Criminal Insights
Analysis and practical guides on criminal.
40 articles, checklists, and guides on criminal law, written by the attorneys at MC Law. Every piece is general information, not legal advice—for a specific matter, contact the firm.
Expungement and Record Relief Toolkit: Petitions, Certificates, and Collateral Consequences
A working kit for clearing a record. Section A compares the remedies side by side with what each actually accomplishes. Section B holds worksheets: a record inventory, a per case eligibility analysis, and a collateral consequences inventory that identifies which barrier is actually costing you. Section C holds filings: a motion to waive or convert court costs, an expungement petition outline, a personal statement template, and a support letter template with the specificity that persuades. Section D holds the post order letters to seven recipients. Section E holds consumer law instruments: an FCRA dispute, an adverse action response, and a mugshot removal demand. Section F holds a licensing preliminary determination request and a pardon outline. Section G collects the primary authorities.
Expungement and Record Relief Checklist: A Practical Checklist
A step ordered checklist for clearing a criminal record. It runs the record gathering that must come first, the certified dispositions that every later step depends on, clean slate verification, eligibility analysis case by case including the interaction rules that limit how many records may be cleared, the outstanding court cost problem that bars more petitions than anything else, the filing package, discretionary petition contents, the hearing, and then the second half that most people never complete: distributing certified copies of the order to seven separate recipients, disputing background reports under the FCRA, and using adverse action rights in real time. Separate sections cover licensing, firearms, voting, and immigration.
Clearing Your Criminal Record: A Practical Guide
This guide runs record relief from the first step, which is finding out what your record actually says, through the last, which is confirming that private background check companies have stopped reporting it. It covers obtaining a state criminal history and an FBI summary, getting certified dispositions from every county, analyzing eligibility case by case, clearing the outstanding court costs that stop more petitions than anything else, filing with or without a lawyer, presenting a discretionary petition persuasively, what to do when a prosecutor objects, and then the second half that most people skip entirely: sending the order to every repository and database, disputing inaccurate background reports under the FCRA, and using adverse action rights to correct an error before a job is lost.
Expungement, Record Sealing, and Restoring Rights After a Conviction
A criminal record follows a person into housing, employment, licensing, education, credit, and family court, and most of the consequences are imposed not by a judge but by private decisionmakers reading a database. This article explains the difference between expungement, sealing, set aside, and a certificate of rehabilitation, why automatic clean slate laws are changing the field faster than petitions ever did, what relief exists for arrests that never led to charges, how the FCRA limits what background check companies may report and how to dispute an inaccurate report, what expungement does and does not do for firearm rights, voting, occupational licensing, and immigration, and how federal relief differs from and is narrower than state relief.
Search and Seizure Toolkit: Suppression Motions, Consent, and Warrant Challenges
A working kit for litigating a search. Section A is an exception matrix mapping each warrantless search justification to what the government must prove and where it typically fails. Section B holds a standing and burden analysis worksheet and an encounter timeline worksheet built from objective sources. Section C holds motion templates for each theory: unlawful stop, unlawful extension, invalid consent, vehicle search after Gant, device search after Riley, curtilage after Jardines, and a Franks challenge with an excision analysis. Section D holds an officer cross examination outline. Section E holds letters: preservation, footage request, return of property, and a forfeiture claim. Section F is a state constitution research plan. Section G collects the primary authorities.
Search and Seizure Response Checklist: A Practical Checklist
A two-part checklist. The encounter half covers the four sentences that preserve every argument, the tier analysis, traffic stop and home door procedures, phone and device handling, and recording. The aftermath half covers the same day written account, the video preservation demand that must go out before retention cycles run, property recovery and the short civil forfeiture deadline, complaints that build a record, and then the litigation sequence: standing, burden allocation, structuring a motion around a single moment, attacking a warrant on staleness, particularity, execution, and Franks grounds, and anticipating good faith. A separate section covers a business served with a search warrant.
Responding to a Search, Stop, or Seizure: A Practical Guide
This guide covers what to do during and after a police encounter, and what a lawyer does with it afterward. The encounter section covers the three tiers and the two questions that determine which one you are in, how to decline consent without escalating, what to do at the door of a home and how to read a warrant, whether and how to record, and what to say and not say. The aftermath section covers writing the contemporaneous account, requesting body camera footage before retention cycles run, recovering seized property, and filing complaints. The litigation section covers standing, burdens, structuring a suppression motion around a single moment, attacking a warrant, and anticipating the good faith argument.
Search and Seizure: The Fourth Amendment in Everyday Life
The Fourth Amendment is the constitutional provision ordinary people encounter most often, usually at the side of a road and usually without knowing what it requires. This article explains what counts as a search after Katz and Jones, when a person is seized and when they are free to leave, what reasonable suspicion and probable cause actually mean, how the warrant requirement works and the exceptions that swallow much of it, why consent is the most consequential and least understood doctrine in the area, how the automobile exception and Arizona v Gant interact, what Riley and Carpenter did to digital privacy, when the exclusionary rule applies and when good faith and attenuation defeat it, and what a person can and should do during an encounter.
DUI Defense Toolkit: Suppression Motions, Testing Challenges, and License Hearings
A working kit for defending a drunk driving case. Section A holds the letters that must go out in week one: a video preservation demand and a comprehensive discovery demand. Section B holds motion outlines for each suppression theory, from the stop through the checkpoint. Section C holds cross examination outlines for the arresting officer, the breath instrument operator, and the criminalist. Section D holds worksheets: a minute by minute timeline, a rising blood alcohol analysis, a field sobriety test administration audit, and a plea consequence calculator. Section E holds the administrative hearing outline and a hardship license request. Section F collects the primary authorities.
DUI Stop, Testing, and License Hearing Checklist: A Practical Checklist
A deadline-driven checklist for a drunk driving case. It opens with the twenty four hour list, including the license hearing deadline that is often ten days and is missed constantly. It then runs the discovery request that produces the records the case turns on, the body camera review performed against the report line by line, the minute by minute timeline that supports observation period and rising blood alcohol arguments, the suppression motions in order of value, the administrative hearing, the five consequences to price into any plea, the mitigation packet, sentencing, and the reinstatement steps that people complete late or not at all.
Handling a DUI Case: A Practical Guide from the Stop to Sentencing
This guide runs a drunk driving case in order, on both of its clocks. It covers what to do and not do at the roadside, the paperwork handed over at release and the license hearing deadline hidden in it, hiring counsel and what to ask, the discovery request that produces the records the case turns on, reviewing body camera footage against the report, building the minute by minute timeline that supports a rising blood alcohol argument, the suppression motions worth filing and in what order, the administrative hearing, plea negotiation and the five consequences to price into any offer, mitigation and sentencing, and the license reinstatement and record relief work that follows.
DUI and DWI Defense: Stops, Testing, License Consequences, and the Criminal Case
A drunk driving case is two cases running on different clocks. There is a criminal prosecution with a beyond a reasonable doubt standard, and there is an administrative license suspension proceeding with a much lower standard and a deadline to request a hearing that is often ten days and is missed constantly. This article explains what justifies a stop and how long it may last, when a checkpoint is lawful, how field sobriety tests are administered and where they go wrong, the constitutional line between breath and blood testing after Birchfield and McNeely, how implied consent and refusal penalties operate, what a per se limit actually proves, how drug impairment cases differ, and the license, insurance, immigration, and employment consequences that frequently exceed the criminal sentence.