She is assertive without being aggressive. She knows when to push and when to hang back. She is pleasant and well-spoken. She does her homework. She is committed to her clients while keeping a sense of humor. As an avid student of the law, she is always ready to talk things through with you. She is smart in a way …
The caller tells me he wants my professional opinion. What he really wants is some free legal advice so that he can second-guess the lawyer he has already hired. But the caller has three problems. His first problem is that I remember him. I remember speaking with him not once but twice on the phone before he decided to hire …
I read every transcript I can get my hands on, including my own. My office mate at the Philly PD’s office used to give me a hard time about that – he thought I was being vain. But he may have been giving me more credit than I deserved. Sometimes you are proud of how you did. Other times, with …
The judge takes the bench at 9:15 am. That she does this every day without fail is a sign of respect for herself, for the system, and for every person who appears in front of her. And it makes my job easier too: Make sure you are there no later than 9:00 o’clock, I tell clients. If we are first …
Just because you repeat something over and over does not make it true. Nor are you permitted to “bolster” your own witness. A “prior consistent statement” – a witness’ previous statement that is consistent with something the witness testifies to while on the stand – is generally inadmissible. If it is an out-of-court statement offered for the truth of the …
Guest Post by Tyler Wolff* These are the first words that went through my head when the jury found me guilty of my second DUI. The first one was a dangerous mistake: I was young, underage, drinking with a fake ID, and hadn’t consumed much alcohol in my life up to that point. Really, growing up, I didn’t drink much. …
Dear Juvenile Client: You must think I am one really, really good lawyer. Why else would you violate every condition of your pre-trial probation — knowing that this would result in your being locked up until forever — unless you were absolutely convinced that I was going to beat the case? You are the boss. Consider me as yourself but …
I am in Nairobi. Kenya is famous, among other things, for its malachite jewelry, and I would like to buy my wife a malachite necklace. I check at the hotel store and see that the necklaces there sell for well over $100. So I go out to a market on the street with cash. A guy there offers me a …
You should not feel bad. Believe me, you are not the first person to be fooled by police into making a statement or doing something else incriminating. Remember: They are professionals. They are good at what they do. And you are not a professional criminal. Lots of educated, savvy and sophisticated people have fallen for the exact same trick. Some …
The Metropolitan Police Department will begin a pilot program this week in which police officers will be outfitted with body cameras to record their interactions with civilians. According to the Washington Post, 165 officers will be equipped with a camera on either their shirt or glasses. The purpose of this program is to “increase public trust between police officers and …
We live on Park Avenue. It is a beautiful tree-lined street in an historic part of town. But it is not what you think: It is not Park Avenue in New York City. And that is because we live in Baltimore. That is the thing about this city. For every street, bridge, monument, or tourist attraction, there is a street, …
You suspect it happens all the time: the prosecutor withholds exculpatory information from the defendant, thereby preventing the defendant from mounting an effective defense. The problem is that, with the government in sole possession of all the information, you have no way of proving it. And then there is Vaughn v. United States, 93 A.3d 1237 (D.C. 2014). With an …
One of the hazards of public interest work is that it seems to contribute to smugness. I may be underpaid and overworked. But at least I am doing the Lord’s work. And that work is more important than anything my higher paid colleagues with more prestigious jobs are doing. I encountered a little bit of this phenomenon during my three …
This is what the witness’ duty is. It is not to “protect and serve” like a regular police officer. Instead, it is to “observe and report.” The judge isn’t sure she heard this right, and she asks him to repeat it. He doesn’t flinch. He obliges. I have some fun with this on cross. So you don’t carry a gun? …
With the Marijuana Possession Decriminalization Amendment Act of 2014 having gone into effect yesterday, the Washington Post did an article today discussing the fate of the last few people who were arrested under the old law. (From now on, possession or transfer without payment of one ounce or less of marijuana will be a civil infraction, not punishable as a …
I am clueless about the politics. But you know this has to be a really, really bad thing for the National College for DUI Defense (NCDD). Justin McShane hinted that something was up at the most recent meeting of the NCDD in New Orleans when he announced that his presentation that day would be his last. At the time I …
A court accepts a well-known and indisputable fact without taking the time and trouble of requiring a party to prove it. What could be more straightforward, more commonsensical, than that? As McCormick puts it, the “oldest and plainest ground for judicial notice is that the fact is so commonly known in the community as to make it unprofitable to require …
Motive. It is really big on TV shows. At the same time, if you listen to Wayne LaFave, it is completely irrelevant when it comes to substantive criminal law: The government is not required to prove motive in order to secure a conviction. The New Oxford American dictionary defines “motive” as “a reason for doing something, esp. one that is …
