From the Latin for “elsewhere,” an alibi defense is based on the physical impossibility of a defendant’s guilt: the defendant could not have committed the crime because he or she was somewhere else at that same time.
Although “claim of right” is a valid defense to robbery and other theft offenses, the defense fails when the defendant takes more than the property whose ownership is in question.
There is a “buyer’s agent” defense in D.C. after all – at least with respect to drug distribution charges involving marijuana.
The standard for asserting self-defense in an assault case involving a police officer is still whether or not the police officer used excessive force during the arrest.
You are allowed to use a reasonable amount of force to protect property. This is true “regardless of any actual or threatened injury to the property by the trespasser.”
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …