Category Archives: Criminal Defense
Law Enforcement Officer Accused of Embezzlement
Lieutenant Hovie Pope Jr., a former North Carolina police officer, was indicted last month on charges of embezzlement. Pope had been a member of the North Carolina Internal Affairs Investigators Association, serving as its treasurer and even president for the 2002 – 2003 year, and it was discovered that more than $30,000 had been embezzled […]
Holder: Courts Should Avoid ‘Risk Assessments’ in Sentencing
Attorney General Eric Holder recently aired his concerns that judges across the nation are unfairly factoring risk assessments into their sentencing procedures, and warned that this calculation violates the rights of defendants. Increasingly, several states — including Pennsylvania and Tennessee — have been enacting the use of such risk assessment or recidivism formulas, which take […]
Why You Need a Defense Attorney Even if You Want to Plead Guilty
Only a small percentage of criminal cases ever go to trial. Some are dismissed at a preliminary hearing, but most are settled through a brokered guilty plea, often called a plea bargain. When the charges against you seem minor or when the evidence is overwhelming, you may assume that a defense attorney can do little […]
PA Crimes That Can Lead to Suspension of Privileges
In many cases, a first-time offender can expect to receive a fairly lenient sentence for a misdemeanor conviction — often little more than a fine or probation. However, the conviction may lead to unanticipated consequences. Certain crimes can result in the suspension of various privileges granted under the laws of Pennsylvania, including your license to […]
Seeking a Pardon in Pennsylvania
A serious criminal conviction can follow you for the rest of your life. Moreover, expungement for adult convictions in Pennsylvania is generally limited to summary convictions. As a result, most people have few options for removing a blemish from their records. If you are committed to removing a conviction from your record that does not […]
Sentencing and State Parole Violations
Many people misunderstand how criminal sentences work. As a result, defendants often struggle during plea bargain negotiations to realize what a particular sentencing range actually means in terms of time in prison. Typically, Pennsylvania state court prison sentences are handed down in terms of a range. Whether you serve the top end, bottom end or […]
Employment Opportunities for People with Criminal Histories
The American criminal justice system has often been criticized as little more than a revolving door through which disadvantaged people spend the bulk of their lives in prison with brief interludes of freedom interspersed. Unfortunately, such a view is not completely unjustified. Even ex-convicts with an earnest desire to turn their lives around after release […]
PA Supreme Court Redefines Vehicle Search Exception
The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects people from being subjected to unreasonable searches of their persons and possessions unless police first obtain a warrant. However, federal court precedent has long recognized an exception for vehicles and has permitted warrantless searches as long as they were supported by probable cause. The Pennsylvania Constitution provided […]
White Collar Crime in Schools
When most people think of white collar crime, they imagine corporate boardrooms and national corporations. However, white collar crime can occur in the public sector as well — even the school system. While it may be difficult to imagine what type of white collar corruption could involve school administrators and teachers, recent news in the […]
Expunging Your Juvenile Record in PA
Many people believe incorrectly that juvenile arrest and delinquency records are sealed either at a certain time after the resolution of the case or when the juvenile reaches the age of 18. In fact, while juvenile records may not be as publically available as adult records, they can be accessed by certain parties and remain […]
