Judges may cite to popular songs, books, or movies in their legal opinions for various reasons. Sometimes, it’s to enliven a tedious process. Sometimes, it is to rebuke a lawyer who did a poor job. Other times, though, these references are especially insightful and relevant to a specific issue. A recent Court of Special Appeals opinion opened with a quote from the popular lawyer drama Better Call Saul. The character in the quoted passage advises his listener that the time when people most need a lawyer is when “they find themselves in a little room with a detective who acts like he’s their best friend. ‘Talk to me,’ he says, ‘Help me clear this thing up. You don’t need a lawyer, only guilty people need lawyers’ and BOOM! … that’s when it all goes south.” While this passage is fiction, it does offer some very good real-life advice. The time to contact a criminal defense lawyer is NOT after you’ve waived your rights, started talking to the police, and said something that they potentially can use against you to incriminate you. The time to invoke your right to counsel and obtain a skilled Maryland criminal defense attorney is from the very beginning of law enforcement’s questioning of you.
The recent court opinion quoting that TV show episode was one that focused on the very important process of invoking your rights when faced with a police interrogation. The case involved the murder by stabbing of a man in Langley Park. The police apprehended Mynor and took him into interrogation. Several questions into the process, Mynor said, in Spanish, a sentence that the police translated as “That’s all I have to say to you. And if you accuse me of something, I better want an attorney.” Despite this statement, the interview continued. The police even acknowledged at one point that Mynor said he “wanted a lawyer,” but the interrogation kept going. Eventually, the man made potentially incriminating statements. The state took the case to trial and obtained a conviction on second-degree murder.
The accused man appealed. His argument, essentially, was that he invoked his right to remain silent and also his right to counsel, that the police improperly continued the interrogation, and that the trial court wrongfully allowed his incriminating post-invocation statements into his trial.
Most people, including non-lawyers, are aware that the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects against unreasonable searches and seizures. A non-lawyer, including even a very knowledgeable one, however, might not be aware of what a “Terry stop” is and what that phrase can potentially mean with regard to a warrantless search conducted by police. In many criminal cases, the difference between conviction and acquittal may be the ability to get certain important evidence excluded, which is where concepts like a Terry stop can play a very important role. This legal terminology demonstrates just how important it is to have knowledgeable Maryland criminal defense counsel on your side in order to take the law and use its protections to their fullest extent to protect your rights in your criminal case.
Sometimes, in popular media, you might run across people who criticize the operation of the American justice system. They complain about accused people who avoid punishment due to what they think are “technicalities.” Sometimes, though, those issues aren’t minor technicalities at all; they are results of critical errors by the prosecution, like charging the defendant with a crime of which the elements do not match the facts of the case as established at trial. When these things happen to you or a loved one, it is important to have a skilled Maryland criminal defense attorney on your side to protect your rights.
Generally, all attorneys and most laypeople are familiar with the Miranda warnings. “You have the right to remain silent… You have the right to an attorney…” and so on. On TV shows, a defendant might avoid prosecution because the police neglected to give him a proper Miranda warning. In real life, though, the issues are often less black-and-white. What if the police question you, then give you a Miranda warning, and then re-question you about the incriminating statements you made before the warning? These types of non-clear-cut situations point to the importance of making sure you have a knowledgeable Maryland criminal defense attorney on your side to make sure that your constitutional rights are fully protected in your case.
As a defendant in a criminal trial, you have the right to testify or to forego testifying. You also have the right to call the witnesses whom you want and refrain from calling witnesses whom you don’t want on the stand. All of these decisions are made based upon carefully considering the overall strategic “pluses” and “minuses” of each choice. However, what happens when someone who seems like a key witness for the defense is never called to the stand? In some situations, a judge can instruct the jury to infer that the non-testifying non-witness would have given testimony harmful to the defense had she taken the stand. The set of circumstances in which a judge can give this jury instruction is extremely narrow, though, and improperly giving such an instruction can result in a reversal of any conviction. When it comes to all of these strategic trial choices, it pays to have a knowledgeable Maryland criminal defense attorney representing you.
A very famous television courtroom drama show once depicted an outraged Assistant District Attorney responding to a mass shooting with multiple deaths by prosecuting the men at the head of a gun manufacturing company for homicide. The jury returned a guilty verdict, but the trial judge threw out that verdict and declared the defendants not guilty. “It’s not about being right… it’s about doing right,” the judge explained to the prosecutor in ruling for the defense. The fictional judge’s point was this: no matter how we may feel viscerally about a person’s conduct, justice still requires the state to follow the law, and that means that prosecutors still must meet their burden of proof, which includes establishing beyond a reasonable doubt that a defendant’s conduct was the legal cause of a victim’s death. That principle was on display in a recent 
All criminal trials are governed by certain sets of rules. One of these sets is the rules of evidence. The rules of evidence can be extremely helpful to your case in the hands of a knowledgeable Maryland criminal defense attorney. These rules can be used to keep out evidence that the law says is not admissible and that, if it got into your case, could potentially harm your defense.
Any criminal defendant should seek out strong defense counsel, but this need is especially true if you are facing charges likely to arouse powerful emotions and inflame passions. A skilled Maryland homicide defense attorney can help ensure that, even in the face of great community desire for retribution, the accused receives a fair trial in which his rights are fully protected and his defense is presented zealously and persuasively.
If you watch TV courtroom dramas, you’ve probably seen the scenario: the intrepid defense lawyer, on cross-examination, seeks to weaken the prosecution’s case by questioning the prosecution’s star witness about his motives: namely, whether or not the witness negotiated a favorable plea deal in exchange for his testimony. While many common situations in TV courtroom dramas are wholly fictional, this one has some basis in fact. In many situations, the defense is entitled to ask a prosecution witness about whether he has reached, expects to reach, or hopes to reach a favorable plea deal on his own pending criminal charges. These questions can be essential to show bias on the part of the witness and weaken the credibility of the prosecution’s witness. A skilled Maryland criminal defense attorney can help you with these and other criminal defense trial strategies.
There are several different ways that a defendant can be convicted of murder in Maryland. One of these is for the state to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused committed intentional murder. An alternative avenue does not require the state to prove this level of intent. It only requires that the prosecution show that the accused intended to commit another crime and that a death occurred in the process of that activity. This is called “felony murder.” There are ways to defend against a charge of felony murder, some of which involve utilizing a detailed knowledge of the law. This is yet another example of how your case can benefit from the skills of a knowledgeable Maryland homicide defense attorney.