Beat The Prosecution- Fairfax, Virginia, Criminal Defense / DUI Lawyer
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- 13. Nov. 2026
Über den Podcast
Welcome to Beat The Prosecution with Fairfax, Virginia criminal defense / DUI lawyer Jonathan Katz. Jon Katz believes in spreading the word of justice on this podcast, in court, and on his blog at https://katzjustice.com/blog, to regularly provide information and ideas for beating your prosecution. More information is available at https://KatzJustice.com and at (703)-383-1100.
Folgen 114
Devotion drives success in court and beyond- Public defender lawyer Brianna Cox
Send us Fan MailForecasts sometimes get bandied about the extent that artificial intelligence will dry up work for lawyers. Criminal defense court work is not one of those areas. Doing this work well requires …
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Forecasts sometimes get bandied about the extent that artificial intelligence will dry up work for lawyers. Criminal defense court work is not one of those areas. Doing this work well requires devotion and a heart that drives success in obtaining justice for our clients.
Public defender lawyers are a key part of the Northern Virginia criminal justice system. Judges and prosecutors ordinarily interact with them more than with any other criminal defense lawyers. They can share great insights to private lawyers that only experience with the particular judge or prosecutor can provide.
For this Beat the Prosecution episode, Fairfax criminal defense lawyer Jonathan Katz interviews Alexandria City, Virginia, public defender lawyer Brianna Cox about such items as her being a true believer in indigent defense, the great camaraderie among the lawyers in her small office, and the ongoing work of panning for gold for our clients.
Jon Katz also here talks with Brianna about approaches to obtaining justice for our clients in court, minimizing adverse immigration consequences from criminal convictions and sentences, and helping clients who speak English as a second language. Near the conclusion of our talk, she also provides encouragement for those wanting to become Virginia public defender lawyers.
Among the interesting aspects of this interview is Brianna's description of herself as an introvert. Great criminal defense work does not mandate being charismatic, but instead finding, tapping into, and unleashing our own magic to persuade in court and to provide our clients great defense.
This episode is also available on YouTube and Apple Podcasts.
This podcast with Fairfax, Virginia criminal / DUI lawyer Jon Katz is playable on all devices at podcast.BeatTheProsecution.com. For more information, visit https://KatzJustice.com or contact us at [email protected], 703-383-1100 (calling), or 571-406-7268 (text).
If you like what you hear on our Beat the Prosecution podcast, please take a moment to post a review at our Apple podcasts page (with stars only, or else also with a comment) at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beat-the-prosecution/id1721413675Attacking gender bias by prosecutors- Christa Pike's legal team member Sandra Babcock
Send us Fan MailA prosecutorial title does not guarantee fair and just prosecution. In fact, plenty of non-federal chief prosecutors are elected, and regularly respond to the political and voter pressures of …
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A prosecutorial title does not guarantee fair and just prosecution. In fact, plenty of non-federal chief prosecutors are elected, and regularly respond to the political and voter pressures of the job, which often goes opposite Constitutional civil liberties guarantees. Cornell Law Professor Sandra Babcock has for many years revealed the many times through the centuries that prosecutors have demonized women criminal defendants in the courtroom about such irrelevant matters as the clothing they have worn, the flirting they have done, and the sexual relationships they have had, when men would not be treated that way in the courtroom.
In this interview, Sandra includes addressing the plight of death row inmate Brenda Evers Andrew, whose capital prosecutor introduced prejudicially irrelevant evidence of Andrew's sexual and attire habits spanning two decades, including in closing argument at the culpability phase of trial focusing on such evidence by "displaying Andrew’s 'thong underwear' to the jury, by reminding the jury of Andrew’s alleged affairs during college, and by emphasizing that Andrew 'had sex on [her husband] over and over and over' while 'keeping a boyfriend on the side.'" Andrew v. White, 604 U.S. 86, 88-89 (2025). (See the September 2026, petition for writ of certiorari for Brenda Evers Andrew, after the Tenth Circuit denied relief on remand from the Supreme Court.)
Sandra is on Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike's legal defense team, and in this episode includes addressing Christa's plight, what she has suffered during and from the state's botched effort to execute her (characterizing this as a clear and torturous Eight Amendment Constitutional violation), and Christa's humanity so many decades after the brutal murder in which she participated. (If you agree for Christa's sentence to be commuted to life imprisonment, here is a clemency petition to sign to Tennessee's governor.)
When your Beat the Prosecution podcast host Jonathan Katz was seeking information about Christa Pike's plight soon after the botched execution attempt on her, Jon found an update from Death Penalty Worldwide at Cornell, asked his prior guest Joseph Marguilies -- a Cornell professor -- for a DPW contact person, and learned from Joe that the founder and faculty director of DPW, Sandra Babcock is his wife.
Death penalty defense involves plenty of sweat, tears and proverbial blood. Sandra and Joe have spent countless hours fighting for capital defendants and their Constitutional rights. Sandra's Death Penalty Worldwide has an in depth database make the real facts available about people being prosecuted for alleged capital offenses and condemned to execution.
All the hooting and hollering in the world against capital punishment and other injustices in the criminal justice system does only so much to remedy the situation. Sandra has for years been proactive to raise awareness about the realities of the death penalty and to make a real difference, for instance by having previously directed the Mexican Legal Assistance Program to provide strong advocacy for Mexican nationals being prosecuted for alleged capital and non-capital crimes in the United States and to deal with the cultural and racial dimensions of those prosecutions.
Sandra is listed as a team member of the Center on Gender and Extreme Sentencing. She is a law professor involved in real world battles for justice.
Sandra's message to criminal defense lawyers is to listen to their clients. That is not an overly simplistic message, which recognizes that obtaining justice for criminal defendants requires close teamwork between them and their attorneys.
This episode is also available on YouTube.
This podcast with Fairfax, Virginia criminal / DUI lawyer Jon Katz is playable on all devices at podcast.BeatTheProsecution.com. For more information, visit https://KatzJustice.com or contact us at [email protected], 703-383-1100 (calling), or 571-406-7268 (text).
If you like what you hear on our Beat the Prosecution podcast, please take a moment to post a review at our Apple podcasts page (with stars only, or else also with a comment) at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beat-the-prosecution/id1721413675Persuading with visual imagery- Lessons from comics legend Bob McLeod
Send us Fan MailNear the last day of the Trial Lawyers College, everyone painted something meaningful to them. This was not about artistry, but about the imagery involved in telling a persuasive story. Through …
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Near the last day of the Trial Lawyers College, everyone painted something meaningful to them. This was not about artistry, but about the imagery involved in telling a persuasive story. Through visiting various comics conventions over the years, Fairfax criminal lawyer Jonathan Katz and his son met and re-met legendary Marvel Comics artist Bob McLeod (on Patreon.com and MBartist) , who also created the great Superhero ABC and co-created New Mutants. Bob has penciled and/or inked a vast number of superhero comics, Crazy magazine for years, and several Star Wars comic issues.
In this Beat the Prosecution podcast episode, Bob discusses the process of developing a story's imagery and characters, replacing comics' earlier history of white male characters with extensive diversity, working a few doors down the hallway from Stan Lee, and the teamwork involved in producing a comic (which relates to the teamwork needed by lawyers defending co-defendants joined together for the same criminal trial).
Bob's initial efforts to break into comics were rejected. He persevered, including studying the work of successful comics artists. Bob then got his break by starting with such work as lettering on Marvel's Crazy humor magazine. His talents then got increasingly noticed, and Bob became a highly sought-after comics artist. In this interview, Bob aptly underlines the importance of persevering for success, which is also vital for criminal defense lawyers and their clients.
This interview will appeal to trial lawyers, comics fans, and those interested in the storytelling process.
This interview is also available on YouTube and Apple podcasts.
This podcast with Fairfax, Virginia criminal / DUI lawyer Jon Katz is playable on all devices at podcast.BeatTheProsecution.com. For more information, visit https://KatzJustice.com or contact us at [email protected], 703-383-1100 (calling), or 571-406-7268 (text).
If you like what you hear on our Beat the Prosecution podcast, please take a moment to post a review at our Apple podcasts page (with stars only, or else also with a comment) at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beat-the-prosecution/id1721413675Christa Pike and removing the lethal injection curtain- Corinna Lain
Send us Fan MailChrista Pike's botched lethal injection execution attempt and Donald Trump's recent order to execute Nidal Hasan by firing squad have capital punishment front and center with the …
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Christa Pike's botched lethal injection execution attempt and Donald Trump's recent order to execute Nidal Hasan by firing squad have capital punishment front and center with the American public. Firing squad killing is visually gruesome, whereas lethal injection hides the torture suffered by the person condemned to the death chamber, except when the lethal injection gets botched, as with Christa Pike. Ms. Pike's lawyers told the authorities long ago that her narrow veins risked such a mishap. She unsuccessfully selected hanging instead. The death chamber proceedings grew so dire that she politely helped lead her executioners to workable veins. Having woken up post-lethal injection from unconsciousness in a hospital where doctors considered pulling life support, Ms. Pike now does not know whether her death sentence will be commuted or left for the next Tennessee governor to decide.
To help people make up their own minds about capital punishment and lethal injection, Fairfax criminal lawyer Jonathan Katz this week podcast interviewed leading lethal injection authority Corinna Barrett Lain, a longtime professor at University of Richmond Law School. Professor Lain opposes executions, says that clashes with her deep Christian faith, and emphasizes that state-sponsored killing puts a period before the deity's work has concluded with the executionee. Professor Lain's 2025 book Secrets of the Killing State: The Untold Story of Lethal Injection emerged from project abandonment when she told the deity that she would finish the book if he gave her a clear sign to complete the project. Professor Lain talks of lethal injection as hiding the torture it brings. She counters the arguments favoring making murderers suffer by saying we do not punish rapists by raping them, nor arsonists by burning down their homes.
