Austin Criminal Defense Lawyer : Austin Criminal Defense Lawyer & Attorney : Jamie Spencer Law Firm : DWI, DUI, Drug Possession : Serving Georgetown, Round Rock, San Marcos, Travis, Williamson, and Hays County, Texas

From an anonymous commenter (Revised for spelling, punctuation and all caps; comment since deleted):

I called the police on my boyfriend and said he hit me with a gun which never happened. I was mad and I wanted him to go to jail that day.

But now I feel bad for lying and I want to tell the truth but I don’t know what will happen since I lied to the police.

Please help me and tell me what I should do.

If you were meeting with “Criminal defense lawyer Jamie”  I would probably be under an obligation to tell you that you are subjecting yourself to the possibility of being charged with False Report to a Peace Officer by stepping up to the plate and admitting your lie.

Prosecutors routinely threaten to file such charges against complainants (I refuse to call them victims) in assault cases when they “change their story”. In actuality it almost never happens.

In over ten years of practicing criminal defense, I’ve had the occasional false report client, but I’ve never seen one for this particular situation – that is, for taking back an accusation of assault. But as your lawyer, I might feel obliged to advise you to shut up. And at the very least, I’d warn you of the possible consequences, and have you balance that with your need to assuage your guilt.

But here’s the thing. I’m not your lawyer, and this isn’t legal advice, it’s “be a decent human being” advice:

Go to the police, the prosecutor, and your boyfriend’s lawyer – and tell each and every single one of them that you falsely accused him. If his lawyer is worth anything at all, he will have you sign an affidavit to that effect.

He is in a heck of a lot more trouble than you are, or probably ever will be, but more importantly, it’s the right thing to do.

But then, you already knew that, didn’t you?

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From Grit’s ‘Statesman Late to the Stop Snitching Party’:

In the Austin Statesman today, Joshunda Sanders has a story informing us, "'Stop Snitching' sentiment spreads to Austin," and I'll expand here on comments I left under her story on the newspaper's site.

First, three years ago after I began writing about this topic, a friend bought me a "Stop Snitching" t-shirt from a vendor here in Austin. I don't wear it much, but I've seen the shirts here and there ever about town ever since. So why do we now we get a story saying the sentiment is "spreading to Austin"?

The article quotes almost exclusively police sources, including one bizarre claim that's blatantly, patently false: "The word 'snitch' gives [police] pause”, writes Sanders, "'The only people who call it 'snitching' are crooks talking to crooks,' said former Homicide Commander Harold Piatt with the Austin Police Department, who is now retired."

Actually, the reporter unintentionally reveals how untrue the policeman’s claim is. From further on in the article itself, a witness tells her:

"People always say 'don't snitch' out here," she said, "But you should snitch because cooperating with police can help you keep your community safe."

Let’s apply the ‘crooks talking to crooks rule’.

The witness uses the word ‘snitch’.  So… she’s a crook. And she’s talking to the person writing the article. Also a crook.

For a prosecutor’s viewpoint on the article, see Steanso for more substantive – by which I really mean less smart alec - commentary.

Update: Another example of crooks/journalists using the word snitch. H/T: Dallas Criminal Defense

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An attorney advertises (in one place) that his ‘specialties’ include ‘criminal motion practice’ and then posts this to a general someone-please-answer-my-question site:

What are some of the standard pre-trial motions attorneys file in criminal cases?

Most of my court-appointed cases usually end up with a plea deal at the preliminary hearing, or the DA and I work out a plea before indictment (PBI). However, I have two cases where my clients are refusing plea deals, and we are headed to trial. Both have been indicted.

I am aware of the standard "Brady" motion; but are there others which are useful?

Ouch.

I can’t decide whether to post a link to where I ran across this tidbit. I’ll take a poll in the comments section. Should I or shouldn’t I? 

