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

• Winning by speaking up with truth & passion- Bachir Atallah & Celine Atallah

  Send us a textFairfax 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 period in American government. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) is among the groups at the forefront of challenging such a state of affairs, with FIRE having a wide range of the political spectrum among its staff and supporters. Do not let people marginalize your voice by endeavoring to paint you as a lunatic leftie, when such opposition is much more broadbased than that (and our guest Bachir Atallah voted for Donald Trump). Jon Katz deeply thanks lawyer and naturalized United States citizen Bachir Atallah -- who with his wife Jessica Fakhri suffered around a five hours-long detention including being held in cold cells, by Customs and Border Protection officials on their April 13, 2025 drive back from a weekend in Quebec, as Bachir reports -- and his attorney and sister Celine Atallah for addressing the ordeal of Bachir and Jessica, and their current pursuit of justice to put a stop to such mistreatment. Bachir's (nicknamed Basho) story has been covered widely in the news media, and here we go in full depth devoting this entire one hour Beat the Prosecution episode to the story of Bachir and Jessica. Nothing beats hearing Bachir's story through his own words, including his recounting repeatedly being subjected to secondary screening while traveling internationally. If United States citizens are not safe from the mistreatment that Bachir describes, who is? In Beirut at the time of this April 22, 2025 interview, Bachir expresses his real concern about how he will be treated upon his return to the Logan Airport in Boston.  Newsweek reports that "CBP Assistant Commissioner Hilton Beckham told Newsweek [Bachir Atallah's] accusations are blatantly false and sensationalized..." That conclusory denial comes from someone who was not present while the events unfolded, and an exhaustive Google search and search of the CBP and DHS websites does not reveal any further government statements nor explanations on the matter. The name of this podcast is Beat the Prosecution. A vital part of doing so is to maintain checks and balances among the branches of government, and certainly not to accept the Trump administration's running roughshod over the rights of non-United States citizens (and, here, the rights of U.S. citizen Bachir Atallah), lawyers and law firms, and higher education. This episode is also available in full here 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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• Winning from the center of the story- Jon Katz on persuasive storytelling and scene re-enactment

  Send us a textFairfax 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 assault's happening in Club Blah, where the defendant at the time was in Club Ah, and could not bring himself to stepping foot in Club Blah any more than he could bring himself to drinking a cask of prune juice mixed with vinegar. The persuasive story at trial usually is not found overnight, but is discovered with close attention and listening, visiting the incident scene, and bringing the listeners to the scene and the circle and center of the story, often incorporating all five of the human senses. Read more about persuasive storytelling in court, with Jon's article published in the Virginia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers newsletter, entitled "Story power – DID YOU DO IT? Transporting the jury to the persuasive circle of the story, and applying psychodrama."Persuasive storytelling is a central approach of the National Criminal Defense College's Trial Practice Institute that Jon attended for two weeks in 1994, and the Trial Lawyers College, which Jon attended for an entire month in 1995, with psychodrama and scene re-enactment also being major focuses of the Trial Lawyers College. The parallel video of this podcast is at Fairfax Criminal Lawyer on Winning from the Center of Persuasive StorytellingThis 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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• Winning with fiercely compassionate mindfulness and samurai spirit- Michael Carroll of Global Coaching Alliance

  Send us a textIn 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 that it would have been worth flying coast-to-coast for such an experience. Learning applications of mindfulness to my life and work are very important. Among the best teachers for that at this conference was author of Awake at Work (and more) Michael Carroll -- currently with Global Coaching Alliance, and a student of such advanced teachers as Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche -- who immediately captured me with leading a grounding sit followed soon after with the story of a tollbooth angel who would greet people even at the most trafficked, sweaty and stressful times of day, hand them an M&M candy, and wish them a nice day. Michael bridges any gap between mindfulness and Buddhist teachings and applying them to the real world, including the rough and tumble of the workplace, and, in this episode, the courthouse. I should have known long ago already about highly accomplished samurai and Five Rings  author Miyamoto Musashi, but did not, other than hearing about Five Rings. In this podcast interview with Jon Katz, Michael masterfully relates the lessons of Musashi's masterful defeat of Sasaki Kojiro to its applications to our own lives. Michael is a life tourguide who helps reveal plenty, including lessons and truisms that are right in front of our eyes, but that we have yet to see more clearly. Check out -- and read -- his books and more here. 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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• Winning at sentencing and with commutation- Felicia Donald, former federal inmate released under the CARES Act

  Send us a textFairfax 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 fellow criminal defense lawyer Bret Lee told Jon of his and lawyer Marvin Miller's Northern Virginia federal criminal defense client Felicia Donald, saying she was willing to be on Jon's podcast. Dr. Donald is a physician who in 2020 entered a guilty plea to one prescription drug violation count involving opioids and one health care fraud count. Despite the prosecution's request for a fourteen year prison sentence and to include obstruction of justice in her sentencing guidelines, Dr. Donald's legal team obtained a sentence that was half of that, and that avoided a finding of obstruction. Dr. Donald is Jon Katz's second former inmate to appear on the Beat the Prosecution podcast. A big difference between the two is that the first such guest, Susan Crane, engages in peace actions against armaments and military facilities, admits her actions and asserts their justification under international law. Most other criminal defendants, including Dr. Donald, never seek any prosecution nor attention to their prosecution. Where most convicted criminal defendants would prefer to keep a low profile about their cases, Dr. Donald does a big service to current and future defendants by here discussing step-by-step her oversight in not securing a lawyer before she reported alleged wrongdoing by one of her employees to law enforcement officers (LEO) and before she turned over her cellphone and business documents to LEO, how she chose her initial and subsequent legal team, how she weathered the storm of incarceration during the pandemic and found opportunities to help fellow inmates, how she witnessed seriously inadequate health care for numerous inmates and dealt with her own serious health issues as an inmate, and how she obtained a sentence commutation under the CARES Act. For this episode, then, beating the prosecution is about obtaining the best possible sentence and being as resilient as possible from the point of arrest to the time of release from incarceration. Jon thanks Felicia Donald and Bret Lee for joining him. 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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• Winning by throwing your full self into the battle: Ofelia Calderon- Virginia crimmigration lawyer

  Send us a textFairfax 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 Prosecution podcast, and for good reason, with Ofelia being the first immigration lawyer to join us after Donald Trump returned to the White House and unleashed a slew of unfriendly, dangerous and often downright civil liberties- and due process-violating policies and actions against a slew of non-United States citizens. Many of Jon Katz's criminal defense clients are not United States citizens, and need to know what to do when police, judges, courthouse officials and jailers ask them about their immigration status, not only with direct questions but with such more subtle questions as "Where were you born?" This episode tells you how to handle your encounters with such authorities. Also motivating Jon's invitation for Ofelia to join this episode is her involvement as a board member of the Virginia Legal Aid and Justice Center (I recommend donating, here), which has this great Rapid Response toolkit for dealing with such practical immigration emergencies as being ready with powers of attorney to handle real estate and personal property assets of those detained by the immigration authorities. Ofelia is a true believer for the rights and interests of non-United States citizens. Jon was totally invigorated by this talk, and anticipates that you will be, as well. 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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