Why is lethal injection so often torturous when physician-assisted suicide can involve little to no pain? Lethal injection involves one-size-fits-all protocols without physician presence, whereas physician-assisted suicide has a physician involved every step of the way. The Supreme Court majority continues its green light for executions.
Virginia is the first Southern state to join the many others that have abolished the death penalty. Federal authorities sometimes interfere with such federalism by pursuing federal capital prosecutions in states that do not have the death penalty. The practice of the death penalty has repeatedly shown itself to be racist in effect. Virginia abolished capital punishment after the commonwealth's death penalty defenders were so successful as to virtually vacate the state's death row.
When Jon Katz asked prior podcast guest Douglas Ramseur for suggested future guests, Doug listed three people, including Professor Lain and her professorial colleague and former head indigent defense lawyer (and recent podcast guest) Dave Johnson. Read the lengthy 2021 law review article authored by Professor Lain and Mr. Ramseur entitled "Disrupting Death: How Specialized Capital Defenders Ground Virginia’s Machinery of Death to a Halt." Also see Corinna's "Every Knee Must Bend: What the Death Penalty Requires From the Rule of Law" https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1639&context=uoplawreview
Praised be the effective and devoted capital defenders, who toil away to keep their clients off of death row, and humanize and care deeply for them in the process. That is the key to both capital and non-capital criminal defense.
This episode is also available on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-5_Xci45BQ and on Apple podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/christa-pike-and-removing-the-lethal-injection/id1721413675?i=1000793910401
This podcast with Fairfax, Virginia criminal / DUI lawyer Jon Katz is playable on all devices at podcast.BeatTheProsecution.com. For more information, visit https://KatzJustice.com or contact us at [email protected], 703-383-1100 (calling), or 571-406-7268 (text).
If you like what you hear on our Beat the Prosecution podcast, please take a moment to post a review at our Apple podcasts page (with stars only, or else also with a comment) at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beat-the-prosecution/id1721413675Criminal defense requires trial readiness. Plea deals are overrated.
Send us Fan MailPlea deals are overrated. Talk to any excellent criminal defense lawyer, and learn about the many times they have won trials that they were not sure they would win. Talk to them about the …
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Plea deals are overrated. Talk to any excellent criminal defense lawyer, and learn about the many times they have won trials that they were not sure they would win. Talk to them about the importance of being great at cross examining opposing witnesses, and how they approach cross examination (which is part of the criminal defense lawyer's ongoing telling of the defendant's persuasive story, without needing always to destroy the cross examinee and what they say on direct examination). Ask the lawyer how much they do or do not love trials, which take longer than proceeding with a plea deal, but are invigorating to handle, when fully and well prepared for trial.
Any former prosecutor's insistence about the need to hire a former prosecutor -- someone who used to push for convictions and incarceration -- finds that assertion dismantles when they are asked how much cross examination experience they got as a prosecutor (so often very limited). Also, ask the former prosecutor whether they favor prosecuting or defending, and how much they do or do not enjoy representing criminal defendants rather than, as a prosecutor, putting police and civilians on the witness stand (and hopefully knowing, in their heart of hearts, that not all prosecution witnesses are telling the truth). Ask your potential criminal defense lawyer what motivated them to choose criminal defense (and, with former prosecutors, what motivated them to prosecute).
In this episode of the Beat the Prosecution podcast, Fairfax criminal defense lawyer Jon Katz discusses three trial acquittals he obtained, with one in particular not being a shoe-in by any stretch of the imagination, with another acquittal coming from a judge who said he was very skeptical of Jon's theory of defense presented in opening statement until hearing the smoking gun surreptitious audiotape, and another acquittal with a judge known to not frequently enough say "not" in front of guilty.
If someone calls themselves a trial lawyer, hopefully that means they have great trial experience and ability, and the drive to do what it takes -- within the bounds of the law and ethics -- to obtain trial victory for their clients.
Yes, negotiation skills and ability are essential for your criminal defense lawyer. At the same time, ask your potential criminal defense lawyer about the number of times that saying not guilty has gotten them better negotiated settlements (whether plea deals or better) and the number of times that they have actually obtained better settlements at mid-trial. Ask your potential criminal defense lawyer about the number of times they convinced the prosecutor to leave their plea offer open until the resolution of a suppression motion hearing or other specified hearing, where winning the hearing might put the brakes on the prosecution altogether. Your criminal defense lawyer should be great both with trials and settlement negotiations.
This Beat The Prosecution podcast episode also is available in and Apple podcast format
This podcast with Fairfax, Virginia criminal / DUI lawyer Jon Katz is playable on all devices at podcast.BeatTheProsecution.com. For more information, visit https://KatzJustice.com or contact us at [email protected], 703-383-1100 (calling), or 571-406-7268 (text).
If you like what you hear on our Beat the Prosecution podcast, please take a moment to post a review at our Apple podcasts page (with stars only, or else also with a comment) at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beat-the-prosecution/id1721413675John Coltrane scholar with criminal defense trial lawyer- Lewis Porter
Send us Fan MailMusical and creative genius John Coltrane was born one hundred years ago, on September 23, 2026, departing his body in 1967, when podcast host Jon Katz was four years old. Criminal defense …
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Musical and creative genius John Coltrane was born one hundred years ago, on September 23, 2026, departing his body in 1967, when podcast host Jon Katz was four years old.
Criminal defense lawyers and all trial lawyers can learn great lessons from Coltrane, including not to throw in the towel merely because your early efforts do not perform without a hitch, to hear even between the lines and to recognize the multitude of life possibilities that surround us, to remain true to our music and clients and to know that corner cutting is not an option, to integrate our work into our beings rather than seeking a work-life balance that separates the two, and to recognize that great improvisational jazz music is like great in-the-moment trial performance, that integrates persuasive storytelling, scene setting, role playing and reverse role playing.
John Coltrane got hooked on heroin by the 1950's. Additional great jazz musicians who got caught up in drug abuse included Charlie Parker (Bird), Fats Navarro, Bill Evans, and Herbie Hancock. Trane emerged from that dangerous path in 1957, and his 1964 writing for his essential A Love Supreme album underlines the importance of 1957 as a major life turning point for him. Herbie Hancock's autobiography acknowledges his serious mistake in trying crack, which he recognized with his first puff, and then he had to work to break free of that mistake.
Jon Katz met John Coltrane scholar Lewis Porter when Porter taught music and led the bands at Tufts University. Porter found and has played for musicians a recording of Trane from the 1940's, when nothing in that recording foretold the stratospheric musical breakthroughs Trane would make. Trane later said he did not see what Miles Davis saw in him to add him to his band. Miles had a great ability to sense talent, as did Dizzy Gillespie, who at one point added Trane to his own band. Porter references this as talent radar as big ears.
Great cross examination practitioner and teacher -- and criminal defense lawyer -- Larry Pozner underlines that winning cross examination can be taught to lawyers. Maybe that is not as true in teaching musicians, but Trane's example shows that one does not need to begin as a prodigy to jump by quantum leaps later on.
Why are women among a small minority of instrumental jazz musicians recognized as among the best? Professor Porter discusses that in this interview.
Did some jazz greats avoid performing in the segregated South? Miles Davis would not play there. Trane grew up in North Carolina, but apparently avoided performing in the South other than a New Orleans performance as at least one exception.
Two months after the September 1963 bombing murder of three teenage women and one eleven year old girl at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, Coltrane recorded "Alabama" with his group. Lewis Porter thinks that this instrumental piece's rhythm overlaps with Martin Luther King, Jr.'s sermon after this murder.
Twenty years after starting the project, Lewis Porter published the essential Trane read John Coltrane- His Life and Music. (finally being released this year in E-book format as well.) He has also written books on Lester Young (Prez) and David Liebman, He posts weekly and in depth with some great articles and sounds, on jazz on his Substack Playback with Lewis Porter page.
John Coltrane had his own apt knack for adding great talent to his band, most importantly piano superhuman McCoy Tyner. As Trane's music became more avant garde, McCoy Tyner and Elvin Jones moved on. Trane would not sit still nor rest on his laurels, and was convinced he was in the right musical direction, and he probably was.
With all the great music with which Trane blessed us despite his early passing at forty years old, imagine what his musical legacy would have been had he lived longer. This summonses that great scene from Walk the Line, where a music producer urges Johnny Cash to create a song that he would perform if that was his last day on this earth. That is the best way to live, to defend in court, and to create.
“There is never any end…there are always new sounds to imagine, new feelings to get at. And always there is the need to keep purifying these feelings and sounds so that we can really see what we've discovered in its pure state. So that we can see more and more clearly what we are . . . we have to keep on cleaning the mirror.”
Deeply thanking and bowing to John William Coltrane, September 23, 1926, to July 17, 1967.
This episode is on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDv5J7Nym3o , audio podcasting https://podcast.beattheprosecution.com/2293867/episodes/19970927 , and Apple podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/john-coltrane-scholar-with-criminal-defense-trial/id1721413675?i=1000796600770
This podcast with Fairfax, Virginia criminal / DUI lawyer Jon Katz is playable on all devices at podcast.BeatTheProsecution.com. For more information, visit https://KatzJustice.com or contact us at [email protected], 703-383-1100 (calling), or 571-406-7268 (text).
If you like what you hear on our Beat the Prosecution podcast, please take a moment to post a review at our Apple podcasts page (with stars only, or else also with a comment) at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beat-the-prosecution/id1721413675Serving indigent & retained defendants- Former Virginia indigent defense lawyer leader on being fearless in court and trial
Send us Fan MailThe Constitution's Sixth Amendment and its appellate interpretations provide for effective assistance of counsel against criminal prosecutions, regardless of the defendant's ability to …
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The Constitution's Sixth Amendment and its appellate interpretations provide for effective assistance of counsel against criminal prosecutions, regardless of the defendant's ability to pay. Virginia's public defender system delivers beneficial service, but the state's indigent defense system is broken when it comes to the significant percentage of court-appointed private-practicing lawyers, who are ordinarily paid too little to give full meaning to the Sixth Amendment, leaving a devotion to clients and not pay as the motivator for delivering quality defense to indigent defendants.
