Our New York City civil rights lawyers are committing to seeking compensation for OWS victims of police misconduct, including false arrest, malicious prosecution and police brutality. It is important that the police who engage in misconduct be held accountable for their actions and it is the only way that our first amendment rights to protest will be preserved. Now technology has ensured that a majority of the police misconduct will be captured on camera, with so many Occupy Wall Street protesters having phones with video cameras that record the vivid images of police brutality.

Our White Plains criminal defense attorneys convinced a City of White Plains Judge that no crime occurred, even if the lies which the police officers told were accepted as true. As a result all charges against our client were dismissed. It is worth noting that our client filed a cross complaint for assault against the police officers, which would have been a felony level assault based on the severity of the injuries. Unbelievably, despite clear evidence of wrongdoing and injuries that were unexplainable, except for as the result of an assault, the Westchester District Attorney's office refused to prosecute the officers and instead continued to prosecute our client.

Our Westchester criminal defense lawyers are committed to making sure that police brutality victims are exonerated in the Criminal Courts and obtain justice through civil lawsuits against the police officers responsible for misconduct. We have even represented police officers against other police officers who target them and falsely accuse them of criminal activity to satisfy petty gripes.

Now our New York civil rights lawyers will file a civil lawsuits against the White Plains officers involved and hopefully, the White Plains police department will start to take police misconduct seriously, but I am not optimistic.

Fortunately New York's rape shield law has several exceptions, which specifically require admission of the complaining witnesses sexual history. One common example is any evidence which proves or tends to prove specific instances of the victim's prior sexual conduct with the accused. The importance of this exception is self evident since a claim that sexual conduct was not consensual is always suspicious where there is a history of sexual activity between the actors.

Another exception is evidence which tends to prove that the complaining witness has engaged in prosecution. This is also common sensical because anyone who would have sex for money, would also falsely accuse someone of a sex crime. As such, this type of evidence has bearing on the motive of the complaining witness.

Another exception is where evidence rebuts evidence introduced by the people of the victim's failure to engage in sexual intercourse, oral sexual conduct, anal sexual conduct or sexual contact during a given period of time; or rebuts evidence introduced by the people which proves or tends to prove that the accused is the cause of pregnancy or disease of the victim, or the source of semen found in the victim. These exceptions come into play on many occasions, for example when a witness denies having oral or anal sex, then a New York criminal defense attorney can explore whether they have ever done it in the past, which relates to credibility. Also on many occasions our New York criminal defense lawyers have received rape kit results which show semen or bodily fluids which don't match our client. This establishes that the victim had consensual sex with someone else within a very short period of time, therefore, any injury which was allegedly caused could have been pre-existing and it also casts doubt on the claims of forcible sexual activity.

The final exception involves evidence which tends to be relevant and admissible in the interests of justice. Generally the Courts have interpreted this requirement to mean that the evidence supports the defendants' case. For example, where there is a contention that deviant sexual activity was forced, evidence including emails, or other partners can be introduced at trial to demonstrate that the complaining witness had a proclivity or practice of regularly engaging in the activity. Likewise, in a recent case, through facebook pages, our Westchester sex crime lawyers were able to establish that a particular victim who claimed that she was unconscious because of intoxication had a proclivity to drinking excessively and then engaging in sexual activity.

New York and Westchester County criminal lawyers must diligently explore and expand the exceptions to the rape shield law.

In a recent New York Court of Appeals held that the County Court improperly deprived defendant of his right to present testimony that complainant had a bad reputation in the community for truth and veracity. The Court recognized that party has a right to call a witness to testify that a key opposing witness, who gave substantive evidence and was not called for purposes of impeachment, has a bad reputation in the community for truth and veracity. The Court went on to recognize that a "trial court must allow such testimony, once a proper foundation has been laid, so long as it is relevant to contradict the testimony of a key witness and is limited to general reputation for truth and veracity and that the rule is to ensure that the jury is afforded a full picture of the witnesses presented, allowing it to give the proper weight to the testimony of such witnesses. Once the party seeking admission of reputation evidence has laid the proper foundation, it is for the jury to evaluate the credibility of the character witnesses who testify, and to decide how much weight to give the views reported in their testimony.

