The recent release of the game "Pokemon GO" has gotten literally millions of people out of their homes and out into public chasing elusive virtual monsters. The game is played using a smartphone and GPS. It generates "Pokemon" (Japanese for "Pocket Monsters") that can...
On July 14, 2016 the Supreme Court of Virginia, in Edmonds v. Commonwealth of Virginia adopted the Court of Appeals's formulation of the duress defense found in Buckley v. City of Falls Church, 371 S.E.2d 827, 827-28 (1988) and reiterated in Humphrey v. Commonwealth, ...
Last Thursday in the remote county of Newaygo on the western side of Michigan, Glenna Duram was charged with the murder of her husband Martin Duram. Local police found the couple shot in their house. Martin had been shot and killed and Glenna was shot in the head but...
Just two days ago, the Supreme Court of the United States opened the door to widespread unfounded police detentions with its decision in Utah v. Strieff. Justice Sotomayor, in a dissent joined by Justice Ginsburg, put her concerns bluntly and up front. She wrote:...
In the recent case of Clarke v. Galdamez, a closely split Virginia Supreme Court upheld the grant of a habeas writ to Mr. Galdamez due to his attorney's failure to correctly inform him of the adverse consequences that taking a guilty plea would have on his immigration...
On June 2nd, the Virginia Supreme Court issued its opinion in Wilkins v. Commonwealth of Virginia, 2016 WL 3094565 (Va. June 2, 2016). Mr. Wilkins assigned as error the question of whether “the trial court erred by allowing the jury [trial] to proceed when the...
Just last month in Mason v. Commonwealth of Virginia, 2016 WL 2586178, the Supreme Court of Virginia upheld a Terry stop based solely on the officer's observation of an opaque 3 by 5 parking pass hanging from the rearview mirror of the car. The case is quite...
Public intoxication or swearing is a ticketed offense, with a small monetary penalty. So small that it may seem harmless to simply pay the penalty. But just simply paying the fines for a Drunk In Public ticket is the same as pleading guilty to the charge. And if you...
This is a question that comes up a lot. The answer, typically, is no. Virginia is an “at-will” employment state, which means that an employer can fire you for any reason so long as it is not one that is prohibited by law. A frequently seen pattern is where two...
Following an arrest, many defendants worry about the possibility of a lengthy jail sentence or a fine that may accompany a criminal conviction. And in serious criminal cases, those factors do loom large. Yet just as often, it is not the threat of jail or a fine that...
