Archives

This Archive highlights a personal journey in the practice of law, and as with all paths, there are peaks and valleys along the successes and failures. The Way of the Warrior, whether in court, an arena or board room, is seldom clear, simple or comfortable, and thus, there is a certain solitude to bushido.

© Jomar Untalan, Esq. 2025.  All rights reserved. 

(2024 10-25) The court reversed a client's conviction for misdemeanor sexual abuse of a child and remanded the case for a jury trial.  The client was convicted in February 2023, and generally, there is no right to a jury trial in misdemeanors.  In the following month after the trial and sentencing, Fallen held that potential sex offender registration requirements and incarceration periods associated with misdemeanors trigger the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial.  Issue: Whether the client was entitled to a new trial before a jury even though the offense, trial, conviction and sentencing occurred before Fallen?

(June 2023) The law firm debuted Team Untalan.Esq and sponsored a Loudoun County sophomore at the Melee at Midnight wrestling tournament hosted by George Mason University in Fairfax, VA - home of the Patriots!

(2021 AF v. United States) The Supreme Court denied review of this case, but genuine trial lawyers must continue to call attention to puzzling convictions.  The American Bar Association noted in 2015 a 'destabilizing loss of public confidence' in the criminal justice system, but we all can play a role in restoring those bedrock principles of trust and fairness.

Issue: The information charged the defendant with violating a civil protection order (CPO) by being within a hundred (100) yards of the complainant. The same court order, however, allowed the defendant to be less than a hundred (100) yards from the complainant when both parties were at their shared apartment building. The trial evidence showed that both parties were present at the shared complex at the time of the alleged violation. Whether there was sufficient evidence to satisfy Due Process and to convict the defendant for disobeying the hundred (100) yard provision of the order, which was the specific offense charged in the information?  

Argument: The   Court   should   grant   review   because   Due   Process   forbids   convictions   based   upon   insufficient   evidence, as   in   this   case,   where   the   defendant   is   accused   of   violating   the   hundred   yard   provision   of   a   CPO   that   actually   allows   for   a   limited   exception   when   the  involved   parties   are   at   their   shared   residential complex. 

(2012 In re S.B., 44 A.3d 948) The D.C. Court of Appeals reversed a client's conviction and held that a witness report of a black male with white pants and a gun did not provide reasonable, particularized suspicion under the totality of the circumstances to conduct a Terry stop.