Net 4 Articles

Author: Atchuthan Sriskandarajah

Anderson v. Commonwealth, 279 Va. 85; 688 S.E.2d 605 January 15, 2010   Anderson was indicted for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon in violation of Code § 18.2-308.2.  While a police officer was chasing him, he threw a silverish, grayish object, hitting a tree and landing about five or six feet away.
Thereafter, as the officer was handcuffing Anderson, the officer saw that the object was a revolver and asked Andeerson if it was loaded.  He answered yes.  After discovering that Anderson was a convicted felon, the officer arrested defendant and advised him of his Miranda rights.  Anderson subsequently filed a motion to suppress the statements he made about the gun.  At the suppression hearing, Anderson argued that his initial statement about the gun was obtained in violation of the Fifth Amendment because he was “in custody” and interrogated without first being advised of his Miranda rights.
The failure to give Miranda warnings prior to custodial interrogation violates an individual’s constitutional rights under the Fifth Amendment; therefore, statements obtained by law enforcement officers in violation of the Miranda rule generally will be subject to exclusion for most proof purposes in a criminal trial.
One narrow exception to the Miranda rule, however, is the public safety exception.  The need for answers to questions in a situation posing a threat to the public safety outweighs the need for the prophylactic rule protecting the Fifth Amendment’s privilege against self-incrimination.
The Court concluded that the failure to administer Miranda rights in a situation coming within public safety exception did not taint Defendant’s subsequent statements after he was advised of his Miranda rights.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/criminal-articles/virginia-gun-laws-convicted-felon-182-3082-miranda-2732622.html

About the AuthorAtchuthan Sriskandarajah is a Virginia criminal defense lawyer and the owner of the SRIS Law Group.  The law firm has offices in Fairfax, Richmond, Fredericksburg, Virginia Beach & Lynchburg.

Author: Steve Gee

Fast and efficient criminal background checks  If you are an employer recruiting new staff then you need to be as thorough as you can reasonably be when you interview applicants and when you are checking their credentials and resumes. One of the most important checks that you should be doing is a criminal background check to make sure that you are aware of any criminal history the person might have.  verifying that someone is being truthful and upfront with you can be just as important when you are hiring someone to do some work on your property, look after your child or even going out on a date together.  If you go about it the right way then you can lookup criminal history online and find out all sorts of things about a person. You can do this fast online and it’s often all you will need. To be thorough, you should follow it up by a more robust search. Especially if you find something disturbing from the online background check.  Employers – Don’t do it without permission  You are more than justified in obtaining what might be considered private information about a person when you are offering a job. The applicant may not see it this way though so you should always get their permission in writing by asking them to agree to a waiver. This will make it clear that you can not consider them for the job if you are not allowed to obtain information that might be relevant.  This should be in the form of a signed waiver and could save any unpleasantness later. If the candidate won’t sign it then eliminate them from your short list. They must effectively give away any privacy rights they might have to the information that you need to allow you to continue with the application.  Performing criminal background checks  The way the court records system works is by county courts passing records up to state records offices. In that case you should only need to check state records for the areas this person has lived in or worked in to give you a good chance of finding criminal history. It would be far too much work to check everywhere.  To do a proper job you need to apply to all of the records offices in the county and states where you think that the person might lived or worked recently. Those are the most likely places that you will find this person’s criminal history. Of course it depends whether he did actually live or work in those places and you won’t find any records for offences tried in other states.  Very serious cases might have been heard in federal courts and will not be uncovered in county and state searches. To check federal criminal records you can consult the U.S. Party/Case Index PACER service.  Instant criminal background check with online public records  The fastest and easiest way to do a criminal background check is to use an online public records web site. Trying to check all the county, state and federal court records one at a time is a time consuming task at best so it makes sense to start with a simple but near instant criminal background check using a site that makes it it’s business to collect all these records into one place for you.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/criminal-articles/criminal-background-check-instant-criminal-records-checks-2732541.html

About the AuthorInstant Criminal Background Checks. Do unlimited background checks on as many people as you want.  Arizona Active Arrest Warrants Nationwide background checks, arrest warrants, criminal records and lots more.  How To Find Out If You Have A Warrant For Arrest A trusted public records web site for finding arrest warrants.