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A Harris County Lawyer continues her (his?) excellent series on the inner workings of the District Attorney’s Office in Houston with “The Capital Murder Decision” which takes us through the process used to determine whether or not to seek the death penalty:

Harris County has long been synonymous with being the "Death Penalty Capital of the World" and it has always been pretty much the center of every debate on capital punishment since the 1970s.

Good opening – I’m glad to not have to debate that point, but let’s throw in some facts and figures just to prove that the nickname is more than well deserved, it’s literally true. If Harris County were a State, it would rank second to Texas and ahead of current number two Virginia in number of inmates executed since 1982, when Texas reinstated the death penalty.

One portion of the decision making process?

If a Defendant has priors, the prosecutor won't just order the Judgment and Sentence reflecting the conviction. They will order the offense report, the old file, and everything else that they possibly can to understand what happened on the prior offense.

Reading offense reports of priors is certainly appropriate. But let’s not forget the number one rule of offense reports: The police put in all the bad facts, and leave out anything mitigating or exculpatory. So if you want the worst possible take on an offense? Read the police report – several times preferably.

They often pull the Defendant's school records if he is young. They will talk to the victim's family members and discuss their feelings about the case.

Victim’s family members are rarely going to oppose the death penalty in a murder case. I hope I would – but frankly, I’m not sure. Actually, I think I’d want to kill the S.O.B. myself, but I wouldn’t want the government to do it. And I’m against the death penalty.

They will look at the offense itself and decide how bad the facts of the case-in-chief are. Sadly, in this day and age, a capital murder during a convenience store robbery doesn't really "shock the conscience" like it used to.

Now we get to the thesis of AHCL’s post. Harris County only asks jurors to execute in cases where the murder shocks the conscience.

But that still doesn’t come close to answering the question of why Harris County’s death penalty rate is so high. And it’s high – I should say the highest and by a long shot - by any metric: total executions, percentage of murder convictions where a sentence of death is imposed, number of capital cases indicted, etc. It’s the percentages of death sentences to murders that begs the next question:

Why are the consciences of Harris County prosecutors/jurors so easily shocked – compared to every other geographical region in the country with statistically significantly lower death penalty rates?

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Blogging lawyers in Houston and Forth Worth are posting back and forth on which is the superior quality to be found in a criminal defense lawyer: empathy or ruthlessness.

Thought about jumping into the fray, but why rewrite my thoughts when I can cut and paste? Last year from one of my own posts “Are You An Aggressive Defense Lawyer?”:

One of the main buzzwords you see on even the best criminal defense lawyer websites is the phrase “aggressive defense”. I guess this either sounds good, or more likely, whoever wrote the website for the lawyer thinks it sounds good. Either way, I don’t call myself an aggressive lawyer.

On the contrary, I go to great lengths to be courteous and well mannered. In the initial negotiations stage of a case, the prosecutor has a great deal of leeway to potentially offer a better than average deal (which is what all of my clients are seeking). Why would they bend a little if the lawyer in a particular case was acting aggressively?

Potential clients who want their lawyer to act like the guest star on Law & Order don’t have a real firm grasp on their situation in the first place. If I truly have the upper hand when it comes to the law and the facts (and that does happen occasionally) there’s still no point in my coming into the prosecutor’s office and yelling and screaming at them. Or whatever it is that being aggressive or ruthless means.

I’m not perfect by any means. The courtroom can be a frustrating place, and lots of times I have to swallow my ego when some prosecutor is yelling at me about all the terrible things my client is accused of. I’ve been known – on occasion – to lose my temper.

But that usually leads me to the realization that I haven’t done my clients many favors.

For me the appropriate buzzword here is: competitive.

I don’t like to lose; whether it’s chess, poker, or my client’s case, I want to win. Sometimes (often?) a win is convincing a prosecutor to dismiss or reduce a case – perhaps in return for the client doing some community service, or an alcohol or drug awareness class – that the State could take to trial and likely get a Guilty verdict.

