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If you’ve been eagerly awaiting marijuana legalization you may be in for a disappointment. According to The New York Times, two days ago, efforts to legalize marijuana seemed to stall in New York, in part because they fell apart in New Jersey.   Senator Liz Krueger (D-Manhattan) responded by introducing a new bill. She has…

Spend a few hours listening to the hit podcast Undisclosed and you’ll hear some jaw-dropping stories. Many of them revolve around prosecutorial misconduct which leads to wrongful conviction.   As the name might imply, much of the misconduct revolves around evidence which never quite makes it to the defense.   New York has one of…

Most people believe they know all about our criminal justice system. Television shows present us with a familiar semblance of it.   And every episode of almost every show brings us a miracle. The good guys win without fail. The bad guys are the ones that get arrested. The trial takes place the very next…

New York City has already reduced the use of cash bail, but the new state budget puts real reforms into place. Though cash bail won’t be eliminated entirely, it will no longer be used for misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies. This means individuals of modest means who are charged with these crimes will have an equal…

Every lawyer has ethical and professional duties to their clients. It’s important to know what those duties are before you hire a lawyer. How else will you know what questions to ask? How else are you going to know whether those duties are being met? Here are the three things you should expect from your…

A criminal defense lawyer’s work starts well before the trial does. In addition to examining your case, following up on potential alibi witnesses, and there are a range of issues that will get decided, or may get decided, well before you get into court. The way we decide those issues is by submitting certain motions…

Appeals are extremely misunderstood. In dozens of crime dramas, brooding detectives snarl about the slick criminal who appealed his conviction and “got off on a legal technicality.” They downplay the fact that legal errors by the judge or the prosecution often represent gross violations of the civil rights of the accused. Trust us, appeals are…

As criminal defense attorneys in NYC we meet plenty of people who make our jobs a lot harder long before they become our clients. Dealing with the criminal justice system is so confusing and so stressful making mistakes is easy. Ideally, if you know you’re under investigation for a crime, or could be,  you’d have…

Like anything having to do with the law, the question of whether you should testify in your own trial is hardly an absolute. While you may have heard the vast majority of defense lawyers advise against the defendant taking the stand, the reality is a little more complex. Sometimes it’s a good idea. Sometimes it’s…