Former decades-long chief public defender lawyer (at the local and then state level) David Johnson for the past several years has been a law professor at the University of Richmond. In this Beat the Prosecution episode with Fairfax, Virginia, criminal defense lawyer Jonathan Katz, Dave tells it like it is, from how he provided great service to his clients (and then became a law professor) despite his far from stellar academic performance, to how nothing leads to beneficial settlement negotiations like being known to perform successfully at trial, and how to deal with challenging judges, hostile cross examinees, and prosecutors who do not agree to sensible plea deals.
Dave also discusses the importance for law students to obtain practical experience and learning while in law school, and the impediment to a better law school system that is caused by the focus to prepare law students for passing the bar rather than focusing better on preparing them to perform well as lawyers.
Dave discusses preserving the appellate record, avoiding getting consumed by anger at injustice in the courtroom, talking with criminal defendants about the advisability of going to trial when settlement negotiations do not justify doing otherwise, and persuading in court.
This episode is also available on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAuydXKfgLY and in podcast format https://podcast.beattheprosecution.com/2293867/episodes/19892065
This podcast with Fairfax, Virginia criminal / DUI lawyer Jon Katz is playable on all devices at podcast.BeatTheProsecution.com. For more information, visit https://KatzJustice.com or contact us at [email protected], 703-383-1100 (calling), or 571-406-7268 (text).
If you like what you hear on our Beat the Prosecution podcast, please take a moment to post a review at our Apple podcasts page (with stars only, or else also with a comment) at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beat-the-prosecution/id1721413675How the taijiquan martial art helps lawyers win in criminal court- Talk with Shyh-Ching Lo, M.D.
Send us Fan MailWhen Fairfax, Virginia, criminal defense lawyer Jonathan Katz first attended taijiquan sparring / sensing hands / push hands summer weekend gatherings of students of great t'ai chi …
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When Fairfax, Virginia, criminal defense lawyer Jonathan Katz first attended taijiquan sparring / sensing hands / push hands summer weekend gatherings of students of great t'ai chi ch'uan teacher Julian Chu (a prior Beat the Prosecution podcast interviewee), he met today's guest Shyh-Ching Lo, M.D. Without an ounce of ego -- as it should be -- and full of generosity in teaching and sharing, Dr. Lo has taught and reminded Jon about the importance in sensing hands of timing, sensing, sensitivity, zhong ting (central equliibrium), and ward off/roll back/press/push (including an emphasis on roll back). Starting from Jon's first sensing hands round with him, Dr. Lo would point out "too late" when Jon would yield too late. Today, Dr. Lo very commonly advises to "give it away" so that the opponent has nothing to push against in the first place. Dr. Lo also points out to have one's hands and arms be powerfully light and soft.
How does taijiquan tie in with Jon Katz's criminal defense practice? Taijquan sparring/push hands is like sparring in court many ways, to harmonize imbalanced situations, to use internal powerful energy rather than brute force, to uproot the opponent, and to be non-angry, for instance.
The imporance of taijiquan to criminal defense and life is vital for Jon Katz. Practicing push hands on the weekends connects naturally to the push hands of courtroom battle and life itself. The week's courthouse push hands connects well with the following weekend's sensing hands practice. Vital to push hands is applying the taijiquan principles of relaxing and sinking one's body into the ground (and relaxing and emptying the mind of clutter), separating the weight, turning from the waist, keeping one's body upright, and keeping the wrists softly unbent. Practicing push hands checks how well our taijiquan form practice is developing. Practicing taijquan form prepares us for sensing hands practice.
With light movements, Dr. Lo is able to put other practitioners, including Jon, off balance if their form is not more well developed. Taijiquan involves never-ending self development.
In this discussion, Dr. Lo includes addressing not only his daily taijiquan practice, but also his overall health practice as a retired medical doctor. He immediately took to martial arts practice while in the Taiwanese army, then for many years practiced no martial arts, and finally in his fifties became a taijiquan practitioner learning from such teachers as Benjamin Pang Jeng Lo, Ben's student Julian Chu, and Ben's students the late David Chen and his wife Joanne Cheng. One can find Dr. Lo practicing taijiquan at the weekly Saturday 10:30 a.m. gatherings at the David Chen memorial tai chi court at Cabin John Park in Potomac, Maryland.
This podcast with Fairfax, Virginia criminal / DUI lawyer Jon Katz is playable on all devices at podcast.BeatTheProsecution.com. For more information, visit https://KatzJustice.com or contact us at [email protected], 703-383-1100 (calling), or 571-406-7268 (text).
If you like what you hear on our Beat the Prosecution podcast, please take a moment to post a review at our Apple podcasts page (with stars only, or else also with a comment) at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beat-the-prosecution/id1721413675Criminal defense lawyers must humanize their clients- Capital & criminal defense lawyer Joe Margulies
Send us Fan MailLife's twists and turns bring us to a plethora of destinations, byways, and discoveries by surprise, out of order, and at dizzyingly varying speeds. Who would have thought that my first law …
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Life's twists and turns bring us to a plethora of destinations, byways, and discoveries by surprise, out of order, and at dizzyingly varying speeds. Who would have thought that my first law firm job would lead me to meet true believer criminal defense and civil rights lawyer Joseph Margulies, via his conservative father (and my essential mentor) Irv Margulies (see his eye opening unglossed interview on his WWII combat experience in Germany) congratulating my transition to public defender work and happily telling me of his son Joe's working in the same field.
When Joe and I first spoke in late 2025, he told us about his metamorphosis from his clients being a means to fighting the opponent, to his clients being the raison d'être for his work, together with his gift for being a great writer (with several published books).
Now Joe is back, talking about his essential book available September 15, 2026, by Beacon Press, entitled Cast Out: A cure for a forgiving society in an age of incarceration. Having rivetedly read the Cast Out galley proof, I know my fellow criminal defense lawyers will find it a great read for humanizing our clients in the settlement negotiation, trial, and any sentencing stages. Remaining readers will find themselves on Joe's journey with several people who committed monstrous acts, but who still had or later developed essential elements of humanity, with some of them emerging into caring and thoughtful humans who seem to be the positive twins of their former scary selves.
Joe aptly says "the other" does not exist, rather than just us. Monster humans are not reality, versus people doing monstrous things. He does not even except Hitler from this concept. Listen why.
Joe begins Cast Out with an exploration of a January 6, 2021, defendant who pleaded guilty and later got pardoned along with the vast majority of the other January 6 defendants. In this interview, I tell Joe how one of my excellent taijiquan teachers was one of those pardoned defendants. After I sent this teacher a brief message about my concerns about that soon after the incident, I put that by the wayside, recognizing he was not the other, and that January 6 did not detract at all from his greatness and generosity as a martial arts teacher, with whom I continue to sense hands / spar and learn.
Joe's book tour will for Cast Out is expected to include Busboys & Poets (I await learning the location) on October 11, 2026, at 5:00 p.m.
This full episode is available on YouTube, podcasting, and Apple podcasts.
This podcast with Fairfax, Virginia criminal / DUI lawyer Jon Katz is playable on all devices at podcast.BeatTheProsecution.com. For more information, visit https://KatzJustice.com or contact us at [email protected], 703-383-1100 (calling), or 571-406-7268 (text).
If you like what you hear on our Beat the Prosecution podcast, please take a moment to post a review at our Apple podcasts page (with stars only, or else also with a comment) at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beat-the-prosecution/id1721413675The drug wars' civil liberties violations must be reversed- Ethan Nadelmann
Send us Fan MailAt the NORML conference around 2000, the Drug Policy Alliance's leader Ethan Nadelmann was entertaining, informing and inspiring the converted. At one point, he exclaimed along the lines of …
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At the NORML conference around 2000, the Drug Policy Alliance's leader Ethan Nadelmann was entertaining, informing and inspiring the converted. At one point, he exclaimed along the lines of "I haven't tried that drug............ yet." That unleashed my laughter, coming from this well respected and effective leader to dismantle the drug wars and to replace them with lawful intravenous needle exchange, legal injection sites, overhauling the imprisonment system that made the United States a leading incarcerator on the planet, and more.
Over two and a half decades later, Ethan this week interviewed with me on my Beat the Prosecution podcast, where among many other items he explains the importance for him of personally experiencing the effects of many of the drugs for which he argued to reform. How many past college professors (Elliott taught at Princeton) make such public admissions? That is his persuasive transparency at work.
My opposition to the drug wars were a major catalyst for me to transition from a corporate law firm to criminal defense, where I have delighted in eroding the drug wars from my own corner of the earth, defending people charged with many other crimes, and constantly summoning the Bill of Rights.
This interview with Ethan is a battery charger, with his wide-ranging energy, optimism, imagination, and ability to find common ground with even the most otherwise seemingly virulent opponents. With conservatives supporting the drug wars, he has found commonality in opposing civil asset forfeiture that relates even ever so thinly with allegedly illegal drug activity. With Milton Friedman and other free economy people is the aversion to the drug wars as a major socialist enterprise. Ethan has met with drug policymakers and enforcers in many parts of the globe. With tough on crime nations in East Asia and beyond, he has seen reforms that ease up on drug enforcement when that reduces the spread of HIV and AIDS.
For criminal defense and other trial lawyers, Ethan's example shows how to persuade even with the otherwise most recalcitrant of listeners, with appropriate and genuine humor, humanity, and finding points of mutual interest.
The work of dismantling the drug wars never ends. Ethan has been a major force in setting this movement in the right direction and inspiring its next generations.