Translated into English, actus no facit reum nisi mens sit rea means that “an act does not make one guilty unless his mind is guilty.” In other words, it is not enough for the government to prove a physical part of a crime; that is, an act or an omission to act. The government must also prove a mental part …
Guest Post By Raymond Koehler I have written for my brother’s law blog before and received a nice response. In fact, Jamie said my post got more responses than any of his own posts. One thing you must know about Jamie, or, to use his more professional sounding name, “Jamison,” is that he is the most appreciative brother you could …
After dinner, my brother joins the younger generation in a game of Ultimate Frisbee. I opt to sit out of the game, joining our mother on the sidelines instead. My brother used to be the organizer. There was not a game played at Cape Cod – a game of Scrabble or Kick the Can or Capture the Flag — that …
Q: You testified on direct that the defendant approached you. A: Define when you say approach. Q: I am sorry? A: Define what you mean when you say approach. Q: Officer. Unless I am mistaken, it was you who used the word approach. On direct. Am I wrong about that? A: No. No, I guess, I guess I used the …
Years ago I went to the Playland amusement park in Rye, New York with some friends. We were walking by the “Guess Your Age or Weight” booth when I noticed that the proprietor had stepped out, temporarily turning the business over to his daughter. This will be easy, I thought. There is no way this little girl – who looked …
You have the right to use a reasonable amount of force in self-defense assuming that (1) you actually believe that you are in imminent danger of bodily harm and (2) you have reasonable grounds for that belief. The question is not whether the use of force appeared to be necessary when looking back on the incident. The question instead is …
It was a creative argument. But, not seeing it go very far, I was frankly surprised that the D.C. Court of Appeals devoted an entire opinion to it in Holmes v. United States, 92 A.3d 328 (D.C. 2014). Marvin Holmes was convicted of stealing two shirts from the Saks Fifth Avenue store in Friendship Heights. The store detective testified at …
In law school, we learned the difference between a subjective standard in defining a mental state and an objective one. The subjective standard focuses on the defendant’s actual state of mind. With the objective standard, it is how a reasonable person in the same position would feel. Most criminal statutes seem to use the objective standard. This simplifies things for …
My client – a juvenile — is going home today. I am working with one of my favorite prosecutors on the case. Although hard-line, she is straightforward and ethical. There is no hiding-the-ball with her. She has a light touch. She also has a good sense of humor. The prosecutor waits until I have checked in with the clerk. Then …
You are sitting in a legally parked car on the side of the road minding your own business when a police car pulls in directly behind you and activates its overhead lights. How many people would feel that they were perfectly free to drive away at this point? Anybody? Anybody at all? Because this is the standard for determining whether …
The list is finally out. D.C. Superior Court Judge Robert Morin announced last fall that the panel of attorneys who are approved to represent indigent criminal defendants would be reconstituted. Everyone was required to re-apply. And, with the number of criminal cases down 25% since 2008, Judge Morin warned that there would be major cuts. Sure enough, in a report …
One of the questions I often get in connection with the sealing of a criminal record in D.C. is this: What must the person disclose about his or her record after that record has been successfully sealed? The lawyerly answer to that question, of course, is that it depends. If the record was sealed on the grounds of actual innocence, …
The Academy Award-nominated documentary The Invisible War begins with the individual stories of men and women who had been raped while serving in the military. We then see one of the women, Kori Cioca, driving across the country to come to D.C. The movie climaxes with the meeting of the women in the conference room of our office in Georgetown. …
The state of the law with respect to reasonable suspicion, anonymous tips and car stops is already pretty muddy. Now, with Navarette v. California, 572 U.S. ___ (2014), the Supreme Court has just made it worse. A woman calls 911 to report another car for running her off the road. The woman provides the time and approximate location of the …
I am sitting in JM-15 watching Jessica Willis of the Public Defender Service cross-examine a police officer during a probable cause hearing. Willis is firm with the officer. She is also pleasant, reasonable and restrained. At one point the officer tries to qualify a response. “If you put it that way,” he testifies, “yes.” Willis thinks about this for a …
In 1981, John Thompson was able to convince two of the top high school basketball players in the nation to come to D.C. to play for Georgetown. Landing either recruit would have been a major accomplishment; getting both seemed too good to be true. There was lots of debate on campus as to which player would be better. You have …
My brother teaches classics at an inner city high school in Connecticut. Just the other day he called me with a student on the phone. Interested in a career in the law, the student wanted to know whether she should study business or political science. I told her that her major did not really matter. Take the classes you are …
I am attending the “Mastering Scientific Evidence” for DUI cases sponsored by the National College for DUI Defense (NCDD) and the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association (TCDLA). New Orleans is a wonderfully decadent city: It is fun to see tourists strolling down Bourbon Street with Mardi Gras beads and a large, fluorescent-colored drink at 10:00 am in the morning. For …
Police questioning results in “testimonial” evidence if the primary purpose of the interrogation is “to establish or prove past events potentially relevant to later criminal prosecution.”