Sometimes a win is having that pretrial motion to suppress even though the prosecutor insists there are no legitimate issues. (A) You might actually win it and (B) it may bring out other problems with the State’s case; for example that the police officer makes a terrible witness.

Sometimes it means taking the case to trial.

There’s probably a reasonable argument that doing those things listed makes you aggressive/ruthless/substitute-your-favorite-adjective here. Perhaps it’s just a matter of semantics.

But I’ve seen plenty of lawyers come in to talk to a prosecutor about a case, and behave like first class jerks. It’s actually the exception not the rule. (The rule is that civil lawyers are not at all civil, while criminal lawyers usually are.)

And whenever I see someone touting themselves as “aggressive” that’s the image that comes to mind.

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Ken Lammers at CrimLaw will be happy to know that the list of prosecutor blogs just keeps growing and growing.

I should have thrown A Harris County Lawyer into the mix a long time ago. And I’ve recently run across “da blog” written by an anonymous “assistant district attorney in a large, metropolitan city”. My guess? That city is likely Houston, and definitely in Texas.

Any other blogging prosecutors please email me or comment sometime so I’ll be sure to know about you.

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TigerHawk tells us that by receiving only a 3 year sentence Wesley Snipes got off easy:

And for my fellow libertarian conservatives who are offended, I offer the friendly reminder that Pete Rose served five months in federal prison for defaulting on approximately 2% of the taxes and penalties owed by Wesley Snipes.

Considering that federal sentencing guidelines -- which law-and-order conservatives loudly champion as the remedy for "soft judges" -- for other white collar offenses have massively increased jail time for purely monetary crimes (many of which have much more ambiguous evidentiary and legal standards than rank tax evasion), three years seems incredibly light.

TH concedes that white-collar sentencing has “gone completely overboard” but says that by recent standards Snipes would have gotten ten years if he were some CEO.

Actually, anyone convicted of the same thing as Snipes would have gotten 36 months or less. Three years - that is, a maximum sentence of 1 year for each misdemeanor conviction, then stacked or run consecutively – is the most that Snipes or anyone else similarly situated could have received. 

The maximum sentence was a likely result here, because once the ‘appropriate’ punishment for the acquitted conduct was factored in, Snipes was theoretically way over the guidelines for the maximum.

But it’s hard to see where one can argue that the max and getting off easy – for misdemeanors again mind you – are even close to the same logical ballpark.

As for the analogy to Pete Rose’s situation, he probably received some sort of downward departure for acceptance of responsibility and pleading guilty. And his sentences – yes, plural – all ran concurrently. But let’s ignore that.

Is the 2% figure supposed to mean that Snipes should have gotten a sentence 50 times longer than Rose? 250 months? Almost 21 years? If we start following that logic, we’ll lead the world in incarceration rates.

UPDATE.  I should have read the comments before publishing. Here’s part of one:

Snipes is a sh*tty actor and criminal. He deserves the long arm of the law.

Begs the question: Should Al Pacino get a lower sentence than Steven Seagal if they were both caught cheating for roughly the same amount of taxes? And do we count total number of Oscar nominations, or just wins when it comes to lesser punishment?

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Decatur lawyer Barry Wise points out that because Section 38.23 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure provides additional prophylactic protections to accused citizens the Virginia v. Moore decision doesn’t have any real impact in Texas. Mark Bennett wonders why then did the Texas Attorney General even bother to weigh in on the amicus brief.

Good question.

Here’s a portion from the intro:

If the States choose to do so, the Constitution permits them to provide their citizens with protections above and beyond those embodied in the Fourth Amendment.

Concurrent with the ability to create new protections, the States are also permitted to craft the remedies for violations of these state protections.

Maybe Greg Abbott was the expert they needed for that portion of the brief.

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Still not commenting, just linking to the story.  And a hat tip to Radley.

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OK. Let’s start with the caveat: I frequently feel the need to couch what I’m saying with an offhand phrase that is meant to deflect illogical criticism.

Examples?

How about… “Sure Saddam is a bad guy, but that doesn’t justify invading a country blah blah blah.”

Or… “Drinking and driving is a bad idea, but the so-called field sobriety tests don’t measure intoxication and therefore blah blah blah.”

The real purpose behind this conceit is literally to pre-acknowledge the listener’s unjustifiable reaction to the statement, and to focus them on the point you are trying to make. I don’t want to get into an argument about whether Saddam (or DWI) is ‘bad’, but I know that may be the illogical response to what I’m saying, so I attempt to head it off at the pass. Guilty as charged.

Now on to Eldorado. In response to Grits’ outcry that not enough Texas lawyers have weighed in on the fiasco, No Friends With Salad posts:

As much as I might abhor the polygamist lifestyle, as much as I might have an unsubstantiated hunch that something's wrong there or that a crime has been committed, it don't mean jack.

The true measure of a democracy is how the government treats politically and socially unpopular groups. Texas, we have failed in this regard. [Emphasis added]

NFWS makes good points in other part of the post, but honestly, why does anyone care about someone else’s ‘polygamist lifestyle’?

I’m probably overreacting to the word ‘lifestyle’. To me, that echoes what I hear when someone talks about the gay or homosexual ‘lifestyle’.

Huge difference between them of course. Primarily, being gay is not a choice (or as Fox News likes to call it a ‘lifestyle’). Of course engaging in homosexual acts is a choice – in the same way that engaging in heterosexual acts is a choice. And as long as both participants are lucid and consenting, you don’t need a criminal defense lawyer.

But having homosexual feelings, i.e. being homosexual is not a choice. (For those too stupid to understand the distinction – let me ask you this: In Sixth/Seventh Grade, did you have ‘feelings’ for both boys and girls, but because you are uber-moral you only chose to act out on the ‘feelings’ you had for the opposite sex?)

However, choosing to have multiple wives is… a choice. FLDS members may see it as God’s directive to them, but they are still choosing to live the way (their understanding of) God wants them to.

Also, I personally know the anonymous blogger NFWS, and doubt he cares about polygamy. And I can actually prove his pro-gay (or is that anti-anti-gay) bona fides. 

So, to recap

1. I too sometimes try to preempt illogical criticism with a throw away line (and maybe that’s what this is)
2. I’m hypersensitive when I hear someone describe someone else’s ‘lifestyle’, because it’s sometimes a pretext for bigotry or ignorance
3. NFWS has – in my book anyway – unquestionable tolerance for others

But…

Why would anyone take the time to care about, much less abhor, someone else’s polygamist lifestyle?  What difference does it make to you?

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A legislator in Arkansas decides to write a law that doesn’t allow anyone under the age of 18 to get married, unless they are pregnant and have their parent’s permission. Let’s skip discussion of whether what they intended is a good idea, and take a look at what they actually did.

Here is the text of the bill as submitted:

In order for a person who is younger than eighteen (18) years of age and who is not pregnant to obtain a marriage license, the person must provide the county clerk with evidence of parental consent to the marriage.

The bill passed as is.

Anyone see any problems?

[HatTip: Set in Style]

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But it might get you out of jury duty.

(Or should I have made this post something about having “a jury of your peers”?)

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Maybe it’s because I’m a new parent, but I’m starting to become more interested in the topic of criminalizing normal child behavior.

Ron’s Insanity is starting a collection of Crazy School Stories:

I've got a file on crazy school stories. Now these are the ones that make the newspaper and often tend to be quite egregious. These are stories like strip searching a 13 year old girl over Motrin or suspending a kid over eating at lunch with a steak knife.

However, I'm frankly surprised and shocked at the number of people who have school "horror" stories…

Since I'm already getting active lobbying my local school board and since I've decided that it's time to start taking this to the Texas Legislature, I want to have as many stories as possible to shock our lawmakers into putting an end to some of this insanity.