This interview with Fairfax criminal defense lawyer Jon Katz and Ethan Nadelmann is available in full on YouTube https://youtu.be/MGm0wansD2g on podcasting https://podcast.beattheprosecution.com/2293867/episodes/19750008 , and on Apple podcasts https://podcast.beattheprosecution.com/2293867/episodes/19750008-winning-like-ball-of-fire-ethan-nadelmann
This podcast with Fairfax, Virginia criminal / DUI lawyer Jon Katz is playable on all devices at podcast.BeatTheProsecution.com. For more information, visit https://KatzJustice.com or contact us at [email protected], 703-383-1100 (calling), or 571-406-7268 (text).
If you like what you hear on our Beat the Prosecution podcast, please take a moment to post a review at our Apple podcasts page (with stars only, or else also with a comment) at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beat-the-prosecution/id1721413675Former immigration judge Anam Petit- Protecting immigrants' dignity & against adverse conviction collateral consequences
Send us Fan MailTo persuade others, it is important to transform oneself not only to their perspective, but their full being, feelings, relevant experiences, sense of place and even unsettlement, and thought …
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To persuade others, it is important to transform oneself not only to their perspective, but their full being, feelings, relevant experiences, sense of place and even unsettlement, and thought process. That approach, with psychodrama (working out challenges with role playing, reverse role playing, and scene setting), is a big part of the Trial Lawyers College, which I attended for a full month, and which is featured in several of my Beat The Prosecution interviews.
Anam Petit, with the Murray Osorio law firm, is the second former immigration judge to join me on my podcast, the first being my law school immigration clinic and class professor Paul Grussendorf. With Anam, I dig deeper into strengthening one's persuasion chops by seeing matters from the judge's perspective.
Unlike most "views from the bench" programs I have attended, where the judges are usually restrained in giving tips to lawyers (for instance saying to be fully prepared and fully considerate of judges and opponents, rather than really letting their hair down), Anam holds nothing back in sharing her two years of experience as an immigration judge (during the Biden and Trump administrations) and her perspective of the wide range of lawyering she experienced, including her frustration at the swath of lawyers whose work was subpar to the detriment of their clients, when her role limited her ability to help rectify the situation.
Anam underlines the importance of getting one's persuasive point across succinctly, rather than through repetition or plodding. She talks about how she would assess the credibility she witnesses. Anam underlines how demanding was her full docket and about working through lunch and needing to be highly organized to keep up timely with her work. When lawyers and other litigants work with those demands, that can pay off for the persuader.
Now back to private law practice, mainly representing individual non-United States citizens, Anam addresses dealing with the trauma of many clients -- as is often the case for criminal defense lawyers, as well as-- and the challenges of keeping a balance in one's life when individuals are relying tremendously on our delivering them great service, and in some instances hoping we will pull a rabbit out of our hats.
Anam is frank about the need to overhaul the immigration judging system -- which heavily includes hearings where people risk deportation -- including to make immigration courts Constitutional Article III courts (like the federal District Courts and Circuit Courts) so that immigration judges do not feel their judicial independence threatened by risking being fired by the Justice Department -- that employs them, and perverts the process by unabashedly characterizing such judges as "deportation judges" in their immigration judge hiring webpage --for not pleasing the DOJ or presidential administration in general.
In a predecessor interview with another interviewer, Anam addresses sticking to her oath at all times. The current administration terminated a slew of immigration judges appointed during Democratic administrations, and Anam was one of those so terminated after nearly two years. Notable is her lack of bitterness over that termination and the positive words she has to say about the people at the immigration courts who continue focusing on doing the right thing.
Anam has been active with the public interest group Arrived (renamed from Asylum Works) Donations can be made to that group at this link.
This podcast with Fairfax, Virginia criminal / DUI lawyer Jon Katz is playable on all devices at podcast.BeatTheProsecution.com. For more information, visit https://KatzJustice.com or contact us at [email protected], 703-383-1100 (calling), or 571-406-7268 (text).
If you like what you hear on our Beat the Prosecution podcast, please take a moment to post a review at our Apple podcasts page (with stars only, or else also with a comment) at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beat-the-prosecution/id1721413675Integrating the approaches of the Trial Lawyers College & National College for DUI Defense
Send us Fan MailMichigan lawyer Patrick Barone is the third Beat the Prosecution podcast guest who has both attended the Trial Lawyers College and been active with the National College for DUI Defense. Patrick …
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Michigan lawyer Patrick Barone is the third Beat the Prosecution podcast guest who has both attended the Trial Lawyers College and been active with the National College for DUI Defense. Patrick for years pursued a DWI defense focus before attending the TLC, and then he jumped both feet forward into intensive learning and training with psychodrama -- which is a major feature of the Trial Lawyers College that has been covered numerous times on this podcast -- becoming certified in psychodrama after many years of devoting substantial time to this approach of psychotherapy and working out challenges through role playing and reverse role playing, and much more. As his and his wife Elizabeth Corby's Michigan Psychodrama Center page says, Patrick is a Board Certified trainer, educator and practitioner of psychodrama, sociometry and group psychotherapy, which is no small feat to add to an already busy criminal defense law practice.
Listen as Patrick addresses with Fairfax criminal defense lawyer Jon Katz how psychodrama can be used for lawyers to prepare their entire trial and courtroom presentations, and prepare their clients to testify. Patrick talks about the possibility of speaking from the first person as the breathalyzer machine in a DUI case, taking exception to the breath test operator who does not enable the machine to do its job properly by not inspecting the suspect's mouth for foreign objects, to preclude the machine from testing for mouth alcohol rather than deep lung alcohol.
Patrick tells of one instance about using psychodrama doubling to relate and connect directly with his client. He talks about using psychodrama on himself to work out his issues with authority, in order to unblock his challenging interactions with a judge he repeatedly encounters. He differentiates the difference between righteous indignation at a police officer during cross examination, and alienating jurors who do not perceive a justification to be indignant. He talks about advocating in the moment, and understanding others from their perspective and from putting ourselves into their shoes.
Beyond all that, Patrick talks of pursuing a pre-med path in college and then retooling to be a lawyer over such matters as his strong support for a robustly protected Second Amendment. He repeatedly writes about artificial intelligence for lawyers. His AI substack newsletter is at https://patrickbarone.substack.com Each month, he and his wife hold psychodrama sessions.
Patrick makes a good point that often the psychodramatists in the room are not lawyers, and the lawyers are usually not psychodramatists. He is both.
This Beat the Prosecution episode is also available on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPdJ-7Tf_Zc and https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/winning-by-integrating-with-the-moment-patrick-barone/id1721413675?i=1000783081810
This podcast with Fairfax, Virginia criminal / DUI lawyer Jon Katz is playable on all devices at podcast.BeatTheProsecution.com. For more information, visit https://KatzJustice.com or contact us at [email protected], 703-383-1100 (calling), or 571-406-7268 (text).
If you like what you hear on our Beat the Prosecution podcast, please take a moment to post a review at our Apple podcasts page (with stars only, or else also with a comment) at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beat-the-prosecution/id1721413675Fighting to stay out of prison & learning how to weather incarceration
Send us Fan MailBuddhist nun Venerable Thubten Chodron of Sravasti Abbey returns for a second time to talk with Fairfax, Virginia, criminal defense lawyer Jonathan Katz, this time to discuss Venerable's …
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Buddhist nun Venerable Thubten Chodron of Sravasti Abbey returns for a second time to talk with Fairfax, Virginia, criminal defense lawyer Jonathan Katz, this time to discuss Venerable's 2025 book incorporating experiential stories from inmates, and also the beautiful artwork by many of them, entitled The Key of Compassion- Finding Meaning Where You Least Expect It.
The ideal for a criminal defendant is to avoid conviction and incarceration. However, judges and court magistrates do not always grant pretrial release, and not all convicted people avoid incarceration. Consequently, this is the second Beat the Prosecution episode that removes the mystery about handling incarceration, and focuses on keeping grounded and resilient while detained. The first episode on that topic was with Fleet Maull, a dharma teacher who served a fourteen year sentence for a federal drug conviction at the end of the twentieth century. By removing the mystery of incarceration, criminal defendants can be bolder and more confident in fighting their prosecutions along with their lawyers.
Jon Katz first heard of Venerable Chodron from Rodger Kamenetz's The Jew In the Lotus (where Chris Berlin's description of the jewel in the lotus is "boundless compassion that is fully responsive to suffering and moves us to alleviate that suffering unconditionally and spontaneously as we encounter it" and where om mani padme hum apparently praises the jewel in the lotus). As it happened, when Jon first invited Venerable Chodron to this podcast, she and those at her abbey were already very involved with helping inmates, and The Key of Compassion was already in the works.
Jon Katz recommends donating to Sravasti Abbey's Prison Dharma Fund, reading The Key of Compassion and also donating the book to prisons and other detention centers, for the availability of inmates. The best way to learn how to donate spiritual books to detention centers is probably to contact the institution's chaplain.
This episode is also available on YouTube and Apple podcasts.
This podcast with Fairfax, Virginia criminal / DUI lawyer Jon Katz is playable on all devices at podcast.BeatTheProsecution.com. For more information, visit https://KatzJustice.com or contact us at [email protected], 703-383-1100 (calling), or 571-406-7268 (text).
If you like what you hear on our Beat the Prosecution podcast, please take a moment to post a review at our Apple podcasts page (with stars only, or else also with a comment) at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beat-the-prosecution/id1721413675Obtaining victory needs not to wait until the trial date- Lawyer Kim Benjamin
Send us Fan MailWinning for criminal defendants integrates teaming up closely and well with our clients, life experience, successful trial experience, improving ourselves, and persuasively engaging others, for …
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Winning for criminal defendants integrates teaming up closely and well with our clients, life experience, successful trial experience, improving ourselves, and persuasively engaging others, for starters.