Our New York and White Plains criminal defense attorneys hope this new ruling will assist us in fighting bogus and questionable criminal accusations.

Inexplicably, the Court held that there was no Miranda violation because the Court in a twisted and strained logic held that remaining silent is not a sufficient exercise of the right to remain silent, so as to trigger the right to end police interrogation. The Court held that If the accused makes an "ambiguous or equivocal" statement or no statement, the police are not required to end the interrogation.

So under the new rule, a criminal defendant to come under the protection of the Fifth Amendment right against self incrimination must explicitly state that they are exercising their right to remain silent otherwise, the police are free to continue their interrogation. This was a five to four split decision and is further evidence of the trend in which right wing Courts are intentionally stripping the United States Constitution of its protections. More and more, the Republicans have packed the Courts with political hacks who bend over backwards to undermine the Constitutional protections which our founding fathers enacted for us.

New York criminal defense lawyers should continue to look to the New York Constitution which has traditionally provided greater protection than the Federal Constitution.

Typically in simple negligence cases, Judges will exclude moral evidence or evidence of bad conduct on other occasions as unduly prejudicial. However, where a single act is part of a larger course of conduct our New York lawyers typically include a claim for punitive damages. Punitive damages are particularly suited for car accidents and truck accidents involving drunk drivers, wrongful death, sexual assaults, malicious prosecution, business cases involving fraud and police misconduct cases.

Punitive damages are different than compensatory damages because while compensatory damages for negligence or contract cases are intended to just make the injured party whole, the punitive damages are intended to punish a morally culpable defendant and to deter conduct of the defendant and others like them.

So bad conduct may not be relevant in a negligence case, but it is relevant in punitive damages cases. The United States Supreme Court has recognized that bad act evidence is relevant to reprehensibility. The Supreme Court has recognized that a Plaintiff may show harm to others in order to demonstrate the reprehensibility of the defendant's conduct, because evidence of actual harm to non-parties can help to show that the conduct that harmed the plaintiff also posed a substantial risk of harm to the general public, and so was particularly reprehensible. In determining reprehensibility, a jury may properly take into account the fact that conduct that risks harm to many is likely more reprehensible than conduct that risks harm to only a few.

However, the Supreme Court has also held that a jury may not punish the defendants by awarding damages to punish defendants for harm done to others who are not Plaintiffs in the instant lawsuit. Our New York attorneys will continue to seek high punitive damages in their representation of the citizens of New York City and Westchester who have been aggrieved by reprehensible defendants.

The arrest procedure in New York is arduous. Typically, once a person is arrested, it is very difficult for family members to get information about what is happening. Typically, that is because the person moves through various parts of the system.

The New York City arraignment process typically takes between 12 and 20 hours depending on many factors. The arrestee is first processed at the local precinct which takes several hours. Their information is faxed to Albany and then once the raps are run, the person is transferred to central booking. During this time, the District Attorney prepares the paperwork while the arrested person sits in Central Booking, until the case become Court ready.

Our New York City criminal defense lawyers are able to monitor the status of a new arrest directly with the arraignment parts of the New York City criminal courts by telephone. When the case is Court ready, we go to the arraignment and get our clients out as soon as possible. The New York City criminal Courts in the Bronx, Queens and Manhattan all have arraignments until 1:00 a.m., and when our New York City criminal defense lawyers are retained we will go to the arraignment, no matter how late it is.

The answer often depends on what happens at arraignment. The local Westchester town police departments do not often contact ICE or Immigration and Customs Enforcement. So our White Plains criminal defense lawyers can obtain a release or bail which can be posted at the Court which is advantageous.

Typically once a person goes to the Westchester County Jail at Valhalla then Immigration is notified immediately and there will be an immigration hold. This is dangerous for the illegal immigrant because once an immigration hold is put on someone they will not be released even if they are bailed out. So our White Plains criminal defense lawyers aggressively fight to get undocumented immigrants out of jail before they go to the Westchester County Jail to prevent them from ending up in deportation proceedings.

Our Westchester criminal defense lawyers often see these issues in the Westchester towns with heavy immigrant populations including White Plains, Port Chester, New Rochelle and Yonkers.