Occasionally you have a judge who tells it like it is. I am standing at the bar of the court. My client has successfully completed a diversion program. The clerk calls our case 15 minutes early, before my client has arrived in the courtroom, so I offer to waive my client’s presence. We need two simple words from the government …
It is what we see on T.V. and in the movies. It is what our clients expect of us. And, providing us with war stories to tell our friends and colleagues, it is lots of fun to do. This is the tearing down of the opponent’s witness on cross-examination. We confront the witness. We force her into concessions. We catch …
“Runner!” This is what one police officer yells to the other two officers, and all three officers take off in pursuit of a suspect who has decided to flee. According to the officer’s testimony at trial, the officers are 20 feet behind the suspect and “closing fast” when the suspect suddenly comes to full stop. The suspect bends down by …
It has always been my definition of government waste. As chairman of the House Energy and Commerce committee, Congressman John Dingell was an extremely powerful man who inspired fear in the hearts of everyone who worked at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. One of my duties as a special assistant in the Office of Air and Radiation during the late …
Without giving anything away, the second season of the House of Cards has picked up on the issue du jour – military rape – and the writers are obviously basing their characters on real people. It is not a stretch, for example, to conclude that the pretty California congresswoman named Jackie Sharp was inspired by the actual pretty California congresswoman …
Unless we were working in some capacity in which we were actually dealing with clients, everything we learned in law school was theoretical. Maybe we motivated ourselves by imagining that some day we would be able to apply what we were learning. More likely, considering that many of us had no idea at the time what area of the law …
It is a foolish lawyer who offends court personnel. During my first year as a public defender in Philadelphia, one of my colleagues made the mistake of being less than respectful toward a court clerk in a preliminary hearing room. Passing the word to his colleagues, the clerk did his best to make her life as miserable as possible thereafter. …
Thirty years ago my wife and I hustled across Key Bridge from Georgetown into Rosslyn so that we could hole up in my apartment during a major snowstorm. Stopping at a grocery store on the way there, we did not see another human being for the next four days. We were cocooning before anyone else thought of that use of …
Police officers fail to preserve a critical piece of evidence, in this case a video recording taken of the incident in question. The defendant moves for sanctions. In opposing this motion, the government argues that the defendant’s arguments about what the recording contained is speculative. The court agrees. Am I missing something here? Without the opportunity to have actually watched …
We feel like we know our colleagues. We know who the good ones are and we know who the bad ones are. But that is based mostly on reputation. We spend a lot of time together in the courtroom waiting for our cases to be called. But we rarely see each other at trial. Trials usually begin in the late …
It is great when things are going well on cross-examination and you can string out one helpful tidbit after another for maximum impact. During the cross-examination of a police officer in a DUI case, for example, this might be taking advantage of what Lenny Stamm has referred to as the “white part” of the police report: All the good things …
When the two defendants opted for trial, rejecting a deferred sentencing agreement that had been offered by the government, Judge Brian Holeman may have been doing them a favor when he warned them that they would face certain jail-time if convicted. After all, that is exactly what happened. At the same time, as the D.C. Court of Appeals held yesterday …
During the defendant’s opening statement at trial, Denardo Hopkins’ lawyer got up in front of the jury and conceded that this client was guilty of felony drug dealing charges. The issue the D.C. Court of Appeals faced in Hopkins v. United States, 84 A.3d 62 (D.C. 2014), was this: Did this admission constitute a guilty plea such that the judge …
I just treated myself to the entire Wayne LaFave collection: 3 volumes on substantive criminal law, 6 volumes on search and seizure, and 7 volumes on criminal procedure. I had been coveting the criminal procedure set in the lawyer’s lounge of D.C. Superior Court. Now I have my own. And once I got onto the phone with the Thomson West …
Much of what I needed to know about cross-examination came from a one-hour training session at the public defender’s office in Philadelphia early on in my career. Fred Goodman led the session. You use short, declarative sentences, he taught us, to tell your side of the story. You use a rhythm and cadence in which you reward the witness for …
