When I am an old woman I shall wear purple.
This is one of my favorite poems: When I am an old woman, I shall wear purplewith a red hat that doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer glovesand satin candles, and say we've no money for butter.I shall sit down on...
A win for the good guys, for now.
A few weeks ago I wrote about the Supreme Court of Virginia removing a defendant's right to challenge their conviction via the writ of error coram vobis. The case involved two separate petitioners, both challenging their convictions based on ineffective...
FYI
I'm hopeful that my friend Matt Kaiser is wrong, that I've not mythologized criminal defense and it's place in the legal profession. I hope that people who are thinking of becoming criminal defense lawyers aren't doing it because they think we walk around with...
A wing and a prayer
When we were struggling to have kids, I never thought maybe God didn't want me to have kids. Maybe I wasn't meant to be a parent. While I had faith (small 'f' even then) and believed in kismet, I knew that God gave humans the ability to overcome seemingly...
Stephen Fry Kinetic Typography – Language
I admit my writing is frequently sloppy. I'm not as careful as I could or should be. However, I'm hoping that when I actually care about what I say, that comes across. There are some people who write and you can taste their words - sour or sweet, feel how...
I don’t matter (not yet, not yet.) Do you?
There are a thousand people who will write about Dr. King today. They will relay his words, probably repeat them verbatim because his words don't need much in the way of explanation or analysis. The revisionists will write that he was nothing more than a pretty...
And the hits keep coming
I'm having fits today. How do we let this happen? Are your streets safer because the D.A. and his cohorts have convinced themselves that they've got the right guy even when it's clear that they...
Virginia is for Virginians. The rest of you be damned.
Yesterday, the Virginia Supreme Court nullified the Supreme Court's holding in Padilla v. Kentucky. Basically, what happened is this, in Virginia there is a two year time limit on filing writs of habeas corpus. Since most individuals who have immigration...
What’ve you done in the past thirty years?
In 1979 a woman and her male companion drove into a liquor store parking lot to use the phone and buy cigarettes. They might have been listening to Sister Sledge or Floyd on the radio, depending on their taste. Maybe they had put in an 8-track of the BeeGees,...
Rainy days and mondays always get me down. But then I won that award. A post in two parts.
Yesterday was my first day back at the office. I'd been home Thursday because one of the Y's was sick. My best friend from law school flew into town on Friday and I didn't come into the office at all over the weekend, which is unusual since I like to come in on...
If you are not a U.S. Citizen, the ABA might be able to save you. (not really)
Scott Greenfield wrote yesterday of the ABA's forward thinking task force devoted to determining something something something about Padilla v. Kentucky with respect to criminal defense lawyers. The task force will be headed by a professor, so we have no need to...
So this chick criminal defense lawyer walks into a bar
Well, this year has been sort of a nutty one for notguilty. I wasn't blogging and the blog was dead. It was revived. Some people started reading it. Some more people started reading it. And somehow the folks who make some sort of decisions at...
