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

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Sister Helen Prejean -- author of Dead Man Walking -- (donate at sisterhelen.org/donate ) joins Fairfax criminal lawyer / Virginia DUI lawyer Jonathan Katz and Severna Park, Maryland criminal defense attorney Christopher Flohr about defending those charged with capital crimes and other alleged offenses, humanizing the accused, abolishing the death penalty, pouring our caring and souls into helping criminal defendants, persuading through gripping storytelling, overcoming burnout, enlivening hope, and keeping the fire burning. 

When Jon Katz first met Sister Helen over thirty years ago, walking up to her with a question about abolishing capital punishment, she drew his soul and forearm to her center and focused Jon on keeping our eyes on the prize of ending the death penalty. 

Sister Helen has stayed with death row inmates right through the points of their state-sponsored killings. She knows the possibility of changing anyone to becoming a better person and to being persuaded to do right. She has been at this for decades. 

This episode is also available on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMM6l1uu7ns and at Apple podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sister-helen-prejean-of-dead-man-walking-winning-by/id1721413675?i=1000751852528
This podcast with Fairfax, Virginia criminal / DUI lawyer Jon Katz is playable on all devices at podcast.BeatTheProsecution.com. For more information, visit https://KatzJustice.com or contact us at [email protected], 703-383-1100 (calling), or 571-406-7268 (text).

If you like what you hear on our Beat the Prosecution podcast, please take a moment to post a review at our Apple podcasts page (with stars only, or else also with a comment) at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beat-the-prosecution/id1721413675

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Some remarkable people walk among us. One of them is sujatha baliga (spelling her name without capitalization), who greets people with "warm hellos." sujatha is a leader in restorative justice, a practitioner of mindfulness, and a self-described (at least at one point) survivor of childhood sexual abuse by her father. Fairfax criminal lawyer Jonathan Katz first learned about sujatha several years ago through her combination of being a lawyer involved with mindfulness and restorative justice. 
As sujatha explains, with restorative justice, the focus is not on what law was broken, but who was harmed, what the harmed person needs, and who has the obligation to meet those needs. For instance, here sujatha movingly talks about an impasse broken when the subject of a car theft and attendant $4000 loss learned that the person who caused the theft was an artist, and she agreed to resolve the matter by his creating a Tinkerbell image for her. 
Jon thanks his longtime friend and fellow criminal defense lawyer Christopher Flohr for suggesting asking sujatha about the effectiveness of restorative justice when sex offenses are alleged. The story sujatha tells of the transformation of a sexual assault victim participating in an intensive restorative justice proceeding, ultimately hugging her alleged assailant, is even more remarkable than the above Tinkerbell story. 
sujatha's transformation away from anger is remarkable after her father sexually abused her as a child, and after she was beaten up in school when the only student of color in a small community. At one point, sujatha wanted to be a prosecutor, but her time in India and ultimate first meeting with the Dalai Lama transformed her to the path of being a public defender lawyer. (Listen to how she would effectively cross examine a child accuser in criminal court.)
You can meet and learn from sujatha at her in-person Spiritual Fitness program starting April 11-12, 2026. in Richmond, California. On various Monday evenings, she leads meditation gatherings. Stay tuned for sujatha's first book due for publication this year,  Angry Long Enough, by One World/Penguin Random House. 
This episode is also available on YouTube. 
This podcast with Fairfax, Virginia criminal / DUI lawyer Jon Katz is playable on all devices at podcast.BeatTheProsecution.com. For more information, visit https://KatzJustice.com or contact us at [email protected], 703-383-1100 (calling), or 571-406-7268 (text).

If you like what you hear on our Beat the Prosecution podcast, please take a moment to post a review at our Apple podcasts page (with stars only, or else also with a comment) at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beat-the-prosecution/id1721413675

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In 1971, Mirabai Bush traveled to India, and found more than she bargained for. Fairfax criminal lawyer Jonathan Katz would hear about Mirabai over the years, through her being a devotee of the late Neem Karoli Baba / Maharaji, being among the teachers at the annual Maui retreats with Ram Dass, and finally by my meeting her at the 2015 Mindful Leadership conference. 
In this Beat the Prosecution podcast episode, Jon Katz talks with Mirabai about her decades-long journey with mindfulness, love, service, empowering women, racial justice and much more, including discussing her 2025 book Almost Home: Dharma, Social Change, and the Power of Love.  By the end of this one hour interview, Jon wanted to talk about much more with Mirabai, including such matters covered in her book Almost Home as the Seva Foundation, which was started to reverse blindness among millions of people; her role in developing Google's Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute (SIYLI); her involvement with Naropa University in its infancy; her connection to the Doors' John Densmore; and her involvement with The Well online community. 
Many lawyers are involved with mindfulness, and Jon Katz has attended two long weekend mindfulness retreats, the last one being silent except for group discussions and question and answer periods, at the Garrison Institute. Mirabai's work has included bringing mindfulness to lawyers and law students. 
Mirabai's initial view about how lawyers can help themselves is through genuinely listening, and through compassion. The listening part is a key to Jon's daily taijiquan martial art. The compassion is not only about compassion to opponents -- still necessitating being merciless to the opposition when needed in serving justice -- but also compassion for one's self. 
This episode is also available on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDSBB8UiPgo
This podcast with Fairfax, Virginia criminal / DUI lawyer Jon Katz is playable on all devices at podcast.BeatTheProsecution.com. For more information, visit https://KatzJustice.com or contact us at [email protected], 703-383-1100 (calling), or 571-406-7268 (text).

