Recent Blog Posts

FAMU Marching Band Suspended Another Year for Hazing Death

Atlanta Criminal Defense Lawyer — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:50:00 GMT

On Monday, May 14, the president of Florida A&M University said that the school's famous marching band would be suspended for at least one more year following the death of Robert Champion during a hazing ritual in November. FAMU President James Ammons said the group will be suspended until a new band director is hired and the program rewrites its current rules. The school wants to remove the hazing mentality that led to the student's death, Ammons stated.

Champion died on a band bus while the band was stopped at an Orlando hotel, which led the school to increase the number of adults that must chaperone out-of-town trips, as well as institute new guidelines for eligibility and academic standards. In relation to the man's death, two band members face misdemeanor charges and eleven members have been charged with felony offenses. One of the alleged attackers was previously charged with assaulting another band member in a prior hazing incident.

Allegations of violent crimes carry serious penalties if convicted. If you have been charged with assault or any type of violent offense, a criminal defense attorney in Atlanta, GA may be able to help. Our skilled team has the knowledge and legal resources you need to challenge your accusations and fight to protect your rights and freedoms. We will thoroughly examine the evidence and charges brought against you to develop a powerful and comprehensive defense strategy and provide your case with the aggressive advocacy and smart counsel needed to give you the best opportunity of achieving a beneficial verdict. If you take the time to contact an Atlanta violent crime lawyer, you can be confident that your civil rights will not be violated and that you will receive compelling representation to help defend your future. Do not wait another moment; contact an Atlanta violent crime lawyer at Conaway & Strickler, P.C. today!

Children Back in School After Being Charged with Sex Crimes

Atlanta Criminal Defense Lawyer — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:19:00 GMT

CBS Atlanta recently learned that children who are charged with sex crimes like child rape and molestation are being placed back into Georgia's classrooms. Hundreds of kids accused of sex crimes as juveniles have their records sealed and their identities hidden from the public and are returning to school.

For example, in Rockdale County, a 15-year-old boy was arrested in June for molesting a 5-year-old girl and the judge ordered for the child to be returned to school. The boy's father argued "He's not a bad kid. He just made a mistake", but other parents were outraged at the judge's decision. Georgia is one of eleven states that have not yet set up a sex offender registry for juveniles, and the state is currently passing up around one million dollars by failing to comply with federal regulations requiring it to do so.

If you or someone you love has been charged with a sex crime of any type, you need the legal assistance of an Atlanta criminal defense attorney. For almost two decades, Conaway & Strickler, P.C. has defended the rights of our clients with personal attention and skilled representation. If convicted, you could face serious lifelong penalties, so contact an Atlanta criminal defense lawyer today.

Doctor Charged in Health Care Fraud

Meg Strickler — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 19:42:00 GMT

A Roswell, Ga doctor was charged with tax and health care fraud. Please see attached article:

http://roswell.patch.com/articles/roswell-doctor-charged-with-health-care-and-tax-fraud

DUI costs

Meg Strickler — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 18:38:00 GMT

If you are charged with a DUI in the state of Georgia, you will be hit with several costs BEFORE you ever go to court to address the charges. Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?! You WILL have to pay $150 to request a hearing re your driver's license. Please see http://www.dds.ga.gov/rules/rules.aspx?chap=375-3-3&rule=375-3-3-.04&head=375-3. In addition, you will have to pay at least $25 or up to $75 to get a copy of your DUI video, depending on the jurisdiction. And finally, you will have to pay a few dollars to get a copy of the police report. Again, this is all before you go to court to address the charges. Conaway & Strickler, PC has been fighting DUIs since the 90's - these changes have only come into effect with the downturn of the economy. The $150 just became effective in September, 2010. How ridiculous and how unconstitutional for the government to institute these charges - again, long before you actually get to court.

Death Penalty

Meg Strickler — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 21:18:00 GMT

please read this fascinating article re the death penalty:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/dec/23/death-sentence/?page=1

Getting arrested and thrown to the Wolves

Dan Conaway — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 20:20:00 GMT

Millions of American citizens are arrested by the police every year: detained, questioned, handcuffed, stuffed into the back of a police cruiser, and thrown in jail. Many of them never expected it to happen to them. These individuals are often shocked to find themselves fighting for their liberties, their reputations, and their futures in the clutches of The Beast – the impersonal, aggressive, bureaucratic, politically-charged, economically-motivated nightmare that is today’s criminal justice system. As America’s criminal justice system becomes ever larger and more powerful, it is time to ask ourselves: what should we be more afraid of? the criminals? or The Beast?

