Author Archives: Jay Butchko
Bipartisan Bill Proposes Upgrades To Pennsylvania’s Treatment Courts
Anyone who has ever visited a prison as part of a volunteer program or religious ministry can tell you of how the people serving prison sentences wish that things had gone differently and have thought about the sequence of events that led to their crime, arrest, and conviction. When they listen, the inmates tell… Read More »
Law Enforcement Intercepts Shipment Of Tianeptine In The Philadelphia Area
The difference between a therapeutic medication and a dangerous street drug is less clear than your drug education class in elementary school made it seem. Schedule I controlled substances are the only ones that are always illegal; the controlled substances in all the other categories have at least a limited use officially accepted by… Read More »
The Afterlife Of A Sex Crime Conviction
Rebuilding your life after a criminal conviction is a challenge; the support of family and friends makes it easier, especially if they can help you reenter the workforce, so you do not always have to explain to prospective employers why a conviction appears on your record. Eventually, you can get your voting rights back. … Read More »
Your Criminal Defense Lawyer Will Fight To The End, But You Have The Final Decision About Whether To Plead Innocent Or Guilty
Legal cases in criminal court can be full of surprises and plot twists, albeit usually not of the kind that you see in the movies. For example, criminal defense lawyers do not leave prosecutors speechless at trial by presenting evidence that the prosecution did not know existed. More likely, the surprise will come when… Read More »
Kratom Is Still Legal In Pennsylvania After Fatal Overdoses
If you buy something at a cannabis dispensary or a vape shop, you can safely assume that it is not a drug, but it isn’t not a drug. The likes of cannabis, psilocybin, CBD, kratom, tianeptine, and so many other intoxicating substances, including tobacco, for that matter, fit the definition of drugs according to… Read More »
Lancaster County Man Faces Stalking Charges For Texting Scary Clown Emoji
Did you hear about the Florida woman who got criminal charges for offering commercial sex because she texted a red rose emoji to an undercover police officer? Yes, but that is Florida, where all kinds of nonsensical things happen. What about the Florida man who got drug charges because he went on Grindr and… Read More »
Trespassing And Pennsylvania’s Purple Paint Law
Of all the criminal offenses that sound like, by themselves, they cause little or no harm, trespassing ranks highly. What is so bad about walking on someone else’s property? When you were in middle school, you technically trespassed every day when you walked across your neighbor’s lawn because doing so was a shortcut between… Read More »
Nonconsensual Dissemination Of Intimate Content
Everyone with enough presence of mind not to publicly share photos of their breakfast and videos of their morning routine online has a reasonable fear of the malicious gossip of the Internet. The trolls online are exponentially more vicious than any troll that ever lurked under a bridge in your childhood nightmares. Of course,… Read More »
New Report Shows Socioeconomic Class As A Factor Determining Severity Of Sentencing
It is not hard to find examples of rich people acting like they are above the law. Eventually, the Florida Man Internet phenomenon died down because so much of the bizarre behavior documented on arrest reports in Florida was nothing less and nothing more than people acting out of desperation. That Florida Man who… Read More »
Can You Go To Jail For Contempt Of Court?
Failure to comply with the court’s orders or with the judicial process can make your legal problems worse. We have seen documentaries where antiheroes outwit the law by wiggling out of their GPS ankle monitors, and who can forget that scene in Goodfellas where Henry and Karen flush their cocaine stash down the toilet… Read More »
