One of Sam’s teachers told me that he was the class clown. (When my wife was told the same thing at a parent-teacher conference, she said it must be genetic.)
Sounded possibly like a bad review of his behavior, but the teacher assured me that it wasn’t, that he just says things that make even his teachers laugh. And apparently at a much greater rate than most 3 year olds.
Continue Reading...I’ve been busy burying myself in the finer details of achieving a one word verdict, and wholly neglected to point folks to this week’s edition of Blawg Review.
A scene from “Marijuana Inc.: Inside America’s Pot Industry” included a mini-tour of Oaksterdam University, which promotes itself as the first cannabis college, providing entrepreneurs with the “highest quality training” to enter California’s burgeoning marijuana dispensary business. On several walls were large red signs with yellow letters proclaiming:
Jurors Can Not Be Punished For Their Verdicts
An advertisement for jury nullification, albeit when considering the location, most likely preaching to the choir, or viewed more cynically, meant to assuage students’ doubts about the likelihood of a successful federal prosecution.
Continue Reading...Houston criminal defense lawyer Mark Bennett makes sure he follows through on those pesky little certificates of service, because he doesn’t want to be accused of a criminal offense, say, tampering with a governmental record. So when a prosecutor filed a motion, and swore s/he had served Mark but hadn’t, he asked:
Are you laboring under the delusive belief that [the D.A.] won’t file charges against you?
I'm pretty sure the prosecutor was laboring under the 100% correct belief that charges won’t be filed.
The Drug Policy Alliance released a paper last week, “Healing a Broken System: Veterans Battling Addiction and Incarceration”. One of several recommendations:
Continue Reading...State and federal governments must modify sentencing statutes and improve court ordered drug diversion programs to better treat – rather than criminalize and incarcerate – veterans who commit non-violent drug related crimes.
United States v. Ortega Reyna, 148 F.3d 540 (5th Circuit 1998):
After examining each piece of evidence from that perspective, we conclude that, like Newton's Third Law, for every inference of guilt that may be drawn from the evidence, there is an equal and opposite benign inference to be drawn.
A beautiful turn of phrase (but see my other concerns), Newton’s 3rd Law of Motion, colloquially stated as “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”.
Jesus Ortega Reyna appealed his 130 month sentence for possession with intent to distribute heroin and amphetamines, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). His sole point of appeal: insufficiency of the evidence.
Continue Reading...Paintings and sketchings from a Travis County prosecutor whose blog says she wants to work as a courtroom artist when she retires. Primarily not courthouse related stuff, but there's plenty of that in there too.
Lots of good work: for example, in the second sketch, the person on the left could be a prosecutor or defense lawyer that I don’t recognize from behind, but that’s unmistakably Judge Kocurek in the middle.
[H/T: D.A. Confidential “Not Your Usual Sketch Artist”]
From my recently kindled copy of Eating the Dinosaur, Chuck Klosterman is interviewing Errol Morris, the documentary filmmaker, on the subject of interviewing people:
What’s more interesting to you: someone who lies consciously, someone who lies unconsciously, or someone who tells a relatively mundane version of the truth?
Here’s a snippet of Morris’ answer:
Continue Reading...…I read a piece about modern forms of lie detection – methods that go beyond the polygraph. The writer’s idea was that we can actually record activity inside the brain that proves who is or who isn’t lying.
From the San Francisco Chronicle article “Report: Pot use, arrests rising in California”:
Marijuana arrests in California are increasing faster than the nationwide rate, and African Americans are being booked for pot-related crimes much more often than whites, a new report says.
But despite the rise in arrests and in the seizure of marijuana plants, use of pot in California has increased slightly, said the report, part of a nationwide study released Thursday by a Virginia researcher.
Isn’t arresting folks for marijuana possession supposed to discourage use?
Continue Reading...From an email several months back:
Continue Reading...Writing on behalf of my son. We are completely frustrated with our attorney choice.
They told us 99% it would be dismissed in our first meeting. Court date arrives and then a new attorney starts on the case. There was no hope it would be dismissed.
Anyone searching for a niche blog topic could do well blogging about contempt of court. Stories like these are getting more and more common (even if this one is beyond the pale):
Continue Reading...Criminal lawyer Thomas Gallagher writes about a case, Minnesota v. Peck, decided by his state’s Supreme Court which overruled a trial court’s determination that including the bong water as a “mixture” used to calculate the weight of methamphetamine possessed by a defendant would be “unjust”.
The difference in the weight of the meth alone vs. the weight including the bong water (approximately 37 grams) raised the offense to a first degree drug felony punishable by a maximum of 30 years, and if I have my Minnesota law right, and I very well might not, a minimum sentence of 87 months, or 7 years and 3 months. Assume the defendant would be probation eligible otherwise, and you Yankee lawyers can write in to tell me I’m wrong.
Continue Reading...I predicted some humorous tidbits would come from D.A. Confidential, and I’ll predict now that this post may be hard for DAC to top. I’m going to forgo substantive comments, merely hinting at the subject matter, hopefully forcing you to click through and actually read the original. (You know how new bloggers get obsessed with watching their stats.)
A total guess here on my part: the defense lawyer simply handed this motion to the prosecutor in court as a joke – it’s not file stamped after all. The response is brilliant.
“You don’t get a figure like mine by eating salads for lunch,” I often say, when it is either necessary or, more likely, merely personally amusing to point out that I’m no longer the fittest of the fit. But I still have a few friends left from childhood that remember me as a scrawny kid, constantly on the move, never staying still, always running, bicycling, shooting hoops, not per se “exercising” in the 40-something meaning of the word, on treadmills or ellipticals, but let’s say… “very active”. (And I wonder where my children get their energy from.)
Continue Reading...The Department of Justice sent a memo on Monday to all its prosecutors regarding federal prosecution of marijuana cases in States that have legalized the use of medical marijuana. From the memo:
Continue Reading...A new criminal law blog in Austin has popped up recently, but unlike those I recently posted about, this one comes in the black hat variety. That’s right: it’s written by a prosecutor.
Continue Reading...Press the Mute and the TV Power button simultaneously, for approximately 5 seconds, or until the red light at the top blinks. Type in code 0-1-2-8. Tada!
Note to others: this may not work for you. This code works on my exact TV, with my exact box, and my exact remote. The reason I have put this on my blog is that every time I have to reprogram the damn thing – say, for example, I change the batteries – I go to the computer to look up the code.
Continue Reading...Reading between the lines from this KXAN news story, “Man Faces Life In Prison for Perjury”:
Continue Reading...A Liberty Hill man faces life in prison for aggravated perjury charges after claiming he was innocent following a plea bargain with the Williamson County District Attorney’s Office.
Prosecutors say Markus Peavy had made false statements in his plea bargain and the writ when claiming he was not guilty of DWI charges. Peavy is two years into a 55-year sentence for a fourth DWI conviction.
This blog turns three years old today. Actually, I think the first live post may have been “Logical Fallacies and Marijuana Decriminalization” posted on September 21, 2006, and there were several articles written prior to putting the blog online, but I forgot to comment on the anniversary last week, so I’m arbitrarily moving it to October 1st. (I also reserve the right to re-forget and bump the birthday to the middle of October next year.)
Continue Reading...Waiting in line for a down elevator after getting out of court this morning, a lawyer and a client talking about having the ignition interlock on his car "the whole time" while his case was pending:
Client: I haven’t gotten into any trouble for almost two years.
Lawyer: …and for you, that’s actually really impressive.
The lawyer had a big grin on his face, and the client laughed.
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