Popularized in a vast array of television shows – “Law and Order,” “CSI,” “Cold Case,” “COPS,” and “Nancy Grace,” to name a few – as white-knight police and prosecutors battling wily criminals with slick defense lawyers, the criminal justice system is widely misunderstood by the average American. The “good guy – bad guy” image is reinforced by politicians of every stripe vowing to be “tough on crime” and by special-interest groups promoting Zero Tolerance policies on the streets, in the schools, and in the workplaces. What most Americans fail to realize is that the effect of our law-and-order political philosophy has been the passage of many more criminal laws, broader definitions of what constitutes a crime, greater restrictions on civil liberties, and harsher punishments.

In the many years of defending individuals charged with crimes, Dan Conaway of Conaway & Strickler, PC has found that most of his clients have never been arrested before, or have had only minor previous infractions. Instead of hardened offenders who know how to “beat the system,” as they are portrayed on the television shows, many people questioned or arrested by the police are just ordinary individuals who have run afoul of the law. They are nearly always terrified, confused, and completely ignorant about what to do next. What’s more, because the ramifications of a conviction – even for a minor offense – have increased exponentially over the past two decades, a single misstep early on can lead to disastrous results.

In the belly of The Beast there are few chances to “work things out” with the police and prosecutors. There are arrests instead of warnings, convictions instead leniency, and few second chances. In the age of the Internet and the rise in corporate surveillance, the consequences of having even a single conviction on your record can be life-long and devastating.

Champions of “law and order” policing often take aim at the rights of criminal defendants. But these rights are not “trivial and arcane,” as a “Law and Order” character once called them. They are based in the U.S. Constitution. The founding fathers put them there to protect individual citizens from the absolute power of the government. Unlike in medieval England – or Saddam Hussein’s Iraq -- the police cannot force you to answer questions without consulting an attorney. They cannot send you to prison without a trial. And you cannot be found guilty unless the government proves its case against you beyond a reasonable doubt.

If you are in need of an experienced Georgia criminal defense attorney to help you navigate the treacherous criminal justice system minefield, call Conaway & Strickler, PC now! Let us help you.

Good Decent Law-Abiding Citizens Not Immune to Facing Georgia Criminal Charges

Dan Conaway — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 20:15:00 GMT

Life can be messy. This is the fundamental truth that being an Atlanta criminal defense lawyer has taught me. We all know what living in modern American society is like. Stressed-out, overworked, we all strive to pay the bills, raise our families, find love and happiness, maintain employment, stay away from abusing alcohol or drugs, and somehow keep juggling all the balls of day-to-day life. When a Good Decent Law-Abiding Citizen is arrested, it often means that one of these balls got dropped.

Working with my clients has taught me better than any philosophy class that as human beings we are all innately fallible. As a criminal defense lawyer I have no need to be reminded that “to err is human”– I see it every day. My clients are people like these:

· Sasha, on scholarship to an exclusive private college in Boston. Under pressure to conform to the lifestyles of her wealthy friends, she succumbed to the pressure to shoplift a party dress “just this once.” The store’s policy against selective prosecution landed Sasha in jail and sent her parents frantically seeking legal advice.

· Joe, a contractor, family man, and supporter of his local law-and-order politicians. When the police pulled him over one evening for failing to stop completely at a stop sign, he failed a breathalyzer test and found himself in jail on a Georgia DUI charge .

· Martha, a single woman in her twenties who worked as a bookkeeper. When she resorted to “borrowing” from the company accounts to pay some overdue bills, the company fired her and had her arrested.

· Jerry, a long-distance trucker with a wife and two kids. The pressure to provide “just on time delivery” for his big corporate clients led Jerry to boost his drive time with crystal meth. Stopped for a moving violation, Jerry couldn’t hide the signs of habitual drug use from the officer, who arrested him and took him to jail.

· Bill and Dana, a married couple who got into a fight one night. She got so angry that she threw a glass at him. When he shouted and threw her onto the couch, she called 911. When the police came to find the fight had blown over, but because of a Zero Tolerance arrest policy they still charged Bill with battery and Dana with aggravated assault .

The politicians and the “law and order” radio and television talk-show types boost their ratings by ranting and raving about our need to “lock everybody up who commits a crime and throw away the key.” They would be looking at things quite differently, I am sure, if it was themselves or their own son or daughter standing in a courtroom accused of a criminal act and facing jail or prison and a lifetime of being branded a “criminal.” It turns out the line between criminal and Good Decent Law-Abiding Citizen is hazy at best.

