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...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.
Here’s a quiz for you.
A young woman is trying to use a depleted and/or somehow otherwise broken fire extinguisher to put out the flames engulfing her car. (Right now. This is happening right in front of you.)
You tell her to wait while you run and get another extinguisher. Having made that promise, you decide not to dilly dally, but instead to run across the street to the nearest establishment that might have one.
Unfortunately, you don’t technically make it all the way across the street, because you are hit by a car. You are flung 15 to 20 feet, you require medical attention in the form of a staple in your head and a neck brace at the ER, you will walk around with a limp for a few days, but good grief, you were hit by a car and you’ll survive. Quit complaining, right?
Continue Reading...Robert Guest complains that he is not psychic. For example, on Avvo Answers, a commonly asked query goes like this: “I’ve been charged with X, what kind of sentence will I get?” His response:
Let's see. Without knowing the facts, court, prosecutor, legal issues, or your criminal history you want me to guess the outcome of a case based upon the charge? Really?
Continue Reading...
Byron Sage was a special agent in the FBI’s Austin office when he was called in to be the lead negotiator with the Branch Davidian’s during the infamous 1993 standoff. He was interviewed last year, along with other government agents, local Waco law enforcement, and some of the survivors, by Pamela Colloff in her Texas Monthly 15th anniversary article “The Fire That Time”. (Unfortunately, full access to TM articles is subscription only, or I’d provide a link to the article.)
Continue Reading...Only 847,863 arrests for marijuana offenses in the U.S. last year.
Translation: slightly less than last year, or the second most ever, depending on how you want to look at it.
Admit it. When someone calls you a “fool” or perhaps something worse, you want to respond. And not politely. You might lock ‘em up if you could…
Continue Reading...This summer, incensed by a ruling in a child-custody case involving his granddaughter, 69-year-old Don Bandelman followed the judge into a public courthouse restroom and berated him as "a fool," court records show.
Continue Reading...[W]e abide by the principle which dictates that somebody will always position himself or herself to systematically harvest anything of value in this world for the sake of money, power and/or ego-fulfillment. We aim to be that somebody.
Via Houston’s Clear Thinkers, make sure to watch all the way to the end if you want your graduate degree…
Continue Reading...Via an @arsenicjulep tweet of a Newsweek article, “Why We Believe Lies, Even When We Learn The Truth”:
Continue Reading...Some people form and cling to false beliefs about health-care reform (or Obama's citizenship) despite overwhelming evidence thanks to a mental phenomenon called motivated reasoning, says sociologist Steven Hoffman, visiting assistant professor at the University at Buffalo.
Everyone knows that Ted Kennedy drove his car off a bridge in 1969, abandoning a female companion who drowned.
Once upon a time I thought I could keep track of all the criminal defense blogs out there. Then I thought I could track Texas defense lawyer blogs. Now I can’t even keep track of the CDL bloggers in Austin, but here’s a list of the ones I know about:
Continue Reading...Enter keywords:
