Atlanta Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog

The Supreme Court today issued one of the two dog cases on its docket, Florida v. Harris. Recall that we blogged on this case when it was accepted for review. In today’s unanimous ruling, the Supreme Court held that just because there are no performance records for how a dog does in the field, this…

A recent case out of Alabama addressed the intersection between gun possession and having the right to vote restored after an earlier felony conviction. As just about everybody knows, a person convicted of a felony usually loses some of their “civil rights”, even if they never go to jail. The federal government makes it a…

I am looking down from my office here in Atlanta at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, the federal appellate court that handles cases from Georgia, Florida and Alabama. Yesterday, that court issued a huge decision in which they decided that Congress violated the Constitution by enacting a law that allows for…

Good lawyering in federal criminal cases often requires that the attorney not only be a student of the law, he or she needs to also recognize when a particular issue might be a current “loser” but the higher courts are waiting to change the rule. That might turn out to be the situation in Alleyne…

We have represented executives who worked years ago in businesses that are now under federal investigation for supposedly committing fraud and other white collar offenses. Because our clients left the business many years ago, we are closely following a case that might have a big impact on how we handle the matter. As most people…

While most of our federal white collar criminal cases do not involve drug detection dogs, I noted last week in this post that the Supreme Court will soon hear arguments in a case to decide whether an “alert” on a motor vehicle by a drug-detecting dog is enough to let the police then search the…

Here in Atlanta, in both federal court and in state court criminal cases, we regularly see situations where the police stop a person’s vehicle, and walk a drug detecting dog around the car. If the dog “alerts”, the police contend they have sufficient grounds, or “probable cause”, to search the vehicle. I am currently litigating…

Well it’s early October, a beautiful time of year here in Atlanta, and also the time when the United States Supreme Court kicks off its new “term.” There are a couple of cases of interest that the Supreme Court will decide in the upcoming term. I will focus on cases that impact our federal and…

Federal criminal trials almost always involve the question of “knowledge”, meaning that the prosecution is obligated to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the Defendant “knew” about some fact. In US v. Vana Haile, the Eleventh Circuit here in Atlanta showed how the issue of “knowledge” can change, depending on the facts and the specific…

Here in Atlanta we have a good relationship with the federal prosecutors, and can generally work out some good arrangements when we represent a client who is served with a federal grand jury subpoena. As we explain elsewhere, it is always a good idea to have a lawyer help one through this dangerous process. Yesterday…