Joshua P. Stock

Yes. Josh Stock is fluent in Spanish and communicates directly with Spanish-speaking clients.

What that means practically:

• Your conversation with your attorney happens in your language, without a third party in the middle
• Nothing about your case gets lost on its way through a translator
• You can ask questions the way you would actually ask them

¿Habla español? Josh puede ayudarle directamente con su caso criminal o de tráfico en Virginia.

One thing worth knowing. If you are not a U.S. citizen, a criminal conviction can carry immigration consequences that are separate from, and sometimes larger than, the sentence. Which convictions carry which consequences depends on the specific offense and your specific status. Raise it at the first conversation, so it can be part of the analysis rather than a surprise afterward.

Before becoming an attorney, Josh served as a law clerk for three judges on the Virginia Beach Circuit Court.

What that credential actually is: a year spent inside a trial court, seeing a large volume of cases move through it, and working closely with how Virginia law gets applied in practice.

Why Circuit Court specifically matters in this practice. Most Virginia traffic and misdemeanor cases start in General District Court. But a Class 1 misdemeanor conviction there can be appealed to Circuit Court, where you receive an entirely new trial and may request a jury. Circuit Court is also where felonies are tried. So an attorney who knows how that court runs is relevant to a reckless driving case in a way that is not obvious from the outside.

What a clerkship is not. It is not an advantage with any particular judge, and it is not inside knowledge of how a court will rule. A former clerk owes the same duty of confidentiality to the chambers they served as anyone else in the building, and no lawyer, however credentialed, can tell you what a judge will do with your case.

He spent two years as an attorney at the public defender’s offices in Suffolk and Virginia Beach, where he handled a high volume of criminal and traffic matters and gained substantial trial experience.

Why that background is relevant: public defender offices carry heavy caseloads, which means trial reps come early and often. Josh became thoroughly familiar with the issues that recur in traffic cases there, and with finding legal arguments and mitigation that fit the specific case rather than the category.

During law school he also interned with a criminal law firm in Fairfax and with the public defender in Spotsylvania.

Results depend on the specific facts of each case. Prior outcomes do not guarantee or predict a similar result in any other matter.

Josh’s article on double jeopardy and drug possession cases in Virginia was selected for publication by the Civil Rights Law Journal at George Mason University, where he served as research editor. He also founded GMU’s Criminal Law Society.

What double jeopardy has to do with a drug case. The Fifth Amendment protects against being tried twice for the same offense. In practice the hard question is what counts as “the same offense” when a single incident produces multiple charges, or when state and federal authorities are both interested, or when a charge is amended. Those questions are technical, they are easy to miss, and they are exactly the kind of issue that gets waived if nobody raises it.

What it tells you: he has done sustained work on constitutional questions in criminal cases. Whether that matters to your case depends entirely on what your case is.

Two things that most published guidance on this offense still gets wrong.

There is no longer an automatic license suspension. For years, § 18.2-259.1 imposed a six-month license forfeiture on any drug conviction whether or not driving was involved. That statute was repealed in 2020, along with § 46.2-390.1. If someone tells you a possession charge will automatically cost you your license for six months, ask them which statute.

A drug conviction no longer costs you federal student aid. Congress eliminated that restriction through the FAFSA Simplification Act. The tiered suspension of eligibility that appears on most drug-charge pages is describing repealed law.

What is real:

• Schedule I or II possession is a Class 5 felony, though the statute gives the court and jury discretion to punish it as a misdemeanor. Schedule III is a Class 1 misdemeanor and Schedule IV is a Class 2, which is a distinction that gets merged constantly.
• Constructive possession requires awareness of presence and character, plus dominion and control. Mere proximity is not enough.
• § 18.2-251 first offender treatment defers and dismisses the charge, but that dismissal is not expungeable and it is available once in your lifetime.

Eluding is not automatically a felony, and getting this right is the first thing that matters.

Va. Code § 46.2-817 has tiers:

• § 46.2-817(A): a Class 2 misdemeanor. Up to 6 months and a $1,000 fine. This is the base offense.
• § 46.2-817(B): a Class 6 felony, 1 to 5 years, but only where the driving interferes with or endangers the law enforcement vehicle, or endangers a person
• § 46.2-817(C): a Class 4 felony, only where a pursuing officer is killed

Two things that do not by themselves make it a felony: high speed alone, and danger to property rather than a person. The (B) tier requires more than driving fast.

The license consequence: § 46.2-817(D) requires a suspension of 30 days to one year on any conviction, with a 90-day floor where the speed exceeded 20 over.

And the provision that is the actual centerpiece of the statute, which almost every description of this offense omits. § 46.2-817 contains a statutory affirmative defense: that the defendant reasonably believed the pursuer was not a law enforcement officer. It applies to both the misdemeanor and the felony tiers. Unmarked cars, unclear signals, and stops at night are the situations it exists for.

What a case turns on: which tier you are actually charged under, whether the Commonwealth can prove you received a visible or audible signal, whether anyone was actually endangered, and whether the statutory defense fits your facts.

Josh is passionate about ensuring the judge understands that his clients are more than a simple piece of paper or police report.

What that means in practice:

• Putting the client’s actual circumstances in front of the court: work, family, community, record
• Explaining what led to the charge, where that is relevant
• Documenting steps already taken, which carries more weight than steps promised
• Making sure the court is deciding about a person rather than a summons

Why it matters. A court sees the police report and the charge. Everything else about you arrives only if someone brings it, and it does not bring itself. That is mitigation, and it is a real part of the work rather than a flourish.

What it is not. It is not a lever, and nobody can promise you what a court will do with it.

Law School: George Mason University, Antonin Scalia Law School

• J.D., cum laude, top 20% of his class
• Research Editor, Civil Rights Law Journal
• Founder, GMU Criminal Law Society
• Published legal scholarship. See question 4.

Undergraduate: Weber State University

• B.S., summa cum laude

Yes, and there is a practical reason to want that.

Josh handles hit and run, driving on a suspended license, driving without a license, drug possession, DUI/DWI, reckless driving, speeding, underage possession of alcohol, and assault and battery.

Why charges are best analyzed together:

• They interact. A DUI-related suspension means a later driving charge is prosecuted under § 18.2-272 rather than § 46.2-301, which is a different statute with a felony tier. That is invisible if the charges are handled separately.
• Some resolutions are once in a lifetime. § 18.2-251 drug deferral can be used one time. Spending it on the smallest charge in a group forecloses it on the largest.
• Collateral consequences do not stack the way sentences do. A CDL, a clearance, or a visa may care about one charge in the group far more than the court does.
• The record is what lasts, and which charge produces which record is the question worth answering before anything is resolved.

Josh is a member of the Virginia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (VACDL), which provides continuing education on Virginia criminal law and defense practice, and advocates on criminal justice policy.

What to do right now:

• Bring the summons. The code section on it determines everything, and it is frequently not the charge people think they have. Eluding in question 6 is the clearest example: the difference between § 46.2-817(A) and (B) is a misdemeanor and a felony.
• Do not prepay anything. Prepaying is a guilty plea.
• Do not discuss the case with police or anyone else without counsel
• Preserve what decays. Dashcam footage, phone data, and photographs overwrite on their own schedule.
• Write down what you remember, now
• Do not miss the court date. A failure to appear produces a capias, which does not expire.
• Say so early if you hold a CDL, a clearance, a professional license, or a visa, or if you are not a U.S. citizen. See question 1.

Call (804) 355-8037 to schedule a free consultation with Josh and the Weiland Button team.