If you are like me, your views on cross-examination are heavily influenced by two different sources/authorities. First, there is Irving Younger’s lecture on the “Ten Commandments of Cross-Examination,” which was shown to me during my initial training as a public defender in Philadelphia. Second, there is Francis Wellman’s book on The Art of Cross-Examination, a copy of which was sent …
This from the Blog of Legal Times: By all accounts, it was an excruciating moment at the Supreme Court on Tuesday. A nervous first-time advocate began his argument by reading from a prepared statement, until the never-shy Justice Antonin Scalia interrupted and asked: “Counsel, you are not reading this, are you?” The lawyer, Steven Lechner, froze and did not answer, …
The common law distinction between “general intent” and “specific intent” offenses doesn’t work. This is what the D.C. Court of Appeals emphasized once again in Adam Ortberg v. United States, 81 A.3d 303 (2013), a recent case dealing with the required mental state for unlawful entry. The defendant in Ortberg was charged with unlawful entry after he walked past a …
It is 8 degrees Fahrenheit, and we have no heat on three floors of our new house. Our prime contractor realized he was in over his head and ran off with our money, leaving most of the planned work undone. We had a brief standoff with the subcontractor, Neil Schoonover, who was halfway through installing HVAC on the top two …
When I was a public defender, a major challenge was the client with a lousy case and a good offer on the table who nevertheless insisted on taking his case to trial. He didn’t trust his lawyer to provide good legal advice. And he often had some zany idea about what he thought was going to win the case. (In …
Many years ago my sisters rescued a baby bird who had been separated from its nest during a storm. Acting on the advice of our veterinarian neighbor, we fed peanut butter bread-balls into its open beak. The redness of the little bird’s throat faded with every ball. Transforming himself from a jumble of spindly bone and wet feathers into what …
I call my court-appointed client in an appellate case to give him the news. Although I know many things about this man, I have never actually met him. Up until recently he has been serving time in an out-of-state federal prison. I didn’t realize he was already home. Nor have I ever spoken to him on the phone: He thanks …
Whenever a group of defendants are lined up before the court to do misdemeanor guilty pleas, one or two will often try to back out at the last minute. If the defendant is quibbling with something the prosecutor has just read from the police report, the parties can usually find common ground on facts that still make out every element …
I was honored to be included again on the ABA Journal’s list of the top 100 law blogs, this time for 2013. The Journal is now taking popular votes to determine the top law blog in each of 13 different categories. My blog is listed in the Criminal Justice section, and I would greatly appreciate your vote. Although you do …
You have to be honest with the court. Your client’s fate depends on it. So does your reputation. It is one of the first things we learn in ethics class. MPD General Order 601.02 reads as follows: Members of the Department shall preserve all potentially discoverable material, including any such material, which may prove favorable to an accused. This is …
Your client is released from jail after serving his sentence, and texts you on his way home. You were defense counsel in the case that sent him there. You both knew after the conviction but before sentencing that he would be serving some jail-time. Your client had plenty of time to get his affairs in order. Still, it is disconcerting …
It is amazing to me there aren’t more appellate DUI/DWI decisions in D.C. Yes, a recent case – Taylor v. District of Columbia – dealt with the legal definition of impairment. Beyond that, however, there are few cases in an area of the law that is in urgent need of reform. Take existing case law on the Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus Test. …
One of my favorite episodes from the old T.V. show “All In The Family” involved a situation in which an African-American repairman came to the Bunker household to fix a kitchen appliance. Archie Bunker, the right-wing bigot, and his leftist, hippie son-in-law each remembered the incident differently, and the show began with two flashbacks in which each man re-told the …
According to Federal Rule of Evidence 401, the test for relevance is whether the evidence has a “tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence.” In other words, says McCormick, there are two components to relevant evidence: materiality …
Responding to the controversy over the name of the pro football team in the nation’s capitol, the Onion announced that the team has decided to change its name. From here on in, the Onion reported, the team will be known not as the Washington Redskins but as the D.C. Redskins. Now George has an even better idea: Leave the name …