Ron’s asking for emails, so if you have actual experiences to relate, head over there and help out.

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Everyone gets treated like the Worst-of-the-Worst.

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In “False Accusations and Self Inflicted Injuries” Florida defense lawyer Ron Chapman tells the story of a case where his client’s wife accused him of cutting her wrists with box cutters. I don’t know Florida’s penal statutes but that’s aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in Texas – 2nd degree felony – punishable by 2 to 20 years.

The accuser is in the midst of divorcing Ron’s client, has a history of mental health problems, and – oh yeah – insists he didn’t do it. So Ron hires an expert for a scientific opinion: 

I sent the photographs of the wife's injuries to a forensic pathologist who immediately concluded that they were self-inflicted.  When I told this to the prosecutor on the case (and to his boss), both dismissed the expert's conclusion.  The case proceeded to trial.

At trial the jury (aided by the forensic pathologist's testimony) concluded that my client was not guilty of any wrongdoing.  After the trial, several of the jurors asked me why the case had not been dismissed by the prosecutor since the woman's injuries were clearly self-inflicted. 

I have since wondered why experienced prosecutors could not see what was so obvious to those jurors who had no training in the law.

I’m guessing it’s a knee jerk reaction by a prosecutor who thinks “paid testimony” is automatically – I don’t know – perjury? That the defense lawyer can just pay any old scientist to come in, swear falsely in an affidavit, testify under oath to whatever the defense needs… for the right fee.

If only they would apply that same logic to snitches. There’s no difference really – except that a drug addled felon with a history of crimes involving moral turpitude looking to save himself some time in the pen might be more willing to lie than some professional who is simply accepting fair compensation for his services and rendering an expert opinion.

Never mind. There I go talking like a crazy defense lawyer again.

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A while back on his legal writing blog, my former teacher Wayne Schiess asked:

What legal words or phrases would you like to banish? They can be archaic, offensive, baffling, weasel-like, or hyperlegal.

This may be cheating, because it’s not a word or phrase, but I’d like to see all the overly flowery stuff go. Just say what you mean.

“Comes now the Defendant…” “In the above entitled and numbered cause..” “Before the commencement of trial…” “Wherefore premises considered…”

OK. I got those from one of my own standard motions, so maybe I could use some help in this regard. You know - motes and beams. But I’ve seen much worse, especially when I accidentally come across civil lawyers’ writings.

Reminds me of when back in the 80s, while pursuing an undergraduate degree at Texas A&M University, I worked at several jobs to help pay my way through school.  At one ‘student job’ the director of the place I was working for needed to send something – I don’t remember what – to someone.

I do remember the entirety of the letter she had me type up to send along:

Enclosed please find requested enclosures as requested.

                                                                                /s/

                                                                                ---------------------

A seven word sentence, with two different words or concepts repeated.   That’s got to be some sort of record. “Here’s that stuff you asked me to send you” gets the point across – and won’t have your reader tied up in knots laughing at your pomposity.

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Unintentionally late posting here…

Go see Charlie Roadman’s presentation tonight at the Mohawk. Click here for my previous review. More info here.

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Skimming law related posts on my RSS reader and I think to myself I should answer Grits’ question: “Why haven’t blogging lawyers weighed in on the Eldorado arrests?”

Fair question.

But instead of posting immediately, I keep skimming. Darn it. I should know better. New York defense lawyer Scott Greenfield has already answered. And now I can’t pretend I came up with this response independently (even though I did). With ellipses:

The easy answer is that this entire affair is so fundamentally foreign to my experiences that I really don't know what to make of it…

As the Texas prosecutors will argue that all children should be removed from their parents, I tend to think that this blanket approach is not merely overkill, but harmful to the majority of the children.  Children need parents, and it hardly serves them to put them in foster care if there is no real threat to their safety.

