I will admit it. I have tattoos. It broke my grandmother’s heart when she first saw it. She eventually got over it, but if I ever wore a sleeveless shirt, she would say “You’ll never be buried in a Jewish cemetery.”…

This building, Jenkins Hall, housed all the Military classrooms at the school I went to.  Jenkins Hall had AC, but not enough so you’d sweat no-matter what.  That building had a special smell to it: starch, sweat, and Kodiak wintergreen dip (tobacco)…

It is the last day of March of 2020. A new era. People’s futures are uncertain. It seems everyone is asking… Will we ever get out of this? When is this time locked-away going to be over? How will the world look when this is over? These are questions I’ve heard myself asking…

A well-dressed man with a cocktail in hand asked me, “How do you represent those people?” He was referring to criminal defendants. I’ve written many times on this question. Apparently, it still makes me think since I’m still writing about it…

The nature of a criminal case is different than most understand. Many times, the case is a defining ordeal for a person’s life. Many times, the case is a crossroads for the accused. People often ask me: “Can you win my case?” Or sometimes: “Do you win a lot of cases?”…

A couple weeks ago I got a text from my dad in the middle of the day.  It was a news story about one of my cases.  I looked at it just to see how inaccurate the story was and then went about my day. It wasn’t till later that night, it hit me…my dad lives in Georgia…

Several years back, I was sitting across from the Medical Examiner.  He was explaining how a 1 and ½ inch puncture wound caused all of the blood being pumped into a man’s heart to spill into the rest of his chest cavity. This was the cause of death…

My sister got me an Alexa for Christmas. She and her husband gave it to me with big smiles on their faces. As I took it in my hands, my blood pressure spiked hotly. Technology scares me. Maybe it’s all the comic books…

Sometimes a cultural misunderstanding can cause problems. The culture of the criminal justice system is not like the culture of the rest of the country. In the culture of this country, being special is good…

I had a dream once. Actually, more of an interesting nightmare… I’d had a summer flu. Burning in furious sweat one moment and then chattering cold another. The pain in my throat would rouse me awake on every swallow. It was the third day…

Ever since Cain, we’ve been killing each other. It is an ever present feature of the human condition. People kill each other in every country in the world. In every town in the United States, people kill each other…

Several years ago…I spoke to a Brazilian Jiujitsu class about the law. With my white belt around my waist, I did my best to answer their questions. Of course, the question was asked: “When can I kill someone?”…

“What am I looking at?” This is a question every person charged with a crime wants to know. This is the question criminal defense attorneys face almost every day. Sometimes it is a simple answer, “Ahh. Just some probation.”…