Areas of Practice

No politician ever got elected by running a soft-on-crime campaign.  So when lawmakers meet, criminal laws get tougher, and there are a lot more of them. Most of the voting public doesn’t apparently care that some of those laws are unfair, harsh, unconstitutional, or susceptible to uneven enforcement against the vulnerable among us. But I do. And that is why I devote my working life to fighting on behalf of the accused and convicted, their loved ones, and their communities.

There is no greater anxiety than being charged with a serious crime, or being charged with a relatively minor crime that carries serious and lifelong consequences. The potential losses are huge: freedom, money, dignity, rights, careers, families, reputations.

I can help. I will lead you through the dizzying twists of a criminal prosecution. I will develop a strategy that takes your needs into consideration along with the strength of the prosecution’s case. I will beat the charges pretrial, negotiate a deal that you approve, or take the case to trial. Among cases I fight:

• Assault
• Aggravated Assault
• Manslaughter
• Murder
• Aggravated Murder
• Domestic Violence
• Protective Order Violations
• Stalking
• Stalking Injunction Violations
• Sex Offenses
• Sex Offenses Against Children and Child Abuse (selectively)
• Drug Offenses
• Firearms Offenses
• Theft/Robbery
• DUI
• Traffic Violations

Odds & Ends 

Often in my criminal practice, my clients run up against unrelated or associated legal troubles. Under certain, rare circumstances, I will take on representations in other areas, including family law, protective order defense, small claims cases, property disputes, general civil litigation, and class action lawsuits. If you have one of these types of cases, however, I will likely try to find you a competent and trusted referral in order to keep my focus on my core clients facing criminal prosecution.

The government is rarely held accountable for violating citizens’ constitutional rights and civil liberties. This is largely because the law protects government agencies and employees from liability in all but the most shocking cases of abuse. Consequently, there isn’t a lot of money in it for lawyers. I don’t care. I believe that everyone is harmed when a single person among us is mistreated by the government, or discriminated against for voicing an unpopular opinion, or due to their race, religion or gender. 

Police Misconduct

Every working day in Utah courts, judges dismiss criminal charges against defendants because police officers violated a suspect’s constitutional rights. And every day, some police officer somewhere else in Utah does it again. Society’s failure to hold the police accountable for routine constitutional violations merely encourages the police to push the line further, to operate unlawfully and with impunity.  

Federal law and the Utah Constitution provide remedies for repeated, systemic constitutional violations by government agencies. The problem is that most people do not have the resources or patience to stand up against the seemingly infinite resources of government agencies. If the police violated your rights, and if those rights mean as much to you as they do to me, I will help you hold the government accountable.

Common violations include unconstitutional detentions and arrests, unwarranted invasions into your home, incriminating evidence fabricated, evidence of innocence withheld, perjury, and excessive force.

Freedom of Speech

State and local governments often pass laws that tinker with or outright strip away rights protected by the First Amendment. Other times, government officials enforce facially neutral laws in a discriminatory manner. Either way, if a law or its application doesn’t pass free speech muster, it doesn’t pass my muster, and I’ll work to get it changed and preserve every person’s right to speak their minds — whether it be silly, serious or outrageous.