But without having a firm understanding of what this really means, it's impossible to take a meaningful stand on this case, or to offer any insight that would be worthwhile…

The reason that this blawg hasn't had anything to say is that I just don't have anything to say.  Maybe I will once I have a better grasp of the situation, but until then I'm going to do the most helpful thing I can.  Remain silent.

Facts.

That’s what I need to be able to comment on this story. The real facts. The complete facts. And the MSM isn’t going to give them to me.

I know from experience that when the newspapers and other media get involved in covering criminal cases they don’t just intentionally distort the salacious and outrageous aspects; more often they are justifiably criticized for just plain missing the point.

What do we ‘know’ from the media so far?

1. They are polygamists. (A crime in Texas.)
2. They lived on a compound. (Means they lived ‘in a house or houses’ but sounds more ominous.)
3. They molest children. (According to the still unidentifiable and anonymous complainant.)
4. They are associated with convicted felon Warren Jeffs. (The most verifiable of the media allegations.)

One of these things is bad (child molesting); one is a crime that I don’t particularly care about and never comes up in my practice (polygamy); one is essentially a variation of an ad hominem attack (‘They’ know someone bad); and one is semantics (‘compound’ vs. ‘not homeless’).

But wait. There are important legal principles at stake here on the libertarian side of things, namely:

Just how long can the state remove hundreds of children from their mothers before they have to

1. Give them back or
2. Prove something (anything) about being an unfit parent?

Not exactly a criminal defense question, but it touches on issues such as government intrusion on citizens’ personal rights, so it's close.

Well, as the Supreme Court likes to say when they can’t really figure out how to make black letter law: it’s probably got to involve some sort of balancing test.

And to balance properly, I still need… facts. Not allegations, facts. I don’t have them – yet – possibly never will.

And so, here endeth my longest ‘No Comment’ ever.

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Doug Weathers asks criminal defense lawyers, “Would you rather have Good Facts or Good Law?”:

Every time I am preparing for a trial I deal with the question of do I have good facts or good law. Rarely do you have both because those cases are usually dismissed or never go to trial. Sometimes you have neither good facts or good law and those cases usually plead. In most of the trial cases you will have either good facts or good law.

In my experience as a criminal defense attorney in Texas, there is precious little good law for the defendant.

On Law & Order and other TV shows judges are routinely throwing out cases for undotted i’s and uncrossed t’s, but it ain’t exactly so in real courtrooms. The overwhelming government interest (according to appellate courts) in convicting anyone and everyone when it comes to the War on Drugs has darn near killed the Fourth Amendment.

And then there’s that DWI exception to the Constitution:

In sum, the balance of the State's interest in preventing drunken driving, the extent to which this system can reasonably be said to advance that interest, and the degree of intrusion upon individual motorists who are briefly stopped, weighs in favor of the state program. We therefore hold that [stopping drivers without reasonable suspicion or probable cause**] is consistent with the Fourth Amendment.

[**original wording is “it”. Read the case. My substitution for the word “it” is 100% accurate.]

Good law? Only been practicing a little over ten years. I’ve heard rumors that such a thing existed in the 70’s. And I’ve read plenty of caselaw overturning those well reasoned precedents. 

I’ll go with Good Facts. Medium Facts. Any Facts.

OK. Enough dreaming. Gotta get back to work on some of those “Not So Good Facts/Not So Good Law” cases…

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Blogrolling ACDL… Thanks go out to the following blogs that have recently added permanent links, linked to me in a post of their own, linked to my DWI blog or commented on recent posts:

• Mississippi Criminal Defense Law Blog
• South Texas Defense
• The Peace Train
• Bloggin’ for Wedding Vendors
• California Blog of Appeal
• Law Department Search
• The Muckraker
• Donna Says
• The Stark Raving Viking
• Life at the Harris County Criminal Justice Center

And here are some other interesting blogs I’ve been following recently:

• The Unapologetic Mexican
• Sexual Intelligence
• Unqualified Offerings
• Curia Advisari Vult
• The Local Crank
• Folo

As always, I’ve likely missed some folks, so please email me if you’d like to be included in the next edition of Austin Criminal Defense Blogrolling.