If you like what you hear on our Beat the Prosecution podcast, please take a moment to post a review at our Apple podcasts page (with stars only, or else also with a comment) at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beat-the-prosecution/id1721413675

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Fairfax criminal lawyer Jonathan Katz was invigorated early on by entertaining others, including performing magic shows for children's birthday parties and performing musically, including with improvisational music. That helped make criminal defense a natural destination on Jon Katz's path, with the spontaneity required of the work, and the engaging, performing and entertaining involved on the road of persuasion. Jon recently looked up what his fellow Tufts University alum Stephen Engel was up to, and found that that for decades Steve has been writing for and producing television comedy. With persuasive storytelling being a big part of criminal defense, Jon invited Steve to interview on the Beat the Prosecution podcast, to discuss the story development and storytelling process, engaging the audience, and dealing with the overall creative process. 
Steve Engel has been a writer for such television series as Big Bang Theory, Mad About You, A.N.T. Farm, and Dream On. His interest in writing scripts goes back many decades. Steve and two other students led a class on comedy that Jon selected when entering college, which introduced Jon to such great writings as A Confederacy of Dunces, Catch-22, and Portnoy's Complaint. Jack Kerouac's On The Road -- of course not a humor piece, but with humorousness therein -- remains among Jon's favorite books, and underlines the virtual limitlessness of human imagination and wordsmithing. 
Steve talks about keeping the audience's attention, avoiding unnecessary ad-libbing, and working as a team to produce entertainment. One of the most risky things about criminal defense can be to put the defendant on the witness stand, where the accused does not have a script for what is to happen during cross examination, but only tips from their lawyer -- and the defendant's hunches -- about what might be asked. Nonetheless, good script writing and acting can help inform trial lawyers how to keep the audience interested enough so that the attorney's message gets persuasively conveyed, and not drowned out by other noise and ideas happening in the courtroom. 
Steve started as a lawyer, and has some ideas for lawyers' courtroom presentations. In the courtroom, the jury or judge will write the ending to the story. That is part of the thrill of victory and agony of defeat of trials. 
This episode is also available on YouTube at https://youtu.be/avQDPrT3JQw. 
 
This podcast with Fairfax, Virginia criminal / DUI lawyer Jon Katz is playable on all devices at podcast.BeatTheProsecution.com. For more information, visit https://KatzJustice.com or contact us at [email protected], 703-383-1100 (calling), or 571-406-7268 (text).

If you like what you hear on our Beat the Prosecution podcast, please take a moment to post a review at our Apple podcasts page (with stars only, or else also with a comment) at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beat-the-prosecution/id1721413675

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Fairfax criminal lawyer Jonathan Katz knows the power of a compellingly persuasive story. The elements of such a story can include setting a vivid scene, often with word pictures, a keen sense of the audience, and full engagement with the listeners. The story must not get lost in the translation. All of that lends itself well to this podcast episode's interviewee Matty Wegehaupt, who is an instructor of East Asian studies at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin. Matty first came to Jon Katz's attention in his role as English translator of the great collection of the late Korean Buddhist teacher Beopjeong Sunim's writings, entitled May All Beings Be Happy. In this translation, Matty does an excellent job in conveying the words and essence of Beopjeong. 
With so many speakers of English as a second language in Northern Virginia, Jon Katz repeatedly represents clients whose first language is not English. When a language interpreter is needed, the right interpreter is needed, not merely someone fully bilingual in two languages, but someone who has the personal and cultural sensitivity to sufficiently convey the meaning of the speaker and to assist the testifying witness in understanding what is being asked of the witness. The interpreter must have the attention and readiness to ask a speaker to repeat what the interpreter does not sufficiently hear, while also paying sufficient attention to what is being said. Matty fully understands that. Interpreting and translating is an art, rather than some sort of robotic exercise. 
Listen to Matty's telling of his journey from the Air Force Academy to leaving the academy when recognizing that warfare was not for him, ultimately choosing to learn in Korea, and learning the language when doing so was with fewer resources than today. Matty talks about the greatness of Beopjeong Sunim, the lessons and ideas from Beopjeong's life and writings, Beopjeong's experience during the Korean dictatorship, and his ability to relate well with a wide range of people. Matty talks not only about the importance of not fearing death, but also not fearing life. This shedding of fear is so very important for fighting in court. Going one step further about not fearing life involves fully engaging with the people and circumstances around us, no matter how seemingly unpleasant or not, which is also essential in court. 
Treading one's own powerful path is also vital for trial lawyers. In that regard, Matty here talks about how he disregarded Beopjeong's wish for his writings not to continue in publication after his passing, to the point that after Beopjeong's passing, Matty translated this monk's Pure and Fragrant collection of essays. Matty's clear voice shines throughout this interview. 
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This episode is also available on YouTube at https://youtu.be/Ykhyv_iCQhg.
This podcast with Fairfax, Virginia criminal / DUI lawyer Jon Katz is playable on all devices at podcast.BeatTheProsecution.com. For more information, visit https://KatzJustice.com or contact us at [email protected], 703-383-1100 (calling), or 571-406-7268 (text).

If you like what you hear on our Beat the Prosecution podcast, please take a moment to post a review at our Apple podcasts page (with stars only, or else also with a comment) at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beat-the-prosecution/id1721413675