Pennsylvania Criminal Defense

If you are being abused at home or subjected to physical, emotional, or sexual violence, you may also be able to seek a Protection From Abuse (PFA) order to keep the abuser out of your home. With the coronavirus closings, the...

As of March 27th, the First Judicial District of Pennsylvania, which is the governing body of the Philadelphia Court System, including its criminal court system, has ordered that the filing and disposition of certain criminal...

As the coronavirus spreads, we’re going to see more and more repercussions that we might not have been expecting. One of them is prescription drug fraud. This white collar crime is prosecuted at both the state and...

Courts in Philadelphia and across Pennsylvania are still grappling with the fallout of shutting down to slow the spread of the coronavirus. While courts have closed their doors to the public, they still provide essential services...

Parole interviews/reviews and parole violation hearings are still being held for inmates/parolees in Pennsylvania state correctional facilities. However, as Monday, March 23rd, all parole hearings at county correctional facilities...

The spread of the coronavirus, or COVID-19, is impacting nearly every segment of American life. One of the casualties has been the court system in Philadelphia, which has closed to all non-essential matters. Even the cases that...

Bail is one of the most underappreciated aspects of the criminal justice process in Philadelphia. It will determine whether a defendant has to stay in jail until their trial, or if they can go home and live their life until their...

Business owners in Philadelphia and the surrounding area are facing lots of uncertainty in the wake of Governor Tom Wolf’s announcement that all bars and restaurants in five local counties would be forced to close their...

As the coronavirus sweeps across the U.S. and the government struggles to contain it, widespread shutdowns have become the norm. While large social gatherings have taken the biggest hit, courts have been shuttered in some states,...

A prior conviction for driving under the influence (DUI) can be a difficult blemish to have on your criminal background. It can get in the way of finding a new job and can lead to some awkward conversations with people...

A nolo contendere plea is something that is very similar to a guilty plea, but with one crucial difference: You’re not admitting to any wrongdoing. That nuance is extremely important because it can protect people...

The law in Pennsylvania cares more about the fact that you wanted to commit a violent crime and then affirmatively acted on that intent, than the fact that the person you wanted to hurt escaped free from harm. Perhaps...

Like many other states, Pennsylvania has what is known as a rape shield law. This statute restricts the types of evidence that a criminal defendant can use when they are accused of a variety of offenses, but is especially...

Out of all of the criminal offenses on the books in Pennsylvania, the white-collar crime of fraud is perhaps the most complicated. There are so many ways that fraud can happen, and because fraud requires...

Congress recently passed a bill that made it a federal crime to lynch someone. The bill, which was largely symbolic given the fact that existing law already covered lynching, passed the House of Representatives by a vote of...

Pennsylvania does have a “Romeo and Juliet” law, carving out an exception to the crime of statutory sexual assault for young adults who are close in age to each other. The exception is not a trivial one: Without a...

An interesting piece of the Harvey Weinstein trial has been the inclusion of testimony from an alleged victim who claims she was raped in 1993 or 1994. Prosecutors admit that the incident is beyond the scope of...

Even though the Fourth Amendment was ratified in 1792, courts in the U.S. are still debating over what it really means. One of the trickier aspects is what constitutes a “seizure.” The definition matters because the...

The rape trial of Harvey Weinstein has come to a conclusion. Both sides have presented their arguments, leaving it up to a jury to decide whether the powerful film producer abused his power to extract nonconsensual...