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So, I read Houston defense lawyer Mark Bennett’s post “Lanyard Nation” and I thought to myself, “Wow! That’s quite the post. I wonder why he got so worked up about various issues.”

Then I remembered his “Improvisational Blogging” post – he had thrown out a few saved titles of unwritten posts, and challenged his readers:

Here’s the deal: pick a title and suggest three or four words or phrases (PG or G rated, please) for me to use in the post. Write a comment. I’ll write the post, incorporating the words or phrases, and you’ll grade me.

So “Lanyard Nation” was actually inspired by Mark Draughn, the best Chicago blogger out there. And the best New York defense lawyer’s challenge was answered in “The Commerce Clause”. Well done.

I’m not going to be able to beat Bennett at his own game – but I do have this in common with him: I have a ton of half written but fully titled posts saved in my “Blog Post Ideas” folder. So I’ll give it a shot. Here are the titles of the future posts, same rules as Bennett’s. Three or four words or phrases suggested from you, and I’ll do my best to publish the post soon with your suggestions incorporated.

1. Snitching: The Bible Version
2. 20 Years for Crack Pipe Residue
3. When I Paint Horse Thieves
4. Why You Should Let the Police Search Your Car

OK. That’s enough for now. I’ll admit to tossing out the ones that potentially give me the most leeway – but these were all criminal defense related (in my mind anyway) when I started. 

I’ve got 6 or 7 times more unfinished posts, but for example “Value Ladder for Theft” is just too pedestrian for me to reasonably stick random words in, and “Losing an Uncontested Competency Hearing” is a true story that needs no embellishment – even if it does have a surprise ending. Another one, “No One is Heir to the Living,” was a favorite phrase of my second year Wills & Estates professor, but unfortunately all I’ve got is the title saved and no memory of what in the heck I was going to say about it.

Or maybe I’m just chicken. At any rate, let’s see how these first four turn out.

Fire away.

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Just finished watching Nova: Marathon Challenge on PBS, and I’ve decided to do something stupid exciting. Well maybe two stupid exciting things.

1. I’m going to run a marathon before I’m 40. 
2. I’m going to announce that intention publicly on this blog – mostly as motivation to help me stick with it. I’m not sure which of those two is more stupid exciting.

The official date of the AT&T 2009 Marathon in Austin hasn’t been decided yet, but this year’s was in February, so that might be a good one to aim for. The 12 previously unprepared and frankly unfit runners in the NOVA program trained for 9 months, and 11 out of 12 started the race – with each of those 11 finishing. So that would potentially give me enough time to train – more than they had anyway.

And February sounds better than any other time in Texas to run a Marathon, so that’s a plus as well. Next fall might be cool enough but would be too early. And summer 2009 I hit 40.  So next February is perfect.

Perhaps I’ll do monthly progress updates as well. No wait. This is a way to challenge myself into actually doing this. I will give monthly updates on the blog.

As far as advice – anyone out there gone from “not 100% fit” (as I like to think of myself; trust me there are less flattering ways of describing it) to running a marathon in about the same time frame? Any advice from any runners out there?

I’ll probably Google a bit more about it tonight… and then tomorrow I’ll do what any self respecting sedentary person would do in my situation…

I’ll hit the bookstore. This is Austin. There’s got to be a ton of books for me to read on “How To Train For A Marathon”.  I wonder if there’s a Clydesdale edition.

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This week’s blawg review is up at California Blog of Appeal.

And from Ken Lammers, this week’s edition of Crim Law TV. 

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I don’t even turn 40 until July 2009.

According to Joan Rattner Heilman, I’d be “crazy not to join AARP” as soon as I turn 50. Even if that were true, wouldn’t I be just as crazy to start paying dues more than a decade before I’m eligible for membership?

