Beat The Prosecution- Fairfax, Virginia, Criminal Defense / DUI Lawyer

Send us Fan Mail When Fairfax criminal defense / DUI lawyer Jonathan Katz joined with Ramsey Clark in defending the Plowshares activists for their 2000 criminal jury trial for their depleted uranium action , one of the group's supporters suggested getting ideas from lawyer David Walsh-Little , who served as standby trial counsel to the  Gods of Metal Plowshares Five i n 1998. In the interim,...

Send us Fan Mail Fairfax, Virginia criminal defense lawyer Jonathan Katz 's teacher Gerry Spence lived until 96 years, and transitioned from his body on August 13, 2025. Gerry has had a profound and lifelong impact on Jon Katz's personal and professional lives, as he has had on thousands of people's lives.  Great public defender lawyer Shalev Ben-Avraham in this episode joins Jon Ka...

Send us Fan Mail Fairfax criminal lawyer Jonathan Katz started law school seeing the glass as more half empty than full when it came to protecting people's Constitutional rights and civil liberties. That situation began shifting as Jon Katz learned about the many people around him who not only were fighting like hell for the side of justice, but who refused to depart from their optimism.  One...

Send us Fan Mail Fairfax criminal defense lawyer Jonathan Katz daily practices the martial art of taijiquan / t'ai chi ch'uan Yang style short form, also known as Cheng Man Ch'ing (CMC) taijiquan form. This episode introduces our third taijiquan teacher, after previously introducing you to Jon Katz's vitally important teacher Julian Chu (a student of CMC senior student Benjamin...

Send us Fan Mail Fairfax criminal defense lawyer Jonathan Katz knows that acquittals are great and often exhilarating, but trials can also bring risks. On this Beat the Prosecution episode, Jon Katz talks on his own about the art of obtaining favorable plea or settlement deals, which need to be backed up by the threat and strength of trial readiness.  Settlements can only be earned, but are never...

Send us Fan Mail Fairfax criminal lawyer Jonathan Katz knows that it is not radical to protest, but instead is among our rights under the Bill of Rights. As an undergraduate alum of Tufts University, Jon Katz opened his eyes and ears all the more to the plight of Rümeysa Öztürk, who is not known to have written or said anything more radical than the decidedly non-radical op-ed she co-authored with...

Send us Fan Mail Fairfax criminal lawyer Jonathan Katz knows the importance of reducing not only conviction and sentencing risks in Virginia criminal court, but also to minimize adverse collateral consequences from court outcomes. Jon Katz has interviewed some immigration lawyers on our Beat the Prosecution podcast to address immigration risks from criminal case outcomes. This episode is the first...

Send us Fan Mail Fairfax criminal lawyer Jonathan Katz strongly dissents from the Trump administration's revoking of the Biden administration's policy of rarely making immigration arrests at courthouses other than for essentially exigent circumstances, lest undocumented people stay away from courthouses when criminal defendants, civil litigants, and witnesses. Separation of powers and fe...

Send us Fan Mail Fairfax criminal defense lawyer Jonathan Kat z derives tremendous inspiration in his courtroom work from teacher Robert Thurman, for his humor, caring realness, great storytelling ability, and certainly his genius in conveying Buddhist, mindfulness and spiritual ideas in a way that draws in the audience.  In this episode of Beat the Prosecution, Jon Katz goes beyond what has alrea...

Send us Fan Mail Bethesda lawyer Carolyn Elefant is a trailblazing lawyer. Not being cut out to conform to law firm life, she decided thirty years ago to strike out on her own. For decades and counting, she has shared her pearls of wisdom and encouragement -- including in her book Solo By Choice -- for lawyers to consider becoming their own bosses, and to thrive as solo and small firm practitioner...

Send us Fan Mail Fairfax criminal lawyer Jonathan Katz knows that we are at the moment of truth for standing up to Donald Trump's onslaught against non-United States citizens, lawyers and law firms, and higher education. If not, we will face the discomfort of younger generations in the future asking what we did to raise our voices to all this injustice flying from all directions in this perio...

Send us Fan Mail Fairfax criminal lawyer Jonathan Katz learned early in his trial career about the critical role of persuasive storytelling, executed throughout the trial, and not only in opening and closing. Jon Katz in this first Beat the Prosecution episode in a year without a guest, illustrates how he won an assault trial by supporting his client's alibi by illustrating the alleged assaul...

