I know this may sound odd, but one of the more common questions I get as a criminal defense lawyer is: what’s it like to represent a sex
offender?
After 30 years as a criminal defense lawyer, I’ve defended everyone you can imagine, charged with every kind of crime you can imagine. Still, I have to say that …
My client was guilty! No question about it. Seventeen year old, Jim, found his wife in bed with another man. Jim went beserk and kicked the other man out but did worse to his wife–he strangled her around the throat with his hands. Then, trying to avoid detection, he spray-painted her body in gang grafitti, and dumped her …
Over my lifetime, I’ve tried many jury trials—all criminal cases. After 30+ years, I’m so used to the process I over-looked something. It’s the biggest misunderstanding the public has about criminal trials–a trial in America today has nothing to do with innocence.
Most people assume that a jury will find the accused guilty or innocent (not guilty). Or …
The media regularly holds up “celebrity” lawyers as miracle workers—able to get people off from impossible charges against them. Are they really better? If you were charged with a crime, would you be better off with a celebrity lawyer? From over 30 years of work as a lawyer in courtrooms, here are three ideas I have:
1. Celebrity …
I’m writing a new mystery book called, The Amygdala Hijack. It refers to a psychological condition. Some legal scholars think it should be used in the mental illness insanity defense. What the heck is an amygdala hijack?
For 150 years, courts have recognized that people who have a significant mental illness may be found not guilty of a …
Not Guilty by reason of a mental illness defense. All state in the U.S. have a statutory provision that allow a jury to find an accused person not guilty because of a mental illness insanity defense—even if the accused did the crime.
When a guilty person “gets off” like this it makes many of us upset or even …
In Minnesota today, a man named Byron Smith is on trial for first degree murder of two young people that he shot and killed in his home. Will he be found Not Guilty because of Self Defense?http://www.startribune.com/local/256712781.html
I don’t think so.
Here are the basic facts: Byron Smith is an elderly man who lives alone in …
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