If you work for the federal government, you have a boss. Depending on the structure and size of an organization, staffers normally work for a branch chief. The branch chief reports to a division director who, in turn, reports to an office director. The office director works for an undersecretary or an assistant secretary, and that person reports to the …
Former EPA employee John Beale told colleagues that he worked for the CIA, traveling to far-flung places like Pakistan. In an email to his then supervisor, the current Administrator Gina McCarthy, he referred obliquely to his work for “this other agency” (perhaps she had seen something in the news?) and promised that he was still accessible by email. But, he …
We should be able to take it for granted that the other side will not coach its witnesses. But this is not an ideal world. A couple of years ago, for example, police officers in D.C. accused prosecutors from the Office of the Attorney General with having asked them to lie on the stand in a DUI case. (The officers …
Dear George: Without children at home to figure out all-things-electronic for us, Susan and I can’t get our television to work. So we walk over to a Sports Bar on Charles Street to watch the Redskins game. I have not missed a single play since RG-III joined the team. Susan is not a big football fan but she likes to …
Our “House of Cards” neighbor gave me a tour of the house. I felt honored to get inside, considering that we now have carloads of young people who pull up to photograph themselves outside on the front step. At first I didn’t realize what was going on, and when I agreed to photograph a group of the young people all …
The Public Defender Service (PDS) has just begun a blog — the PDS Criminal Law Blog — that reviews recent D.C. Court of Appeals opinions. With Samia Fam, Nancy Glass, Jackie Frankfurt, and a handful of other public defenders sharing responsibility for the writing, the blog will certainly have some heavy hitters behind it. The most recent entry covers Vines …
Always looking out for the best interests of clients, Michael Bruckheim has come up with a creative way for getting around the new requirement in D.C. that mandatory days of incarceration in DUI cases be served back-to-back. According to the new law that took effect in August 2012, second-time DUI offenders who are sentenced to a mandatory-minimum period of incarceration …
I always have the best intentions after attending a good CLE. Returning to my office with a binder full of great information, I have every intention of reading through all the materials that were just referenced during the training. The binder lies on my desk for a couple of days. After a week of so, I move it onto a …
Q: Officer, as I understand it, you were parked behind my client at the intersection of 19th and M Streets northwest? A: Yes. Q: And there were two reasons you decided to pull him over? A: Yes. Q: The first reason was that he didn’t pull forward immediately when the light turned green? A: Yes, I was concerned that – …
Back when I worked for the federal government, there were some employees who were really, really busy. You knew this because their offices were a mess. Their telephones were no longer accepting messages. They had that harried look. And they always talked about how busy they were, especially when you came in to give them more work. Despite all this, …
Q: Turning your attention now, Officer, to the one-leg stand. A: Okay. Q: Mr. Jones had you step into the well of the court and demonstrate how you delivered the instructions on the night in question. A: Yes, sir. Q: And, in fact, you were speaking so quickly that the stenographer had to interrupt you. She had to tell you …
During the second week of our empty-nesting, Susan and I take the train up to New York. She is accepting an award from SELF magazine as a “woman doing good.” I hang out at the hotel drafting a brief while she does publicity and makeup things at SELF. Then we head over to Riverpark, a restaurant on the East River, …
BY DEFENSE ATTORNEY Q: Now, officer, turning to the HGN? A: Yes. Q: The horizontal gaze nystagmus? A: Yes. Q: It’s fair to say that you are not an opthamologist? A: That’s right. Q: Or an optometrist? A: No. Q: Or an optician? A: No. I am not. Q. But, according to the government, you are an expert in the …
This whole “transitioning my practice to Baltimore” thing may be more difficult than I had been thinking. I met with my Maryland mentor last week. It is great that the Maryland Professionalism Center offers this opportunity for people who have just passed the Bar, and I was fortunate to be assigned to this particular person. My mentor practices criminal defense …
Q: Officer, you testified on direct that when you first saw my client, he was driving southbound on 7th Street? A: Yes. Q: You were driving northbound? A: Actually I was parked. I was parked facing north. Q: When you first saw my client, he wasn’t speeding, right? A: Not that I’m aware, no. Q: He wasn’t swerving? A: No. …
