Pennsylvania Criminal Defense

An alleged homicide in Philadelphia may have been the result of self-defense during an armed break-in. LLF’s Criminal Law Team clears up some of the most confusing terminology surrounding both homicide law and...

Police have arrested a man with a criminal background after a fire destroyed a million-dollar home and one of the occupants is missing. The media has fixated on the man’s criminal background, insinuating a presumption of...

In our last blog post, we examined a viral video of a Philadelphia police officer detaining a black teenager for standing at a bus stop and summarized some of the salient points of the difference between police...

A video of a Philadelphia police officer arresting a black teenager as he waited for a bus has gone viral. The incident is a great example of the legal distinction between a detention and an arrest, as well as the...

The trial of a New Jersey police officer who is being accused of civil rights violations and committing a hate crime after he assaulted a teen reveals the two-sided way police think about evidence and racism. Hate Crime...

A legal brief filed with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court is asking the court to declare the death penalty a violation of Pennsylvania’s state constitution. The person filing it, though, raises eyebrows: it is Philadelphia...

A woman in Philadelphia is being charged with murder for allegedly assaulting her five-month-old son. News articles detailing the incident, however, focus on the fact that she has 16 prior offenses. The attention paid to...

Pennsylvania lawmakers struggled for almost a decade to come up with a risk assessment tool for criminal sentencing that would keep low-risk people out of jail and in probationary programs that could better serve them. The...

Police in Philadelphia have made an arrest in a cold case from 1991. The way they investigated the case, though, draws attention to new police technologies and the importance of your Sixth Amendment right to have a criminal...

A Pennsylvania lawmaker wants to continuously monitor the blood alcohol content (BAC) levels of people who have been convicted for driving under the influence (DUI). If the law passes, it would not just be a massive invasion...

The alleged architect of a Philadelphia-area Ponzi scheme has been sentenced on federal fraud charges. The sentence raises questions about restitution, and how people convicted of a white-collar crime could possibly pay...

Self-defense is one of the most important defense strategies available to people who have been accused of a violent crime. You have a right to defend yourself, even if that self-defense would technically amount to a crime. A...

The shootout in Philadelphia that hurt several police officers, but did not lead to kidnapping charges, has turned political. A federal prosecutor blamed progressive Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner for the...

Actor Michael Madsen ended his case of driving under the influence (DUI) by pleading no contest to the charges. Here’s what a “no contest” plea means. Actor Charged with DUI, Pleads No Contest Back in March,...

The story all over the news in Philadelphia is about the police standoff in the Nicetown-Tioga neighborhood. Now that the dust from the shootout has settled, we can see what criminal charges are likely to be filed against the...

A college football player’s charges for drug possession are being dropped after prosecutors realized, once again, that field chemical tests are terribly inaccurate. In this case, the substance that the chemical...

Defense lawyers for some of the numerous people accused in Philadelphia under federal corruption laws are demanding that their clients receive separate trials. While the motion could turn an already logistically difficult case...

A man in Bucks County is being accused of making terroristic threats against Temple University in Philadelphia. The incident draws out the line between a criminal threat and your First Amendment rights. Man Arrested for Making...

A fire in the Philadelphia area shows how much criminal law in Pennsylvania focuses on your intentions. Depending on whether the fire was accidental or intentional will determine whether the suspect could be charged...

News outlets frequently fail to comprehend legal issues. In most cases, news stations treat people who have been arrested for a crime like they would treat a convicted criminal. In Arizona, a recent news story completely botched a...