Mount Vernon Criminal Defense Lawyer

The home-court difference.

Plenty of lawyers will drive up from Seattle for a Skagit County case. Here's what they can't bring: decades of appearing in these specific courtrooms, before these judges, across the aisle from this prosecutor's office — first as one of its deputies, then as defense counsel. I know how cases are charged here, how they're staffed, what this bench expects from a suppression motion, and which resolutions are actually achievable rather than theoretical. When your case is in Mount Vernon, you don't want a visitor. You want someone the courthouse already knows.

And practically: my office is in Burlington, minutes from the courthouse. Same-week in-person meetings, court-day availability, no travel-time billing baked into your case.

Where Skagit County cases are heard.

• Skagit County Superior Court — all felonies and the county's most serious matters, at the courthouse in downtown Mount Vernon.
• Skagit County District Court — county-filed misdemeanors and gross misdemeanors: DUI, fourth-degree assault, DV-designated charges, and more.
• Mount Vernon Municipal Court — misdemeanors filed by the city, prosecuted by the city's attorneys. Burlington, Sedro-Woolley, and Anacortes run municipal courts for their own city cases as well.

Same charge, different forum, genuinely different case. I appear in all of them — it's my backyard circuit.

What I defend in Skagit County.

Everything on this site, right here at home: DUI — the I-5 corridor through Mount Vernon and Burlington sees constant emphasis patrols, and the 7-day license clock starts at arrest. Assault charges at every degree. Domestic violence allegations and no-contact orders. Sex offense allegations, with total discretion — in a county this size, discretion isn't a luxury. Serious felonies prepared for trial from day one. And record clearing for old Skagit convictions that have followed you long enough.

When a criminal charge threatens more than a sentence.

Skagit County's economy runs on agriculture, trades, and small business — and for a meaningful share of the people charged here, the case's worst consequences aren't the ones written in the statute:

• Immigration. For non-citizens, certain convictions — including some misdemeanors — can carry consequences far heavier than the sentence: removal proceedings, inadmissibility, lost status. The Supreme Court requires defense counsel to advise on these stakes, and I go further: I build the defense strategy around them, and coordinate with immigration counsel when a case calls for it. In this county, that isn't a niche skill; it's table stakes.
• Licenses and livelihoods. CDL holders, licensed trades, healthcare workers — a conviction that means a fine for one person means a career for another. Tell me what your work touches; it shapes what outcomes we fight for.