Criminal Defense Attorneys

For some, this is truly a matter of life and death.

Clients of criminal defense attorneys have been calling every day, telling us they’re worried as hell and being ignored.

Calls received from jail are panicked. One client at Rikers said, 'Things are so bad in here, I think a riot is going to break out.'

Part of me is gleeful for his fall and the lesson he symbolizes. But part of me is wary.

If the family of victims and sundry prosecution witnesses and hangers-on are allowed to disseminate their views to the media, defense counsel should have equal access.

Media draws attention seekers, and the Weinstein trial had its fair share.

Things change, and often for the better.

The prosecution’s thumb on the scales of justice is slowly being lifted.

According to reports, she recently turned down a plea offer that would not involve jail time.

Given the nature of the job, direct and indirect stress go with the territory.  What can be done about it?

Do it in person. Hold his hand. Look him in the face and smile, even though you’re both crying on the inside. Tell him the facts about the likelihood of losing on appeal, but don’t undermine all hope. It’s too much for him to bear.

Is the idea that smaller, neighborhood prisons engender better treatment a pipe dream or a practical step in the de-carceration movement that might serve as a blueprint?

A criminal defense attorney on the wrong side of the law now needs his own criminal defense attorney.

Hating the person who killed a sibling and carrying that hate forever doesn’t make anyone better or lessen the grief.  Closure is important.

What problems come up when a defendant testifies? 

The kind of change needed to encourage officers to seek mental-health help has to come from within the police culture itself.

Dedicated police professionals who invest the emotional and intellectual energy necessary to investigate a crime can actually change the outcome and net the perpetrator.

When it comes to sentencing, 18- to 21-year-olds need a few more years to mature before they reason like adults.

Two weeks after Jeffrey Epstein’s apparent suicide death while awaiting trial in the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in downtown Manhattan, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has transferred the MCC prison warden elsewhere and put the two prison guards on duty during the time of Epstein’s death on indefinite leave. These are short-term fixes to long-standing […]

Even DNA from people who do ancestral testing can find its way into police databases.