As White Plains criminal defense lawyers, our criminal defense attorneys have handled hundreds of criminal mischief cases in in Westchester County. With the amount of bars and malls in the White Plains City limits, criminal mischief is a common occurrence, due to intoxication, road rage and stealing of parking spots.

Under New York law, criminal mischief is intentionally damaging the property of another. Basic criminal mischief is a misdemeanor. However, recently, it was a felony if the damage caused was over one thousand dollars. The New York law recently changed to reduce the value to two hundred and fifty dollars. So now in Westchester, our White Plains criminal defense lawyers are seeing an increase in felony criminal mischief.

Now, everyone who scratches a car or breaks a window is being charged with a felony. This problem is compounded because the Westchester prosecutors are taking the position that the measure of the damage is the repair cost including labor. This interpretation is not consistent with the statute which only addresses causing damage in excess of two hundred and fifty dollars. So the damage or replacement apart from the labor is what must be over two hundred and fifty dollars.

Without the actual drugs, it was impossible for the prosecutors to prove chain of custody, which essential in any drug prosecution case. What exactly happened to the drugs remains a mystery. Our New York criminal defense lawyers were prepared to defend the case on probable cause grounds and we further had a technical defense since the Westchester forensic labratory only tested one pill.

Therefore we believed that while the prosecution could prove a simple possession of a controlled substance charge, we did not believe they would be able to prove the felony weight charges.

This year New York added a new requirement for convictions for DWI. Any conviction for a DWI now requires that the person convicted install an interlock device in their car. If a person convicted of a DWI fails to install an interlock device, they are now guilty of an additional crime.

This new requirement does not apply to people convicted of driving while their ability to drive is impaired. New York criminal defense lawyers must advise their clients of this new requirement when discussing plea bargains.

Addicts who are charged with felony weight drug charges such as heroin, cocaine, methanphetamines, crack, PCP, or other highly addictive drugs can apply for diversion. Under this program, the defendant undergoes treatment for between a year and eighteen months and undergoes regular Court appearances and drug testing.

If they can complete the program, the charges will either be dismissed or a plea to a misdemeanor with probation will be offered. It is a chance to avoid a felony drug conviction and avoid jail. Criminal defense lawyers in Westchester who handle drug cases should become familiar with this new program as a means to avoid jail and felony convictions for their clients.

As a new service, the Law office of Michael H. Joseph PLLC, is proud to announce that it has began using the teleconference service with the Westchester County jail. This means that we can have a virtual conference with any inmate at the Westchester County Jail in as little as half an hour from our office in White Plains, New York. Our Westchester criminal defense lawyers are now able to provide legal consultations with inmates from our office and obtain the facts of a case on short notice.

This is especially useful for families in the New York City area which have family members in the Westchester County jail. It can often be difficult for New York City residents to travel to Valhalla to find out what has happened, now we can obtain this information almost immediately. This is especially useful when there are immigration or deportation related issues. Our White Plains criminal defense lawyers will continue to strive to provide the highest quality services to the Westchester and New York City communities.

New York criminal defense lawyers who handle narcotics cases must be aware of the difference between possession of a controlled substance and possession of a controlled substance with intent to sell.

To establish possession with intent to sell the State of New York must demonstrate sufficient legal evidence of an intent to sell.

Merely possessing narcotics, is not possession with intent to sell. There must be some sales type conduct and without it there is simply insufficient evidence of intent to sell. Examples of sales like conduct include the presence of scales or drugs that are packaged in vials, with roughly the same quantity in each vial throughout the drug-dealing industry.

The police have been on lookout for these clips and when they see the clip, they search the person with the clip. They have made numerous arrests for knives that are not actually illegal.

The most common charge is criminal possession of a weapon, a midemeanor which outlaws gravity knives, which open by centrivical force. We have heard accounts of the police slightly opening the knife and then flicking it to try and claim it is a gravity knife when it is not.

Even when the knife is not outlawed by the Penal Law, the New York City Police are charging people with violations of the New York City administrative code. The Code outlaws knives with four inch blades or knives in open view. The New York Police are taking the silly position that since the clip is in public view, this provision is violated even though the knife cannot be seen.

Our New York criminal defense lawyers regularly defend those charged with knife crimes.