Send us Fan Mail In 2015, Fairfax criminal lawyer Jonathan Katz finished court early enough to rush over to the Mindful Leadership conference in Arlington, eager to meet such great teachers as Roshi Joan Halifax, Jim Dethmer and Rhonda Magee. Sold out, said a front desk person. A woman overheard my asking what I could do about that, and she sold me her extra ticket.  This conference was so good th...

Send us Fan Mail Fairfax criminal defense lawyer Jonathan Katz named this podcast Beat the Prosecution in sync with his teacher SunWolf's watchword that reality is no obstacle. By shooting for the stars, great outcomes be achieved in court. Nonetheless, plenty of criminal defendants get convicted, requiring all criminal defense lawyers to be great at sentencing.  Recently, Jon Katz's fel...

Send us Fan Mail Fairfax criminal lawyer Jonathan Katz first met local highly-regarded immigration / crimmigration lawyer Ofelia Calderon (Merrifield, Fairfax, Virginia) nearly 20 years ago at a Cinco de Mayo celebration, introduced by Jon's then law partner Jay Marks who subsequently became Ofelia's law partner for a few years. Ofelia is the third immigration lawyer on this Beat the Pro...

Send us Fan Mail South Dakota trial lawyer Charles Abourezk has a compelling story as a lawyer and beyond that role. He grew up on the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation, and advocated for Indian Americans before and after law school. He represented indigenous people's interests at the United Nations. He produced and directed radio and television programming concerning Native Americans.  Charli...

Send us Fan Mail Every criminal defense and other trial lawyer faces the possible moment of truth about how to handle an unjust judicial directive. This week's guest Rosa Eliades -- along with lead counsel Richard Kammen (who wore a kangaroo pin to Guantanamo court and has pointed words about the military commissions ), and co-counsel Mary Spears -- in 2017 obtained approval from now-former M...

Send us Fan Mail One of the two founders of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education -- Harvey Silverglate -- figured the group might no last much past ten years beyond its 1999 founding. Instead, Silverglate , describes the group -- renamed Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression   -- as having filled the gap that was left when the ACLU became more of a progressive organization a...

Send us Fan Mail In this Beat the Prosecution episode, Fairfax, Virginia, criminal / DUI defense lawyer Jon Katz talks with the fifth public defender lawyer to be on this podcast. Arlington County, Virginia, senior public defender Michael Cash is a true believer in his clients and his work. His successful law school application to the University of Virginia Law School proclaimed his goal to do ind...

Send us Fan Mail "I lucked out with getting interviewed by a great host." Those are the words of this episode's guest Fredilyn "Fredi" Sison , upon speaking for the first time on a podcast.  Fairfax, Northern Virginia, criminal / DUI defense lawyer Jonathan Katz has known Fredi for years. Jon Katz and Fredi Sison are both graduates -- from separate years -- of the multi-we...

Send us Fan Mail For the first time on Fairfax, northern Virginia criminal / DUI defense lawyer Jonathan Katz's podcast, we have one of his former clients joining us. Susan Crane has engaged in four Plowshares peace actions and calculates that she has spent nearly a total of seven years of her life in jails and prisons.  Jon Katz was honored to have co-counseled with Ramsey Clark and Anabel D...

Send us Fan Mail Fairfax, Northern Virginia criminal / DUI defense lawyer Jonathan Katz knows the benefit of mindfulness and meditative practice to beating the prosecution and to living a great life. Jon Katz's main mindfulness practice is taijiquan / t'ai chi chu'an yang style short form (also known as 37 posture Cheng Man Ch'ing / CMC taijiquan). Jon has also been involved wi...

Send us Fan Mail Lawyers were two of Fairfax, Northern Virginia criminal defense lawyer Jonathan Katz's early inspirations on the taijiquan / tai ch'i ch'uan path, those being the late Victor Crawford and this episode's guest, Leonard "Len" J. Kennedy . Vic was an energetic and engaging lawyer, who early in Jon Katz's criminal defense career told about his years-...

Send us Fan Mail Fairfax criminal lawyer Jonathan Katz's first client visit to a jail was with his law professor and immigration legal clinic director Paul Grussendorf. Jon Katz's first two trials were also with Paul, one a deportation hearing for that jailed client after he had gotten convicted for importation of two kilos of cocaine into the United States, and the other for an Ethiopia...

Send us Fan Mail In mid-December 2024, Denmark released Captain Paul Watson (co-founder of Greenpeace , and founder of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society) after five months of captivity in an apartment-like incarceration setting in Greenland, when Denmark ultimately declined to extradite him to Japan for a matter about which Captain Watson asserts his innocence. Three weeks after Captain Watson&apo...