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.

CriminalCriminal Procedure

Facing Criminal Charges: A Practical Guide for Defendants and Their Families

This guide is written for the person charged and the people helping them. It explains what to do and say in the first hour and the first day, how to prepare the release package that determines whether someone waits for trial at home or in jail, how to choose and work with counsel, what to expect at each court appearance, how to evaluate a plea offer including the collateral consequences that outlast the sentence, and how sentencing mitigation actually works. It also covers the mistakes that convert manageable cases into serious ones: talking to police, talking on recorded jail phones, violating release conditions, missing court, and contacting witnesses.

Casey Scott McKayMay 21, 202528 min read

CriminalWhite Collar

White-Collar Criminal Investigations: Grand Jury Subpoenas, Internal Investigations, and Corporate Cooperation

A federal white-collar investigation announces itself in one of a few ways — a grand jury subpoena to the company, an agent at an employee's front door on a Saturday morning, a target letter, or a call from a prosecutor who is being unusually polite. What the company does in the first two weeks shapes everything that follows, because the decisions about preservation, privilege, employee interviews, and whether to self-disclose are made before anyone knows what happened. The single most consequential structural fact is that the company and its employees have interests that will diverge, often sharply, and the Upjohn warning that acknowledges this is both an ethical obligation and the thing that makes an employee stop talking. This article walks the anatomy of an investigation from the first subpoena through charging, cooperation credit, and resolution, with attention to the decisions that are genuinely reversible and the ones that are not.

Casey Scott McKayJuly 21, 202425 min read

CriminalCriminal Procedure

The Criminal Case From Arrest to Appeal: What Actually Happens and When

A criminal case is a sequence of deadlines and decisions, most of which are made long before any trial and many of which are irreversible. This article maps the whole sequence from the first police contact through appeal and collateral review, explaining at each stage what actually happens, who decides what, and which choices cannot be undone. It covers the constitutional rules that govern police contact and interrogation, the mechanics of charging and bail, the discovery obligations that are frequently misunderstood, the suppression practice that decides many cases, the plea bargaining process that resolves almost all of them, and the sentencing framework. It closes with collateral consequences, record clearing, and the difference between a direct appeal and habeas corpus.

Casey Scott McKayJanuary 14, 202428 min read

CriminalWhite Collar

Anti-Money Laundering and the Bank Secrecy Act: KYC, SARs, and Beneficial Ownership Reporting

Anti-money laundering law asks businesses to do something genuinely unusual: to police their own customers on the government's behalf, at their own expense, and to do it quietly enough that the customer never finds out. The Bank Secrecy Act and its implementing regulations create the architecture — a written compliance program, customer identification and due diligence, transaction monitoring, and a reporting obligation that runs to FinCEN rather than to law enforcement directly. The Corporate Transparency Act extended a version of this into ordinary corporate formation, though its scope has narrowed considerably since enactment. This article explains who is covered, what each of the core obligations actually requires, where the criminal exposure lies for institutions and for individuals, and how the beneficial ownership regime now stands.

Casey Scott McKayNovember 21, 202325 min read