I probably at various levels in the case int terms of trial, appeal, post-conviction, I’ve probably handled about 20 murder cases in my career. Different jurisdictions, all different kinds of cases, I’ve probably done seven or eight capital murder cases, a few where the government was seeking a death sentence. The majority of them though were not capital cases they were people charged with first or second-degree murder in a Virginia court or Washington, DC. The first one I had was probably in 2002, and I’m representing three people for murder right now in different jurisdictions, two in federal court and one in state court. But just like with any kind of case, the commonality between murder cases is that the penalty is extremely high and somebody’s life is on the line one way or the other.

Other than that, every case is very, very different and the results can be widely disparate and it takes a long time to sort of sort out everything. One big thing about that kind of case too is you’re not just defending the case you really need to learn everything about your client’s background that can be brought forward in mitigation in case they’re convicted of something. Because like I said, the sentences can vary a lot and a lot of that can come down to the mitigation investigation or how well the lawyers were able to present their clients background to explain the situation.