Our podcast guest Kimberly Benjamin, in Missouri, includes integrating the approaches of the Trial Lawyers College, the National College of DUI Defense and more to start obtaining justice for defendants even before any trial starts.I first learned about Kim through our connection to the Trial Lawyers College, which she attended and where Kim ultimately joined the staff. How necessarily frank was Kim when walking into her first meeting of the Missouri criminal defense lawyers association, asking where were the women, and then soon becoming a member of its board.
This episode is also available on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjHDLhhePg0 and Apple podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/winning-before-trial-even-begins-kim-benjamin/id1721413675?i=1000777978177
Fairfax Criminal Lawyer / Virginia DUI Attorney Jonathan L. Katz pursues your best defense against felony, misdemeanor, DUI, drug & sex prosecutions. Defending in Fairfax County, Arlington, Loudoun, Prince William & Beyond.
Call 703-383-1100 for a free in-person consultation with Jon Katz about your court-pending criminal case. KatzJustice.comThis podcast with Fairfax, Virginia criminal / DUI lawyer Jon Katz is playable on all devices at podcast.BeatTheProsecution.com. For more information, visit https://KatzJustice.com or contact us at [email protected], 703-383-1100 (calling), or 571-406-7268 (text).
If you like what you hear on our Beat the Prosecution podcast, please take a moment to post a review at our Apple podcasts page (with stars only, or else also with a comment) at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beat-the-prosecution/id1721413675Defending against criminal charges is not enough when crimmigration is involved
Send us Fan MailNon-United States citizens are at more risk than in decades with their criminal cases, and many times starting while the prosecution is still pending in court. Harsh treatment of non-U.S …
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Non-United States citizens are at more risk than in decades with their criminal cases, and many times starting while the prosecution is still pending in court. Harsh treatment of non-U.S. citizens did not start from whole cloth with Donald Trump, but he and his tough-on-immigrants supporters have taken the matter to an entirely higher quantum level. And still we have safeguards, including the Senate's non-action on H.R. 875, which would have made green card holders deportable for a conviction of driving under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs (aka DUI, DWI, OWI and OUI).
With the situation for non-United States citizens and undocumented people in the United States getting no better -- and in many instances worse (for instance with the widespread application of no bond for immigration detainees) -- the time is ripe for the return after sixteen months of crimmigration expert Ofelia L. Calderón, to whom your host Fairfax criminal defense lawyer Jonathan Katz repeatedly turns for on-the-money advice and opinion letters for his non-United States citizen criminal defense clients.
Criminal defense lawyers need to understand the immigration risks for certain convictions, sentences, and procedures. In 2010, the United States Supreme Court included correct advice about adverse immigration consequences from criminal cases within the Sixth Amendment’s Effective Assistance of Counsel clause. Padilla v. Kentucky, 559 U.S. 356 (2010). Crimmigration law is so nuanced that no primer exists to teach this to criminal defense lawyers in but one sitting. This Virginia crimmigration chart from Amica does not end the essential learning needed by criminal defense lawyers, but at least propels the matter forward.
Beyond the political winds that affect immigration law and enforcement policy, we have practical considerations that have been around for decades, including Crespo v. Holder, 631 F.3d 130 (4th Cir., Jan. 11, 2011), which lets us know to beware whether a seeming sweetheart deal is really a sweetheart deal when considering the adverse immigration, financial and personal consequences that can come from a wide panoply of criminal case dispositions.
Furthermore, non-United States citizens without legal permanent residence / green cards need to be particularly cautious about leaving the United States while their criminal cases are pending in court. Learn much more about all of this and plenty more in this podcast episode.
This podcast is also available on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYSoVvHK3PI and on Apple podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/winning-by-navigating-the-crimmigration-landmines/id1721413675?i=1000776851879
This podcast with Fairfax, Virginia criminal / DUI lawyer Jon Katz is playable on all devices at podcast.BeatTheProsecution.com. For more information, visit https://KatzJustice.com or contact us at [email protected], 703-383-1100 (calling), or 571-406-7268 (text).
If you like what you hear on our Beat the Prosecution podcast, please take a moment to post a review at our Apple podcasts page (with stars only, or else also with a comment) at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beat-the-prosecution/id1721413675Sowing the seeds of empowerment- Leah Penniman of Soul Fire Farm. This informs criminal defense.
Send us Fan MailWINNING BY SOWING THE SEEDS OF EMPOWERMENTInterviewee Leah Penniman and Fairfax criminal lawyer Jonathan Katz are good friends with Jon's essential peace teacher (and prior Beat the …
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WINNING BY SOWING THE SEEDS OF EMPOWERMENT
Interviewee Leah Penniman and Fairfax criminal lawyer Jonathan Katz are good friends with Jon's essential peace teacher (and prior Beat the Prosecution podcast guest) Jun Yasuda, whose beautiful peace pagoda is less than two miles from Leah's Soul Fire Farm.
Leah's story is one of never giving up nor giving in, which is also essential for criminal defense. She experienced substantial racism while growing up, and kept persevering, including with learning about farming. Long ago, Leah, her husband and children lived in an Albany food desert, and ultimately, she and her husband bought the farmland that is now Soul Fire Farm.
Leah did not stop at merely opening a farm, but has a nonprofit to assist lower income people with food, and welcomes countless people to learn about self empowerment and farming.
Leah tells some captivating stories, including about African women who would braid seeds into their hair, to have them available for planting in the event they were forced into slavery.
Leah does not candy coat the hurdles in life, the history of racism (including in farming), and the continuing racism found too extensively in society. She recognizes those hurdles and continues persevering.
Leah's thoughts on helping criminal defendants, are, aptly, for them to remember that they and all beings are sacred.
I recommend donating to Soul Fire Farm, and reading Leah's books Farming While Black- Soul Fire Farm's Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land, and Black Earth Wisdom: Soulful Conversations with Black Environmentalists (2023). Coming next is Children of the Land: A Soul Fire Farm Parenting Guide, authored by Leah and her child Neshima.
Here is the video version of this episode. Here is the Apple podcast version.
This podcast with Fairfax, Virginia criminal / DUI lawyer Jon Katz is playable on all devices at podcast.BeatTheProsecution.com. For more information, visit https://KatzJustice.com or contact us at [email protected], 703-383-1100 (calling), or 571-406-7268 (text).
If you like what you hear on our Beat the Prosecution podcast, please take a moment to post a review at our Apple podcasts page (with stars only, or else also with a comment) at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beat-the-prosecution/id1721413675Former federal drug inmate Fleet Maull on being resilient in prison
Send us Fan MailFleet Maull inspires Fairfax, Virginia, criminal defense lawyer Jonathan Katz for his extensive experience applying mindfulness with highly challenging situations, making the most of his …
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Fleet Maull inspires Fairfax, Virginia, criminal defense lawyer Jonathan Katz for his extensive experience applying mindfulness with highly challenging situations, making the most of his fourteen years in prison for a drug conviction, and emerging from prison continuing to help inmates and by now helping so many people beyond those in the criminal justice system, with resilience while ready for the dangers that can lurk around the corner. (Check out this month's free online Somatic Healing Summit, where Fleet will be talking.)
When Jon Katz first met Fleet over ten years ago at a weekend program that Fleet was leading, Fleet included a great exercise that underlined that we can treat circumstances as neutral, which does not mean the absence of plenty of terrible world events, but that "we, not circumstances, are in charge of our lives and destiny." Radical Responsibliity, by Fleet Maull. Fleet also is great leading guided meditation, which he does early in this podcast episode with a few-minute sit. Fleet was trained in-depth in mindfulness at Naropa Institute (which became Naropa University) before getting convicted for alleged drug trafficking that apparently had taken place a good amount of time before being prosecuted.
Fleet spent fourteen years in federal prison. No matter how much of a chunk of his adult life that represented, at least he avoided the even more draconian federal statutory criminal sentencing increases that took hold not long after he got convicted.
Fleet does not candycoat his prison experience. He points out the racial disparities in the criminal "justice" system, his coming to terms that the people he was imprisoned with would be his "brothers and sisters" while there, six run-ins that could have taken an awful turn (and many more minor run-ins), the importance of not being passive nor too aggressive in prison, and knowing that people could walk in through an inmate's unlocked cell door and even kill them.
Fleet made the best of his prison situation. Helped other inmates along the way, and emerged from prison -- whether immediately or later -- a ball of positive energy and inspiration. This Beat the Prosecution interview with Fleet Maull is riveting.
This episode is also available on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fi33kl8qIFQ and Apple Podcasts. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/winning-with-resilience-while-ready-for-danger-fleet-maull/id1721413675?i=1000772153117
This podcast with Fairfax, Virginia criminal / DUI lawyer Jon Katz is playable on all devices at podcast.BeatTheProsecution.com. For more information, visit https://KatzJustice.com or contact us at [email protected], 703-383-1100 (calling), or 571-406-7268 (text).
If you like what you hear on our Beat the Prosecution podcast, please take a moment to post a review at our Apple podcasts page (with stars only, or else also with a comment) at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beat-the-prosecution/id1721413675Former felony public defender chief Eric Davis on incorporating Trial Lawyers College methods for court victory
Send us Fan MailObtaining justice in court is a never-ending process of learning; self-development; blood, sweat and tears; self discovery; inter-discovery; often deep pain that can transform into strength and …
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Obtaining justice in court is a never-ending process of learning; self-development; blood, sweat and tears; self discovery; inter-discovery; often deep pain that can transform into strength and growth, but often with more pain along the way; banding together with birds of a feather; and giving back what we have learned. Texas criminal defense lawyer -- moved recently from Houston to Maryland -- Eric J. Davis (until he has a website, reachable at [email protected] and 713-227-2727) believes strongly in giving back what he has learned, and in integrating what he learns into what he already knows, rather than shedding valuable experience and ability with the latest teachings.
