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The Continued Erosion of Cell Phone Privacy Rights
Most people consider their cell phone as one of their most privately possessed item. Text messages, phone call logs, pictures, notes, and social media messages are all stored on our cell phones. It's safe to say that handing our mobile devices to a stranger for a...
Can The 5th Amendment Shield Trump from Mueller’s Questioning
In recent weeks Donald Trump's newly retained attorney, Rudy Giuliani, has implied that his client may decline to be voluntarily interviewed by Special Counsel Mueller and his team of attorneys. Thus, Mueller could attempt to force his hand using the power of a grand...
President Trump sued for blocking 7 Twitter users
On July 11, seven individual Twitter users and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, a free-speech group, sued Donald Trump for blocking Twitter users from his @realDonaldTrump account. The lawsuit claims that Trump blocked several accounts...
Shkreli “Pharma Bro” Trial Defense: Can Enrichment of “victims” be Fraud?
Martin Shkreli, the hedge-fund investor and co-founder of the biotechnology firm Retrophin, known affectionately as "Pharma Bro," first caught the public’s attention by increasing the price of a vital drug used by AIDS patients by 5,000 percent. Shkreli now faces...
Michelle Carter’s text messages – manslaughter or protected?
On June 16, 2017, Michelle Carter was found guilty of manslaughter in Massachusetts. While I cannot comment on the laws of Massachusetts, the concept of manslaughter being stretched to encompass a verdict of guilty in this case has troubling implications. Carter...
Statutes of Limitations
When a person is injured or a contract is broken in Virginia, the person who is injured, the plaintiff, has a certain period of time, known as a limitations period or statute of limitations, in which to file her lawsuit against the defendant. Even though there are...
Medical Malpractice and Medical Bills
Immediately after an injury, a person injured by medical malpractice is typically not thinking about how best to maintain their records to increase the odds of a favorable recovery. Their main focus is typically on the pain they are suffering, the shock of a...
Colleges and Universities Increasingly Face Liability After Title IX Hearings
A new report published in the Washington Post revealed that colleges and universities are increasingly being named as defendants in lawsuits filed by students that recieved disciplinary action after Title IX Hearings. Under Title IX, federally funded schools must...
Immigration Considerations in Criminal Law
There are two immigration consequences which can be at stake when a client pleads guilty to a criminal offense, inadmissibility back into the United States and the possibility of deportation. A non-citizen is inadmissible if convicted of a crime involving moral...
The War on Drugs Just Got a Reboot
The ink has barely dried on Jeff Sessions' confirmation papers but he has made it clear that he will seek an aggressive roll back of criminal justice reforms that were put in place by former President Obama. Step one is a renewed focus on the "war on drugs" which...
The First Step After Arrest on Federal Charges
The Rule 5 Hearing When a person is arrested on allegations that he/she has committed a federal crime, the first step in the process is called an initial appearance, which is commonly referred to as a “Rule 5 Hearing”. This appearance will occur within 24 hours of the...