I got held up on my way to Union Station today. Or at least I think I did. I had finished up early at court and was heading over to the station to catch the next MARC train, and I was walking through what you could euphemistically call a “transitional” neighborhood near the food kitchen on E Street. I was …
Whenever you walk into a store, it doesn’t matter how busy the staff may be, the clerk should immediately acknowledge your presence. Good afternoon, sir, the clerk should say. I will be right with you. You forgive a lot once these words have been spoken. Please, you respond graciously. Take your time. And you mean it. The same principle should …
BY MR. KEY: Q: When was the last time this particular machine, the one in Government’s Exhibit Number 4, was actually calibrated? A: You mean auto-cal’d? Are you talking recertified or auto-cal’d? Q: All of them. You tell me when is the last time you calibrated this machine? A: That machine I haven’t calibrated. Q: So, when was the last …
In 2010, Thomas Key and Bryan Brown almost single-handedly dismantled the Metropolitan Police Department’s DUI program through a series of remarkable revelations about the inadequacies of the program. In 2011, the two defense attorneys set their sights on the program run by U.S. Capitol Police. Here is Thomas Key cross-examining U.S. Capitol Police Officer William St. Ledger on a sign that …
You buy an axe. The axe consists of two parts, a handle and a blade. After six months, the blade breaks and you replace it with another one. After another six months, the handle breaks and you replace it with another handle. The question they ask in your Philosophy 101 class in college is this: Is this the same axe …
When my daughter was still a toddler, I was strapping her into the child safety seat of an overheated car when she began to blow small breaths. It took me a moment to figure out what she was doing: Having learned that she could cool down hot liquid by blowing on it, she was using the same principle to try …
Midway into my cross-examination of the police officer, the judge calls the prosecutor and me up to the bench so that she can talk to us outside the hearing of the jury. “That line of questioning is objectionable,” she tells me. We spend a few minutes debating this, and I ultimately convince her that the government opened the door to …
I wake up again at 3:00 am but, for the first time in over a week, there is nothing to do but clean up my study. There were positives from the trial: A government expert who could not perform basic calculations, and another expert who messed up the standardized field sobriety test. Other witnesses were caught in basic contradictions. …
Wayne my investigator is a worrier. I am too. Wayne is an early riser. So am I. This means I usually have company early mornings before trial. The two of us sit in our respective home offices on opposite sides of the District, texting each other hours before we need to head over to the courthouse. Alas, because there was …
So I walk into the building for a meeting with our new banker in Baltimore, and I notice that everyone seems to be unusually surly towards me. The security guard tells me to take off my hat, and when I tell him who I want to meet with, he motions me toward a row of chairs and then ignores me …
I have always given out my cell phone number to clients. In almost seven years of practice, I have never once regretted doing this. I even did this as a public defender when I had far more clients than I do today. As a public defender, I looked at it this way: Despite multiple prompts, most of the people I …
When my wife and I first started going to what turned out to be our favorite local restaurant in Arlington, there was a waiter there I mistakenly assumed was also the owner. He was friendly and efficient, he always made sure we were seated and served quickly, and you just needed to look in his direction in order to get …
My children are pleasantly surprised when they see the new house and neighborhood. They are city kids at heart. Although a bicycle is stolen from the garage within moments of our arrival, the perpetrators taking advantage of moving men preoccupied with something going on inside the house, the children walk to the hardware store for some extra surge protectors and …
He is a senior prosecutor. He doesn’t hide the ball or over try his cases. He is pleasant and reasonable, and he lets you know exactly where he is coming from – what he can do for you and what he can’t. I was surprised he went forward with this particular case. As Wayne my investigator says, sometimes there’s just …
Having sold our house in Virginia, we are now renting it back from the new owners. We will do this until we move to Baltimore in July. No longer an owner of this house, I step out of the shower this morning to find a tree guy poking around in our back yard. I stick my head out the back …