The reality is that it is much easier today for the average person to be arrested than it was twenty or thirty years ago. Many actions for which people are arrested nowadays would have been dealt with very differently a generation ago. Either they would not have involved the police at all, or they would have involved only a warning or some other conduct by an officer short of making an arrest. This situation is a result of numerous changes in the criminal justice system over the past few decades, including the expanded definition of crimes, the creation of new classes of crimes, and the rise of Zero Tolerance policies. These changes are affecting Good Decent Law-Abiding Citizens in the marketplace, on the Internet, on the road, at home, and in their children’s schools.

Call Conaway & Strickler, PC so that you can ensure that an arrest will not destroy your life.

Zero Tolerance

Dan Conaway — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 20:10:00 GMT

A basic flaw in many people’s thinking is that they can go to court and “talk to the judge about it” or “work things out with the prosecutor.” They believe that because they are not “one of those criminals” and their “case is the exception,” they can convince the prosecutor or judge to drop the criminal charges against them . The truth is very different. Due to Zero Tolerance policing, just about everyone who has been caught doing something the least bit illegal is now ending up in the courtroom. As a result, your general good character is not going to convince a judge or prosecutor to give you a break. When you walk into the courtroom, no matter who you are, the judge and prosecutor see you as just another criminal defendant, another piece of meat to feed to The Beast.

First, courtrooms are more crowded than ever before, and judges and prosecutors are often overworked and overwhelmed. America’s criminal justice system has grown into a huge industry – the “prison-industrial complex” -- that provides millions of jobs and massive amounts of tax revenue for states and counties. Criminal justice is the one area besides the military where politicians today can advocate for bigger government and more taxes and get elected.

Second, prosecutors and judges no longer have the independence to exercise discretion in prosecution and sentencing that they had a generation ago. Powerful special interest groups spend millions of dollars monitoring conviction rates of judges and prosecutors across the country. Officials who do not live up to the conviction targets of organizations such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) face a very real threat of losing the next election. If you appear in their courtroom and they show you any leniency, their jobs may be on the line.

Third, task forces target selected behavior for aggressive prosecution, trial, and sentencing. Under Project Safe Childhood, United States Attorney General Roberto Gonzales recently called for “an arrest, a thorough investigation and a merciless prosecution” of alleged sex offenders . [Prepared Remarks of Attorney General Roberto R. Gonzales at the Project Safe Childhood Conference, Washington, D.C., 12/04/2006.] While task forces and special interest groups target criminal behavior that most Americans would agree is undesirable, Good Decent Law-Abiding Citizens are finding themselves victimized by these zealous efforts to reduce crime.

For example, John is a middle-aged man who owns a pool-supply company. He invites his girlfriend and her teenaged daughter to move in with him. The daughter has a history of discipline problems at school and a juvenile record for drug use and petty theft . One day she tells her school counselor that John has sexually molested her. Although there is no physical evidence and no witnesses, the counselor makes a determination that molestation may have occurred and contacts the police. In full view of his neighbors, John is arrested, handcuffed, and taken to jail, charged with aggravated child molestation and sexual battery. John maintains his innocence, but the prosecutor has a “no drop” policy for these types of crimes and takes him to trial. The jury finds him not guilty. Though vindicated in court, John’s customers have dwindled away, his business is failing, and his legal fees have left him deep in debt. His neighbors still whisper about him behind his back, and his health has declined due to the stress of the trial. John has no legal recourse because the law does not allow compensation from the government that brought the charges, or from the school, the counselor, or the teenager for making false accusations against him.

Call Conaway & Strickler, PC now to avoid your life being destroyed by our overzealous criminal justice system.

Big Brother

Meg Strickler — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 20:00:00 GMT

Please see this article: http//www.ajc.com/news/cobb/cell-phone-records-id-664620.html. It discuss how a person was "tracked" by his cell phone records. Please be aware that your cell phone acts as a GPS on you and your whereabouts at all times when your cell phone is on.

Welcome to our Atlanta Criminal Defense Blog

Atlanta Criminal Defense Attorney — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 17:15:00 GMT

We are pleased to announce the launch of our Atlanta Criminal Defense Blog. To link to our old blog and see entries as far back as 2007, please go to http://www.georgiacriminaldefenseblog.com