Author: Jessie Moore

It is estimated that 30% of Americans will have Free Criminal Records of some kind in their lifetime. That means there are easily millions of us who are technically criminals at some point in our life. Seriously, the dangerous ones are the ones we are concerned about. Those behind bars will get out in due course and they are the ones we should watch out for. So how can we tell them apart?
We can indeed quite readily find out the truth about people on many things, past and present, not least their criminal history or current standing from their Public Criminal Records. There are several other related supportive-type record categories such as Arrest, Inmates, Jail, Sex Offender and Police Records but Free Criminal Records Check is the most widely used as far as Criminal Violation Checks are concerned.
Free Criminal Records can be quite confidential in content but they are public records nevertheless. That means anyone can access anybody’s Public Criminal Records as long as it’s done through the proper channels. They can be requested from the local police department if the exact residential location of the subject is known. Alternatively, they are obtainable from the appointed state agencies in charge of the function. The standard methods of retrieval are by mail, walk in, telephone, fax and more recently online over the internet. They can also be purchased from commercial record providers.
The standard information found in Public Criminal Records are the personal particulars of the subject, the details of the crime like date and place where it’s committed, the case type and number, photographs, conviction or sentence, arresting agency and so forth. If there were multiple criminal violations, they will all be shown except for those which were committed outside of the state.
People use Public Criminal Records for a multitude of reasons the most prominent of which are in screening employees, assessing volunteers, police investigation, supporting court cases and social background checks on neighbors, colleagues and even friends and relatives. One thing to note is that there are strict laws governing privacy protection and individual discrimination in regard to Public Criminal Records. Experts and professionals are often required to determine their proper application.
Free Criminal Records Search come in free-of-charge (FOC) and fee-based versions. FOC records are predominantly derived from government agencies and hence entail some degree of formality and procedures. The fee-based ones are expectedly much friendlier. In addition to government sources, their information records are also tapped from private and proprietary database networks.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/criminal-articles/free-criminal-records-on-the-web-2730388.html

About the AuthorLearn how to get a heads-up on any marital status through their Free Criminal Records Online. Visit us for tips and information at Police Arrest Records.

Author: Richard Weisenheimer

A nightmare
We are living through an absolute nightmare and, until now, have been unable to talk to anyone about it. I have been charged with a serious crime to which I have pleaded not guilty. Here is some background information to the situation.Some years ago, I left some humorous comments on various internet forums. Later, I wrote about this in a published article which poked fun at the way people use the internet. And then the following occurred.Early morning in June 2009, four plain clothes police officers entered our home armed with a search warrant. Initially I thought it was to something to do with the plastic but lifelike cannabis plant in our garden. Though unwell, I was arrested and and locked in a police cell where, heavily sedated by anti-epileptic drugs and and a pain-killing injection taken earlier, I fell asleep and when I awoke, I had double vision and had no hearing aid (I wear two). The police had reassured us that there would be a doctor on duty, but there was none. During my absence, the police ransacked the house and removed various items ranging from some secondhand computers waiting to be scrapped to several jazz guitar CD’s. I was questioned for several hours by two policewomen, and it soon dawned on me that one of the websites was under suspicion. I assured them that anyone with the brains of a doughnut could see that any comments I had left were intended to be humorous. I did not live with my ma in a trailer park, have a secret den or any relatives called Woodie or Jolene. Of more importance, I reassured them that I had not observed any obscene images of young people under 18, exchanged them or communicated with anyone who wished to do so. The only internet images that I had used when illustrating educational games and other publications were entirely respectable. I was then informed that, as nothing had been found in our home and my case was low priority, I would have to wait up to a year for an inspection of the confiscated items. We told the police that we were going on holiday that night. Upon our return, we were shocked to discover that, in our absence and without any warning, the officers had told one of our three sons of the arrest.Our requests for an official list of seized items and access to medical records were continually ignored until a local politician stepped in on our behalf. He was given an assurance by the police that, because I have an incurable and chronic neurological disorder which will require surgery, the search would be given priority. This promise was never kept.In January, we complained about the behaviour of the police to the local Police Authority and asked for its help in speeding up the investigation. Within two days, I was asked to attend a meeting at a police station. To my surprise, I was given a thorough search, cautioned, taken to an interrogation room and told that images at the least offensive level had been found on the computer equipment. Only four of these images were shown to me. They were quite trivial but I was adamant that I had not seen them before. I detected a veiled threat to increase the number of images found, but I ignored it. I was legally advised that if I made an admission of guilt, I would be offered a police caution with no criminal record or publicity, but I utterly refused to do so. A couple of days later, I received an email from a policewoman stating that my elderly widowed sister, who lives with, and cares for, her chronically-ill daughter and granddaughter, would be advised of the situation. It was just an idle threat; a truly wicked vendetta. But now we live in considerable fear of the police who have warned us that they could come back, and we have taken steps to increase the security on our home. There may be other unwelcome visitors too.In ten hours of custody, I was shown a total of six trivial images, none of which I recognised. In March. having failed to obtain an admission of guilt, the police informed me that I would be charged with possessing (but not downloading) illegal images. The punishment, if found guilty, should be a number of hours of community service and a fine of a week’s pension, but who knows?  When I appeared at the magistrates court, I pleaded not guilty and asked for the case to be sent to the Crown Court where it will be judged alongside those of murderers and violent criminals. This is my right and my request was granted. We have spent many long and sad nights together wondering why the police have behaved in such a heavy-handed and ruthless manner. I have never, or would ever, put any child at risk. To the best of our knowledge, there was not a single inappropriate image of someone under 18 (or over 18) to be found on these old computers. This investigation and the court hearings will cost us and the tax payer thousands of pounds. Nevertheless, we are determined to use whatever savings we have to fight this case.
I am 70 and now awaiting my fate at the Crown Court and at the hands of a neurosurgeon.
A word of advice: never, but never, call the police doughnuts.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/criminal-articles/a-true-nightmare-2729973.html

