Let’s start here: a Baltimore cop is facing charges after conspiring to sell cocaine from a drug bust, and I may just choke on the irony. The drug bust in question by the Violent Crimes Impact Division happened almost a decade ago but the hammer is finally dropping now. The bust, per the Baltimore Sun, [...]
Police officers, much like teachers and parents, are not your friends. Their job isn’t to make you feel good; it’s to protect the public. Sometimes those two things – making you feel better and keeping you safe – work in tandem, and sometimes they don’t. Them’s the breaks. The same is true of the D.A. [...]
Jarrod Ramos, who was accused of killing five workers at the Capital Gazette newspaper in Annapolis, Md has confessed that he committed the offenses. His defense is that he was mentally ill at the time of the trial – such that he should be held – not criminally responsible. According to the Washington Post, Ramos [...]
Ok. If you’re going to engage in drug-fueled police chase where you could be charged with resisting law enforcement, possession of methamphetamine, reckless driving, auto theft, and common nuisance – the smartest thing isn’t also to have a tattoo on your forehead that says “Crime Pays.” Not only does the tattoo make you look like [...]
A PB&J is delicious. A PBJ – Probation Before Judgment – is an actual remedy that is issued in many nonserious criminal charges to help a defendant avoid prison time. You can think of PBJ as a “sandwich” remedy, though, which combines an outer layer of being placed on probation with the softer inner layer [...]
You’ve seen it in the movies and on TV. The drama about who committed a crime ends when an eyewitnesses says, “I saw So-and-So Kill that man with a spoon*. He did it or she’s the one!” (*Or whatever. TV is terrible. Don’t let it rot your brain.) It always sounds or seems like doom [...]
As a criminal defense lawyer, I hear no shortage of complaints from people about their criminal defense lawyers. (That’ll teach you not to come directly to me, huh?) I hear the same complaints and, frankly, terrible “jokes” from people I know and love, too. Comes with the territory. But if you think your lawyer is [...]
The Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution protects people from having to give evidence against themselves. In general, this means that if the police arrest you or if a prosecutor questions you, you do not have to testify against yourself. The burden is on the state or the federal government to prove its case independent [...]
Defense lawyers focus on every legal and factual argument they can make to help you obtain an acquittal or a plea bargain. It is not required that you prove your innocence. It is only required that a defense lawyer convince a judge or jury that there is a reasonable doubt about your guilt. Each charge [...]
The US Constitution provides several Constitutional checks on law enforcement. The Sixth Amendment provides: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, [...]
