chi came more fully to my attention, a few years before I started getting more of a sense of the meaning of Tao, and just months before I left a corporate law firm job to become a public defender lawyer...

Fourth Circuit enforces minor participant departure for allegedly low-producing drug conspiracy gopher.

Posted on December 04, 2009
To those who have expended substantial energy and frustration finding, hiring, training and retaining good employees, imagine how much tougher it is for criminal enterprises to find good help, considering that they cannot exactly advertise job openings on CraigsList...

Thanks to great trademark lawyers and the Trademark Office, my symbol is now trademarked.

Posted on December 02, 2009
 Last year, I told the brief story behind the creation of my above-posted law firm symbol. On a daily basis, this t'ai chi symbol reminds me to practice the martial art of t'ai chi ch'uan twenty-four hours a day, both through the physical exercise and through everything I do on a personal and professional level...

December 2 is "Fairness in Cocaine Sentencing Act." National Call in Day.

Posted on December 01, 2009
December 2 is "Fairness in Cocaine Sentencing Act." National Call in Day. Full details are here.

Mugshots are not automatically admissible in evidence.

Posted on November 30, 2009
 Bill of Rights. (From the public domain.) Mugshots are not automatically admissible in evidence at criminal trials, as they can substantially interfere with the Constitutional presumption of innocence. Jabari Bishop v. U.S., __ A.2d _ (D.C., Nov. 25, 2009)...

Honor turkeys by eating Tofurkey, instead.

Posted on November 26, 2009
The following blog enry is updated from last year's Thanksgiving entry.  Many people's greeting for today's holiday is not merely "Happy Thanksgiving", but "Happy Thanksgiving; enjoy your turkey."  Would you be eating meat today if you were shown and told in advance since infancy what you were really eating and how the animals are slaughtered, including the blood, guts, and untold suffering? Is it anything but advertising euphemism that meatsellers cloak animal corpses in such code words as hot dogs, hamburgers, pork, beef, bologna, sausage, bacon, ham, meatballs, and meatloaf?  Soon after graduating college in 1985, I could no longer resolve all the toil I had spent advocating for human rights while chomping on burgers, chicken, and tuna fish...

Slaying prostitution prosecutions when sting police engage in sexual contact.

Posted on November 25, 2009
In 1995, Howard County, Maryland, prosecutors dismissal a shameful sting prosecution against some workers at a massage parlor who some undercover police permitted not only to masturbate them, but apparently to do it to completion, which means such police truly were mixing business with misplaced pleasure (for how could the completion have been possible had they not been experiencing pleasure?)...

DWI Acquittal.

Posted on November 24, 2009
Last week, I won a drunk driving case in Virginia District Court. Here are some of the highlights of our victory:  - My client's Intoximeter EC/IR (breathalyzer) reading was 0.08.- The prosecutor presented the testimony of the cop, the breath technician, and the Virginia Department of Forensic Sciences person who certified the Intoximeter...

Justice comes late but large for D.C.'s violations of arrestees during 2000 IMF/World Bank protestors.

Posted on November 23, 2009
Three years ago, I blogged about my criminal court defense of numerous IMF/World Bank protestors during the April 16, 2000, weekend demonstrations, and my revulsion over seeing my nation's capital reduced to looking like a martial law government awaiting a possible repeat of the previous rioting in Seattle against that city's economic globalization meeting...

Further visits south of my backyard.

Posted on November 22, 2009
Earlier this month, I visited Luray Caverns with my son. After passing by the kitsch of a huge parking lot, overly-touristy shops and people rushing to get a photo in front of the Luray Caverns sign, I experienced the most extensive and interesting cave network I have ever visited...

Seeking full-time legal assistant.

Posted on November 20, 2009
Regular Underdog readers know that I have posted several help wanted notices during the past few months. Some were an effort to replace my longtime full-time assistant due to his always-known plan to go to law school, where he currently is at. Today's ad for a full-time legal assistant is to add to my current staff of two excellent part-time assistants...

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