Articles Posted in Federal Criminal Trials

I spoke recently on the topic of Federal Firearms Offenses to a group of lawyers in Birmingham, Alabama. My law partner Carl Lietz and I each periodically speak to attorneys in various parts of the country, usually in the South but occasionally in other regions as well. Carl also spoke to the same group about…

The high profile prosecution of actor Wesley Snipes in Orlando, Florida seems to be an example of the “perfect storm” phenomenon. The combination of publicity, taxes and race has led to a variety of interesting rulings and tactics in this federal criminal tax case. These factors are a lesson to other potential high profile targets…

One of the hardest questions lawyers need to answer in a federal criminal case is whether the prosecutor can use “similar act” or “other crime” evidence. Sometimes, the law permits the prosecutor to introduce evidence that on a time OTHER than the one charged in the indictment, the defendant did something similar to what he…

Trials of Federal criminal cases are difficult enough to defend, but helping the client figure out whether to testify in his or her defense might be the single hardest job for the lawyer. In an earlier post, I described some rules by which the courts say that the defendant’s testimony can “fix” the holes in…