Jefferson Memorial

Immediacy of response, not threat, in self-defense case

Jamison KoehlerDefenses to Criminal Charges, Legal Concepts/Principles

Words in the law do not always mean what their dictionary definitions say they mean. With respect to a prior consistent statement, for example, it is not really, as suggested by the rule, that such a statement must be offered to rebut a charge of “recent fabrication.”  Instead, it is “only that the alleged contrivance be closer to the trial …

D.C. skyline

Lee v. United States: Mistaken Jury Instructions on the “Defense of Others”

Jamison KoehlerDefenses to Criminal Charges, Legal Concepts/Principles, Opinions/Cases

The D.C. Court of Appeals was apparently feeling charitable. In Adrian Lee v. United States, 61 A.3d 655 (D.C. 2013), a decision issued last week, the Court bent over backwards to justify and explain mistaken jury instructions issued by the trial judge. Even as it reversed him. Adrian Lee was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and of carrying a dangerous weapon …

Entrapment in D.C.: The Legality of Recent Decoy Operations

Jamison KoehlerCriminal Procedure, Defenses to Criminal Charges, Legal Concepts/Principles

Your client is heading home, minding his own business, when he comes across what appears to be a homeless man sleeping on a bench at the metro station. Sticking out of the man’s coat pocket is a shiny new I-Phone. In a moment of weakness, your client grabs the I-Phone and is immediately taken to the ground by both the …

Jefferson Memorial

Unauthorized Use of a Motor Vehicle: Applying the Notion of a “Grace Period”

Jamison KoehlerDefenses to Criminal Charges, Legal Concepts/Principles, Other Criminal Offenses

  The judge doesn’t like my idea of a “grace period.”  In fact, he chuckles when I propose it:  “I have never seen any case law on that,” he says. I was not trying to be funny. My client has been charged with both unlawful entry and unauthorized use of a stolen car in which he was a passenger. Unlawful …

U.S. Capitol building

On the Criminal Defenses of “Justification” and “Excuse”

Jamison KoehlerCriminal Procedure, Defenses to Criminal Charges, Legal Concepts/Principles

  How can you not love the criminal defenses? With the government burdened with proving every element of an offense beyond a reasonable doubt, one criminal defense strategy is to challenge the identity of the perpetrator. Yes, says the defense lawyer in an alibi defense. I am sure the crime was committed, and wasn’t it a particularly egregious one at …