How long should past mistakes cause a penitent person to suffer? Is a system that shuts out those with a criminal record encouraging improvement or repeat offenders? If you have a criminal record, you’ve likely wrestled with these troubling thoughts and harsh realities. The good news is this: for many of you, there’s hope to [...]

Living with a criminal record in New Jersey can feel overwhelming and devastating; a blemished record can turn even the simplest procedures into drawn out difficulties. Job applications, housing opportunities and even educational advancement can be hampered by an unclean record. But errors of the past don’t have to be life sentences, and exploring expungement [...]

Last year, we gave you some basic tips for controlling road rage. Again, we all know the feeling. Someone cuts us off on the highway, nearly hits us because of an illegal move, or recklessly tailgates us. How infuriating! For most of us, it’s nothing more than a short burst of frustration. Yet for some [...]

We’ve talked about tips to avoid a DUI before, as well as what to do about a DUI conviction. But what about breathalyzer laws in New Jersey? If you get pulled over and an officer wants you to take a breathalyzer test, what can you do? Can you say no? Will anything bad happen if [...]

Behavioral economist Daniel Kahneman has done extensive work on the factors that shape human decision making. In his most famous book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, he distinguishes between two systems in the brain. System 1 consists of fast, automatic, intuitive thinking. We use it to solve simple math problems or understand simple sentences. On the [...]

Do you remember that movie Catch Me If You Can? If you don’t think forgery or fraud comes with serious penalties, watch that movie. Law.com defines forgery as “the crime of creating a false document, altering a document, or writing a false signature for the illegal benefit of the person making the forgery.” Consequently, if [...]

You may not think of stealing and theft as a major crime if the person didn’t steal a ton of money. However, even crimes described as petty theft, like stealing a t-shirt, can leave you with permanent criminal charges. Thus, if you’ve been accused of theft, you need a competent theft attorney to defend your [...]

So we’ve covered plausible deniability, reasonable doubt, habeas corpus, and mens rea. But there’s plenty more basic legal jargon to cover! However, not all of it deserves its own post. So let’s knock out some of the more basic ones, shall we? In this week’s post, we’ll cover terms like plaintiff, defendant, motion, ruling, and [...]

“Mens rea.” Maybe you’ve heard that term thrown around involving your case. Maybe you remember it from this scene in Legally Blonde (2001). What is mens rea? What does it have to do with the law? What significance might it play in your case? As we continue our Mark W. Catanzaro blog series on legal [...]