Pre-trial

DEA Chemists: In Drug Cases, Sometimes They Just Make It Up

I have written before how in criminal drug prosecutions, the government analyst should be cross-examined  and their case file and other information should be requested to prepare a defense case. A colleague sent me a great example of this effort paying off. A chemist at the DEA Mid-Atlantic Laboratory wrote in a report that three samples …

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Who Cares Whether Urine Scores Are Reliable? DC Still Prosecuting Per Se Urine DUI Cases.

Even though everyone in the DC government, from the DC Council to the prosecutors at the Office of the Attorney General, knows that alcohol in the urine has a “loose correlation” to intoxication, that urinalysis is unreliable, people are still regularly prosecuted and convicted of driving under the influence (DUI) base on their urine scores. Back …

Who Cares Whether Urine Scores Are Reliable? DC Still Prosecuting Per Se Urine DUI Cases. Read More »

To the Permanent Resident Pleading Guilty to Drug Offense and Counting on Cancellation of Removal: Don’t

I was consulted on a case the other day where a person had pleaded guilty to misdemeanor possession (of something that’s not marijuana) over his lawyer’s warnings that it make him removable. The judge also (post-Padilla) made sure that the person knew that there could be immigration consequences. But all the person could hear was …

To the Permanent Resident Pleading Guilty to Drug Offense and Counting on Cancellation of Removal: Don’t Read More »