Fairfax, Virginia criminal defense lawyer Jon Katz met Eric at the spring 2026 National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers program, and learned that Eric, like Jon, is a Trial Lawyers College alum, where Eric is on the TLC board and staff. Eric is also a member of the NACDL board of directors. He states straight out that the criminal justice system evolved out of racism, and finds positive ways to deal with that, including bringing race to the attention of jurors so that they will help criminal defendants when they spot racial bias and unfairness.
Eric is full of optimistic energy and fight, including in talking about his acquittal for a firearm defendant by focusing on how police rushed to judgment and narrowed themselves to finding evidence to prove him guilty, rather than considering other possible suspects after finding a firearm in an empty vehicle.
Eric talks about how his experience with the Trial Lawyers College and its focus on psychodrama and storytelling helped him feel freer in pursuing justice for his clients, including focusing on the emotions of the case, the emotions of the jurors and of the actors in the case and their motivations for how they acted.
Eric tells a great personal story during jury selection / voir dire to inspire them to be open about racial issues -- rather than expecting to transform their prejudices in the short timespan of a trial -- by recounting how he had his defenses up when walking to fill his empty gas tank when a truck with an older white driver slowed down, and how the driver -- after they learned how much they had in common -- told Eric how he at first thought Eric was up to no good, and Eric confessed to having first had the same view of the truck driver. And then Eric asks the jurors about any assumptions they are making about race, to start the discussion. Pure brilliance.
Rules that help for a fair trial for a criminal defendant are great, but often are few and far between, and are not always sufficiently enforced. That is why I prominently display a Gladiator film clip board in my office, as a reminder of how Russell Crowe's Maximus Decimus Meridius and his teammates win despite the absence of any rules protecting them, and despite the lowest and basest violence from their opponents. Eric Davis reminds us that we can win justice for criminal defendants even when the rules do not appear to be in our favor nor to be sufficiently enforced when those rules are favorable to criminal defendants. He starts by diving deep into the jury selection process, with conversations in which he steers guilty verdict-leaning jurors closer to his side, sometimes by adding one variation to the conversation at a time. (See minute 29 in his presentation here.) We can open and widen avenues to acquittal.
This Beat the Prosecution episode is also available on YouTube and Apple podcasts.
This podcast with Fairfax, Virginia criminal / DUI lawyer Jon Katz is playable on all devices at podcast.BeatTheProsecution.com. For more information, visit https://KatzJustice.com or contact us at [email protected], 703-383-1100 (calling), or 571-406-7268 (text).
If you like what you hear on our Beat the Prosecution podcast, please take a moment to post a review at our Apple podcasts page (with stars only, or else also with a comment) at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beat-the-prosecution/id1721413675Donald Ramsell on the power of earning the jury's trust and ears
Send us Fan MailJurors and others do not get persuaded by brute force, badgering nor begging. Often a criminal defense or other trial lawyer obtains traction by putting themselves in the shoes of the thirteenth …
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Jurors and others do not get persuaded by brute force, badgering nor begging. Often a criminal defense or other trial lawyer obtains traction by putting themselves in the shoes of the thirteenth juror. When my teacher Gerry Spence was on his road to obtaining an acquittal for Geoffrey Fieger, he reportedly one day walked along the jury rail sweeping his palm alongside its top, as if erasing the barrier between him and the jurors.
Fairfax criminal lawyer Jon Katz's guest on this Beat the Prosecution podcast episode is Wheaton, Illinois, DUI defense lawyer Donald Ramsell. Don does not have the winning charisma of Gerry Spence, but charisma is not mandatory to persuade jurors, as demonstrated time and again by my teacher Steve Rench, who incorporated methodology into winning. Steve was the yin to Gerry's yang, with both at the Trial Lawyers College for at least its first three years. Don synthesizes that methodology with a singleminded drive for knowing and incorporating the essential science, evidence, law, and the persuasive tasks at hand.
Don fashions himself as the entertaining tourguide, showing the jurors the path to help them fulfill their oaths, and hopefully delivering an acquittal. Don paints the counterpoint of the uninteresting prosecutor attempting to dissuade the jury from the reasonable doubt that bombards the courtroom walls.
Listen as Don talks about a police employee who retired to his home's basement -- rather than a sterile lab -- disastrously to manufacture the simulator solution control mechanism for breathalyzer machines, and how he successfully stymied the blood THC testing regime in Illinois.
Don aptly talks about letting judges know that when they do not rule sensibly on the law, Don appeals often enough that they may get reversed. Plenty of Don's appeals are pro bono, to advance legal arguments that will assist his other clients.
To boot, Don -- like so many of his National College for DUI Defense colleagues -- generously shares his know-how and wisdom with DUI defense colleagues. Through that generosity, I met Don when I attended an NCDD-sponsored training for lawyers on administering field sobriety testing to subjects who have consumed alcohol, with the teaching led by Anthony Pallacios, one of the nation's leading instructors of FSTs to police officers.
Don obtains acquittals in his conservative jurisdiction in part by appealing to jurors' belief in our nation's criminal justice system, which of course includes the presumption of innocence and the burden of the prosecution to prove a criminal defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Don talks persuasively as just folks, and as the real McCoy.
This podcast with Fairfax, Virginia criminal / DUI lawyer Jon Katz is playable on all devices at podcast.BeatTheProsecution.com. For more information, visit https://KatzJustice.com or contact us at [email protected], 703-383-1100 (calling), or 571-406-7268 (text).
If you like what you hear on our Beat the Prosecution podcast, please take a moment to post a review at our Apple podcasts page (with stars only, or else also with a comment) at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beat-the-prosecution/id1721413675Harnessing our realness and truth telling to win in court- Patrick McLain
Send us Fan MailWinning through engagement as one's true self- Dallas attorney Patrick McLain joins fellow Trial Lawyers College alum and Fairfax criminal lawyer Jon Katz in discussing revealing our true …
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Winning through engagement as one's true self- Dallas attorney Patrick McLain joins fellow Trial Lawyers College alum and Fairfax criminal lawyer Jon Katz in discussing revealing our true selves -- warts and all -- to jurors and judges, so that they will also be true to themselves and each other and to their oaths.
Jon Katz met Patrick -- a Trial Lawyers College faculty member -- through the monthly trial preparation gatherings hosted by fellow Trial Lawyers College alum and faculty member Christopher Flohr . Patrick is a Marine veteran who was a military lawyer and judge, now for many years in private practice for military defense and criminal defense.
Patrick discusses applying storytelling and psychodrama approaches to obtaining justice for criminal defendants, and the power of lawyers joining together in pursuing that path.
In this talk, Patrick includes discussing the bonds among military members from the rough times they experience, and the bonds among Trial Lawyers College attendees, with our own challenges that we handle in pursuing justice for our clients. This journey can lay bare our raw feelings and emotions, which is often the only way for us to best help our clients.This Beat the Prosecution podcast episode is also available on YouTube, and Apple Podcasts.
This podcast with Fairfax, Virginia criminal / DUI lawyer Jon Katz is playable on all devices at podcast.BeatTheProsecution.com. For more information, visit https://KatzJustice.com or contact us at [email protected], 703-383-1100 (calling), or 571-406-7268 (text).
If you like what you hear on our Beat the Prosecution podcast, please take a moment to post a review at our Apple podcasts page (with stars only, or else also with a comment) at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beat-the-prosecution/id1721413675Using MacGuffins and heroes' journeys for obtaining justice for criminal defendants
Send us Fan MailThe Trial Lawyers College -- which your host Jonathan Katz attended in 1995, followed to this day during the year with periodic trial preparation gatherings of TLC alums and others (shout out to …
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The Trial Lawyers College -- which your host Jonathan Katz attended in 1995, followed to this day during the year with periodic trial preparation gatherings of TLC alums and others (shout out to our repeat co-host, criminal defense lawyer supreme, and my decades-long friend Christopher Flohr for hosting such monthly gatherings for years at his Maryland law office) -- makes clear that the TLC does not "offer training for those lawyers who represent government, corporations or large business interests." A sizeable chunk of Trial Lawyers College attendees are criminal defense and plaintiffs personal injury attorneys. When Jon learned that National College of DUI Defense leader Andrew Mishlove embraces Trial Lawyers College approaches, Jon Katz invited him to speak on this Beat the Prosecution podcast, to include addressing integrating TLC approaches with winning DUI defense.
Andrew exemplifies the truism that there are always more essential lessons to learn. When he was already in his fifties and very accomplished as a DUI defense lawyer, Andrew learned about the Trial Lawyers College and immediately embraced its approach of persuading through storytelling and applying psychodram and scene setting approaches.
Andrew is right on point in talking about the story catalyst that Alfred Hitchcock named the MacGuffin, and the hero's journey of the story. He wonderfully weaves My Cousin Vinny and Star Wars in articulating that approach.
Andrew also discusses using the Moth storytelling approach (see his article on the Moth here) -- which is covered at the TLC's Graduate II program -- giving credit to Nebraska lawyer Maren Chaloupka, who addresses storytelling as involving the story worth telling, running from extraordinary to every day events that can be transformative.
Andrew also here discusses his week-long annual program with the NCDD entitled
Serious Science: Advanced Course in Blood Drug Analysis & Trial Advocacy, where in addition to focusing on persuading for justice for the defense in court, the participants have an opportunity to experience blood analysis from the viewpoint and approach of blood examining and analyzing scientists, whether their testimony is for the defense or prosecution.This episode is also available on YouTube and Apple Podcasts.
This podcast with Fairfax, Virginia criminal / DUI lawyer Jon Katz is playable on all devices at podcast.BeatTheProsecution.com. For more information, visit https://KatzJustice.com or contact us at [email protected], 703-383-1100 (calling), or 571-406-7268 (text).