About the Author

Author: Atchuthan Sriskandarajah

Katz v. Commonwealth, 2010 Va. App. LEXIS 100 (Va. Ct. App. Mar. 16, 2010)
Fatual Background:
            Defendant was convicted for three counts of sexual molestation of his grandson, a juvenile. At Defendant’s trail, Smith, a licensed professional counselor, who was the therapist of the grandson, who implicated the defendant to the present charges, testified that the victim has also indicated while in therapy that “there had been sexual interactions between grandson and his older brother [An. K.],” consisting of anal and oral sodomy. Some of those interactions between him and An. K, Smith further explained, coincided with the time frame during which defendant was sexually molesting his grandson.
           Defendant argued that substance of this testimony constituted exculpatory information that the Commonwealth failed to provide to him prior to trial, in violation of Brady.
Court of Appeals View:
             The court agreed with the trial court that evidence that grandson was allegedly the victim of more than one known sexual molester during the same general time frame was not exculpatory as to defendant. Significantly, defendant did not present a defense of mistaken identity. Instead, defendant was one of two identified molesters acting independently in separate instances. Thus, evidence about victim’s brother, the second identified molester, has no bearing on the guilt or innocence of defendant–any more than evidence that a victim had been robbed by one known assailant would have any bearing on the guilt or innocence of a different assailant whom the victim identified in a separate robbery. In short, the fact victim may have been molested by his brother did nothing to exculpate defendant from charges of similar conduct.
             Nor did victim’s allegations of sexual molestation by his brother present defendant with impeaching evidence. For purposes of demonstrating the impeachment value of the subject evidence, defendant does not point to any place in the record where victim asserted that only defendant molested him, or where defendant denied that his brother had also molested him. Indeed, when asked about his brother on cross-examination at defendant’s trial, victim stated unequivocally that both his brother and defendant had sexually molested him.
             For the above stated reasons, the court affirmed the defendant’s convictions, stating he failed to demonstrate Brady violation.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/criminal-articles/virginia-sexual-molestation-juvenile-fairfax-prince-william-2733195.html

About the AuthorAtchuthan Sriskandarajah is a Virginia sex crimes defense lawyer.  He is the owner of the SRIS Law Group.  The law firm has offices in Fairfax, Prince William, Lynchburg, Richmond, Virginia Beach & Fredericksburg.