If you like what you hear on our Beat the Prosecution podcast, please take a moment to post a review at our Apple podcasts page (with stars only, or else also with a comment) at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beat-the-prosecution/id1721413675When we care about all sentient beings, criminal defendants benefit.
Send us Fan MailCriminal defense lawyers can learn plenty from non-lawyers who courageously and optimistically blaze their own trails, stick to their guns in very challenging times, are resilient, and keep on …
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Criminal defense lawyers can learn plenty from non-lawyers who courageously and optimistically blaze their own trails, stick to their guns in very challenging times, are resilient, and keep on blazing trails. For Fairfax, Virginia, criminal defense lawyer Jonathan Katz, Miyoko Schinner fits that bill.
Miyoko Schinner became a vegan, missed the dairy that she loved with pasta and other dishes, and became a pioneer with Miyoko's Creamery, which quickly went nationwide on major grocery shelves with vegan mozzarellla and other cheese, and butter. Along the way, and with Miyoko's rebellious streak, her company won a 2021 First Amendment-protecting partial federal injunction barring the California government from restricting "Miyoko’s use of 'butter,' 'lactose free,' 'cruelty free,' and 'revolutionizing dairy with plants' on the company’s 'vegan butter'."
Around ten years ago, Miyoko founded the animal sanctuary Rancho Compasión (here is the donation link), which thrives to this day with dozens of rescued animals, several staffmembers, and many students visiting throughout the year. She supports a support forum for women in business.
As Miyoko says, she does not promote veganism by such abrasive approaches as throwing blood, but instead invites people to break bread over delicious vegan food, creates vegan cookbooks, brings people on worldwide vegan tours, and co-taught a Berkely college class on plant-centric food systems.
When Jon Katz met Miyoko for the second time, at the 2022 Animal and Vegan Advocacy Summit, he did not know that she had been removed (or else was about to be removed) from the very Miyoko's Creamery that she had founded. Unlike Steve Jobs's revolving door with the Apple company he co-founded, Miyoko did not return to Miyoko's Creamery, and pivoted forwards.
Criminal defense involves plenty of thrills of victory, agonies of defeat, the lack of any supporters in the courtroom other than those on the defense team, and constant retooling, regrouping and refining on the road to victory. In this Beat the Prosecution episode, Miyoko talks frankly of how she emerged from being ousted from the company she founded (while her marriage was ending, at that), partly through the support and love of people who cared about her, and also from her companion animals.
This episode also is on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijpVhPKWswI
This podcast with Fairfax, Virginia criminal / DUI lawyer Jon Katz is playable on all devices at podcast.BeatTheProsecution.com. For more information, visit https://KatzJustice.com or contact us at [email protected], 703-383-1100 (calling), or 571-406-7268 (text).
If you like what you hear on our Beat the Prosecution podcast, please take a moment to post a review at our Apple podcasts page (with stars only, or else also with a comment) at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beat-the-prosecution/id1721413675Jon Katz's Trial Lawyers College roommate Bob Hilliard- His genius benefits criminal defense lawyers
Send us Fan MailWhat do non-ego, blue jeans, and tireless work have to do with beating the prosecution? Join us as Fairfax, Northern Virginia, criminal and DUI lawyer Jonathan Katz talks in depth with Corpus …
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What do non-ego, blue jeans, and tireless work have to do with beating the prosecution? Join us as Fairfax, Northern Virginia, criminal and DUI lawyer Jonathan Katz talks in depth with Corpus Christi, Texas, trial lawyer Robert C. Hilliard, who was Jon's roommate at the Trial Lawyers College. https://hilliard-law.com
Bob got a man released from prison after over two years in jail for a vehicular homicide conviction, where Bob proved that the collision was actually caused by a defective vehicle acceleration.
Bob argued right up to the United States Supreme Court for the right to sue a United States Border Patrol agent for his cross-border fatal shooting of a teenager. Hernandez v. Mesa, 589 U.S. 93 (2000) (a 5-4 decision declining to permit such a cause of action for a cross-border shooting). Bob Hilliard pursues victory for his clients without ego, without airs, and with hard and smart work.
In this episode, we talk about being authentic and powerfully vulnerable, and about the connections we make with our loved ones, with each other and with jurors. We include discussing our late friend Dax Cowart, and Bob talks about how meaningful it is to have Dax's walking stick in his office. Bob and I have not seen each other in person for years, and here pick up where we last left off, as if it was yesterday.
This episode also is available on Apple podcasts.
This podcast with Fairfax, Virginia criminal / DUI lawyer Jon Katz is playable on all devices at podcast.BeatTheProsecution.com. For more information, visit https://KatzJustice.com or contact us at [email protected], 703-383-1100 (calling), or 571-406-7268 (text).
If you like what you hear on our Beat the Prosecution podcast, please take a moment to post a review at our Apple podcasts page (with stars only, or else also with a comment) at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beat-the-prosecution/id1721413675How did Afroman / Edgar Foreman convince his jury to reject the police defamation & privacy invasion lawsuit?
Send us Fan MailAfroman / Joseph Edgar Foreman turned lemons into lemonade (or was that Lemon Poundcake?) after police executed a search warrant on his home and were left without incriminating evidence, unless …
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Afroman / Joseph Edgar Foreman turned lemons into lemonade (or was that Lemon Poundcake?) after police executed a search warrant on his home and were left without incriminating evidence, unless a few blunts is incriminating. Instead of complaining about that on social media and in letters to newspaper editors, rapper Joseph Foreman turned the camera onto police and included creating and performing songs about the incident, including his humorous "Lemon Poundcake" music video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xxK5yyecRo , featuring footage from Foreman's kitchen security camera, where he opines at how one of the law enforcement officers seems enticed by the lemon poundcake sitting out in the open. Talk about free advertising for the poundcake industry.
Granted that Foreman, after the search, also made comments about various police officers involved with the search that they claimed was libelous, but their umbrage even at having their lawfully videotaped actions replayed to the world comes across as hubris.
Numerous police officers as a group sued Foreman for defamation and privacy invasion. On March 19, 2026, after several hours of deliberation, the jury rightfully handed Foreman an essential First Amendment victory with a verdict in his favor.
In this Beat the Prosecution episode, Fairfax criminal lawyer Jonathan Katz unveils the seeming mystery of Foreman's lawyer David Osborne, Jr. (at least for his having no website) and addresses David's hard work that resulted in this jury verdict that was by no means assured, based on the allegations of falsehoods being told by Foreman about numerous police officers. Good for David for focusing the jury on the very exaggerating way in which Foreman communicates, including with his flamboyant approach to dressing.
The bottom line is that police serve the public, and not vice versa. Law enforcement officers should be careful in seeking and executing search warrants, when considering the havoc and invasion of privacy that such actions can cause, and should consider the extent to which a search warrant will not uncover any illegal activity. Police should not seek to intimidate people from exercising their First Amendment-protected free expression by suing them for lawful activity.The YouTube version of this Beat the Prosecution podcast interview is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8h95QJickMw
Fairfax Criminal Lawyer / Virginia DUI Attorney Jonathan L. Katz pursues your best defense against felony, misdemeanor, DUI, drug, felony and misdemeanor prosecutions, defending in Fairfax County, Arlington, Loudoun, Prince William & Beyond.
Call 703-383-1100 for a free in-person consultation with Jon Katz about your court-pending criminal case. KatzJustice.comThis podcast with Fairfax, Virginia criminal / DUI lawyer Jon Katz is playable on all devices at podcast.BeatTheProsecution.com. For more information, visit https://KatzJustice.com or contact us at [email protected], 703-383-1100 (calling), or 571-406-7268 (text).
If you like what you hear on our Beat the Prosecution podcast, please take a moment to post a review at our Apple podcasts page (with stars only, or else also with a comment) at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beat-the-prosecution/id1721413675Accomplished DUI defense lawyer Lenny Stamm gets great results with focused work, and without pizzazz
Send us Fan MailFairfax criminal lawyer Jonathan Katz believes strongly in finding calm in the eye of the storm while pursuing his criminal defense clients' best defense in court. Among the criminal …
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Fairfax criminal lawyer Jonathan Katz believes strongly in finding calm in the eye of the storm while pursuing his criminal defense clients' best defense in court. Among the criminal defense lawyers who struck Jon Katz early on with their ability and devotion to their clients -- and remaining unrattled in court -- is Lenny Stamm.
While a law clerk at a general practice law firm, Lenny met his mentor Alan Goldstein, who was known widely in Maryland for his excellence in criminal defense combined with humor and likeability. They became law partners. Alan passed away in 1991, and Lenny continued practicing as the law firm of Goldstein & Stamm. Lenny is very generous of his time with colleagues, and numerous times has taken Jon's calls and emails for finding the path to victory in court.
Lenny is a dean of Maryland DUI and criminal defense lawyers, and is very active with the National College of DUI Defense, that Jon belongs to. Check out Lenny's DUI Law treatise.
In this Beat the Prosecution podcast discussion, Lenny addresses taking multi-pronged approaches to courtroom wins, including dissecting, analyzing, and synthesizing the law and evidence; approaching seemingly common issues from a fresh perspective; making winning Fourth Amendment and other Constitutional challenges; skillfully cross examining prosecutions witnesses; being resilient with losses and finding ways to transform them into subsequent success; and planting and watering seeds in the minds of those we are endeavoring to persuade.
This episode is also available on YouTube and Apple podcasts.
This podcast with Fairfax, Virginia criminal / DUI lawyer Jon Katz is playable on all devices at podcast.BeatTheProsecution.com. For more information, visit https://KatzJustice.com or contact us at [email protected], 703-383-1100 (calling), or 571-406-7268 (text).
If you like what you hear on our Beat the Prosecution podcast, please take a moment to post a review at our Apple podcasts page (with stars only, or else also with a comment) at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beat-the-prosecution/id1721413675Fierce civility coach Joe Weston on not giving up our power
Send us Fan MailConflict prevention coach, TEDx speaker on curing chronic niceness, adviser to inmates, and stress management consultant Joe Weston talks about applying the same taijiquan form that Fairfax …
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Conflict prevention coach, TEDx speaker on curing chronic niceness, adviser to inmates, and stress management consultant Joe Weston talks about applying the same taijiquan form that Fairfax criminal defense lawyer Jon Katz practices daily, Fierce Civility and Respectful Confrontation to court and beyond.
Check out Joe's books, Global Heart Gathering and TedTalk.
Jon Katz has known Joe Weston for years, and recommends his writings, talks and services.This podcast is also available on YouTube and Apple podcasts.
This podcast with Fairfax, Virginia criminal / DUI lawyer Jon Katz is playable on all devices at podcast.BeatTheProsecution.com. For more information, visit https://KatzJustice.com or contact us at [email protected], 703-383-1100 (calling), or 571-406-7268 (text).
If you like what you hear on our Beat the Prosecution podcast, please take a moment to post a review at our Apple podcasts page (with stars only, or else also with a comment) at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beat-the-prosecution/id1721413675Chade-Meng Tan- -- Google's Search Inside Yourself co-founder -- applying mindfulness and compassion
Send us Fan MailChade-Meng Tan when a Google engineer was the company's Jolly Good Fellow (Which nobody can deny) . Meng decided one day on the then-small Google campus to promote world peace, which led to …
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Chade-Meng Tan when a Google engineer was the company's Jolly Good Fellow (Which nobody can deny) . Meng decided one day on the then-small Google campus to promote world peace, which led to his successfully working with a team to bring mindfulness to Google's engineers and beyond, through the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute (yes, Silly). His book Search Inside Yourself addresses that program and mindfulness itself. Following up on mindfulness is Meng's great Joy on Demand book about mindfulness, peace, joy and compassion. Rounding out his book authoriship is Buddhism for All: The Joyful Path to Enlightenment, with co-author Soryu Forall. . Meng's projects also involve his work with Buddhism.net and Billion Acts of Peace
Fairfax criminal lawyer Jonathan Katz sought out Meng as an interviewee not only for Meng's infectious optimism, but also for his engaged action in making this world a better and happier place, his at-once fun and beneficial approach and roadmap with mindfulness, and Meng's frankness about his deep depression that preceded his grabbing a lifetime of mindfulness practice by the horns. All of this -- together with Meng's focus on good-natured and often silly humor -- ties in well with Jon Katz's incorporation of mindfulness and his taijiquan marital art into his criminal defense work and helping clients emerge out of the dark places that many of them experience at times while pursuing their best possible court outcome.
Mindfulness is not a spectator sport. Some additional great and quick instructions to get started include Jon Kabat-Zinn's Mindfulness for Beginners and his 2007 talk at Google that introduced me to Meng, who blames Jon for his jollyness.This episode is also available on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVYy64AK9Rw
This podcast with Fairfax, Virginia criminal / DUI lawyer Jon Katz is playable on all devices at podcast.BeatTheProsecution.com. For more information, visit https://KatzJustice.com or contact us at [email protected], 703-383-1100 (calling), or 571-406-7268 (text).
If you like what you hear on our Beat the Prosecution podcast, please take a moment to post a review at our Apple podcasts page (with stars only, or else also with a comment) at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beat-the-prosecution/id1721413675Sister Helen Prejean of Dead Man Walking- On handling her death chamber ordeal and beyond
Send us Fan MailSister Helen Prejean -- author of Dead Man Walking -- (donate at sisterhelen.org/donate ) joins Fairfax criminal lawyer / Virginia DUI lawyer Jonathan Katz and Severna Park, Maryland criminal …
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Sister Helen Prejean -- author of Dead Man Walking -- (donate at sisterhelen.org/donate ) joins Fairfax criminal lawyer / Virginia DUI lawyer Jonathan Katz and Severna Park, Maryland criminal defense attorney Christopher Flohr about defending those charged with capital crimes and other alleged offenses, humanizing the accused, abolishing the death penalty, pouring our caring and souls into helping criminal defendants, persuading through gripping storytelling, overcoming burnout, enlivening hope, and keeping the fire burning.
When Jon Katz first met Sister Helen over thirty years ago, walking up to her with a question about abolishing capital punishment, she drew his soul and forearm to her center and focused Jon on keeping our eyes on the prize of ending the death penalty.
Sister Helen has stayed with death row inmates right through the points of their state-sponsored killings. She knows the possibility of changing anyone to becoming a better person and to being persuaded to do right. She has been at this for decades.This episode is also available on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMM6l1uu7ns and at Apple podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sister-helen-prejean-of-dead-man-walking-winning-by/id1721413675?i=1000751852528
This podcast with Fairfax, Virginia criminal / DUI lawyer Jon Katz is playable on all devices at podcast.BeatTheProsecution.com. For more information, visit https://KatzJustice.com or contact us at [email protected], 703-383-1100 (calling), or 571-406-7268 (text).
If you like what you hear on our Beat the Prosecution podcast, please take a moment to post a review at our Apple podcasts page (with stars only, or else also with a comment) at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beat-the-prosecution/id1721413675Restorative justice leader sujatha baliga on pursuing real restorative justice.
Send us Fan MailSome remarkable people walk among us. One of them is sujatha baliga (spelling her name without capitalization), who greets people with "warm hellos." sujatha is a leader in restorative justice …
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Some remarkable people walk among us. One of them is sujatha baliga (spelling her name without capitalization), who greets people with "warm hellos." sujatha is a leader in restorative justice, a practitioner of mindfulness, and a self-described (at least at one point) survivor of childhood sexual abuse by her father. Fairfax criminal lawyer Jonathan Katz first learned about sujatha several years ago through her combination of being a lawyer involved with mindfulness and restorative justice.
As sujatha explains, with restorative justice, the focus is not on what law was broken, but who was harmed, what the harmed person needs, and who has the obligation to meet those needs. For instance, here sujatha movingly talks about an impasse broken when the subject of a car theft and attendant $4000 loss learned that the person who caused the theft was an artist, and she agreed to resolve the matter by his creating a Tinkerbell image for her.
Jon thanks his longtime friend and fellow criminal defense lawyer Christopher Flohr for suggesting asking sujatha about the effectiveness of restorative justice when sex offenses are alleged. The story sujatha tells of the transformation of a sexual assault victim participating in an intensive restorative justice proceeding, ultimately hugging her alleged assailant, is even more remarkable than the above Tinkerbell story.
sujatha's transformation away from anger is remarkable after her father sexually abused her as a child, and after she was beaten up in school when the only student of color in a small community. At one point, sujatha wanted to be a prosecutor, but her time in India and ultimate first meeting with the Dalai Lama transformed her to the path of being a public defender lawyer. (Listen to how she would effectively cross examine a child accuser in criminal court.)
You can meet and learn from sujatha at her in-person Spiritual Fitness program starting April 11-12, 2026. in Richmond, California. On various Monday evenings, she leads meditation gatherings. Stay tuned for sujatha's first book due for publication this year, Angry Long Enough, by One World/Penguin Random House.
This episode is also available on YouTube.
This podcast with Fairfax, Virginia criminal / DUI lawyer Jon Katz is playable on all devices at podcast.BeatTheProsecution.com. For more information, visit https://KatzJustice.com or contact us at [email protected], 703-383-1100 (calling), or 571-406-7268 (text).
If you like what you hear on our Beat the Prosecution podcast, please take a moment to post a review at our Apple podcasts page (with stars only, or else also with a comment) at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beat-the-prosecution/id1721413675Mindfulness teacher Mirabai Bush on Ram Dass, Maharaji and more
Send us Fan MailIn 1971, Mirabai Bush traveled to India, and found more than she bargained for. Fairfax criminal lawyer Jonathan Katz would hear about Mirabai over the years, through her being a devotee of the …
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In 1971, Mirabai Bush traveled to India, and found more than she bargained for. Fairfax criminal lawyer Jonathan Katz would hear about Mirabai over the years, through her being a devotee of the late Neem Karoli Baba / Maharaji, being among the teachers at the annual Maui retreats with Ram Dass, and finally by my meeting her at the 2015 Mindful Leadership conference.
In this Beat the Prosecution podcast episode, Jon Katz talks with Mirabai about her decades-long journey with mindfulness, love, service, empowering women, racial justice and much more, including discussing her 2025 book Almost Home: Dharma, Social Change, and the Power of Love. By the end of this one hour interview, Jon wanted to talk about much more with Mirabai, including such matters covered in her book Almost Home as the Seva Foundation, which was started to reverse blindness among millions of people; her role in developing Google's Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute (SIYLI); her involvement with Naropa University in its infancy; her connection to the Doors' John Densmore; and her involvement with The Well online community.
Many lawyers are involved with mindfulness, and Jon Katz has attended two long weekend mindfulness retreats, the last one being silent except for group discussions and question and answer periods, at the Garrison Institute. Mirabai's work has included bringing mindfulness to lawyers and law students.
Mirabai's initial view about how lawyers can help themselves is through genuinely listening, and through compassion. The listening part is a key to Jon's daily taijiquan martial art. The compassion is not only about compassion to opponents -- still necessitating being merciless to the opposition when needed in serving justice -- but also compassion for one's self.
This episode is also available on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDSBB8UiPgo
This podcast with Fairfax, Virginia criminal / DUI lawyer Jon Katz is playable on all devices at podcast.BeatTheProsecution.com. For more information, visit https://KatzJustice.com or contact us at [email protected], 703-383-1100 (calling), or 571-406-7268 (text).
If you like what you hear on our Beat the Prosecution podcast, please take a moment to post a review at our Apple podcasts page (with stars only, or else also with a comment) at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beat-the-prosecution/id1721413675
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