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From the Chicago Tribune article, “States Fear Plant Could Become Next Marijuana”:

“As soon as we make one drug illegal, kids start looking around for other drugs they can buy legally. This is just the next one," said Florida state Rep. Mary Brandenburg, who has introduced a bill to make possession of Salvia divinorum a felony punishable by up to 5 years in prison.

The quote, of course, is her attempt to justify the new law. You’d think that something - anything - other than explaining the futility of the bill would make for a better selling point.

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Filed under ‘sad but true’ comes Stephen’s post at South Texas Defense on over-criminalization being one reason he practices in juvi court:

Fighting at school is a good example. When I was growing up, if you got into a fight at school, you got detention (at school, not at a juvenile facility) or maybe, suspension. Now, thirteen year-old kids are taken into police custody and end up in court.

As a result of their dispositions in court, many of the kids will end up on probation, with a probation officer checking in on them every so often. All of this for a fight at school.

Put it down to fear.

Parents these days fear a Columbine type incident, and I don’t necessarily blame them. But the over reaction to that fear is felt in ways that they themselves are surprised at. Stephen’s post is titled “Let me get this straight, my kid is a felon?”

So in an effort to combat another Columbine in our hometown high school, we have police at the ready. For any situation.

Hey, there’s a couple of kids fighting. No need to look up the penal code to know that sounds like assault. Crime committed. Police available. Predictable result.

The principal – or other administrator in charge - that calls for the police in this situation is the one to blame. Doesn’t he remember this happened at Lincoln High every week when he was a kid? Did the police need to come “handle that situation”?

My wife often asks me if there isn’t some sort of ‘common sense’ written into the criminal laws. I keep telling her there’s not.

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Dallas defense lawyer Robert Guest writes about how the D.A.R.E. program has been a complete waste of taxpayers’ money:

By all accounts DARE HAS BEEN A COMPLETE FAILURE. DARE has shown no efficacy in keeping kids from using drugs, alcohol, or cigarettes. Yet the government continues to waste over a billion dollars a year on DARE.

Turns out repeating variations of “Just Say No!” doesn’t decrease drug use among teenagers. And there’s plenty of things like “science” and “evidence” to back that up. (Quotations put in for the Bush administration, which doesn’t think of those as valid concepts.)

One of my goals in life has been trying to convince people that correlation does not prove causation. This fallacious reasoning is used often in the “marijuana is a gateway drug” argument on the side of “why marijuana should be criminalized”. But it’s a logical fallacy plain and simple.

However, lack of correlation does show lack of causation. Or in this context, when policeman take over 5th grade classes and give their D.A.R.E. lectures, for decades now, and drug use does not decline, then we can make a logical conclusion:

The D.A.R.E. program does not reduce drug use.

Of course, ineffective government programs and other boondoggles perpetrated on the taxpayer are hardly newsworthy. Sending cops to school to lecture kids about the dangers of drug use, and how they must must must stay away from marijuana sounds like a good idea, and so the program continues to be funded.

What campaign manager is going to tell his candidate that he should be against “Drug Abuse Resistance Education”?

Robert goes on to quote from George Bush’s recent declaration of spending more on useless stuff D.A.R.E. Day 2008, and a la Steven Colbert adds links for more thoughtful readers:

All Americans have a responsibility to encourage others to turn away from drug abuse and to make good choices in life. During National D.A.R.E Day, we renew our commitment to providing our youth the knowledge and encouragement they need to resist the pressures that can lead them to experiment with drugs and violent activities. By working together, we can help our children build lives of purpose and strengthen our communities, one heart and one soul at a time.

The first link is a fantastic C.S. Lewis’ quote:

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive.

It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.

The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

What better description of the War on Drugs? A tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victim – the drug user.

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Just noticed that New York criminal defense lawyer Scott Greenfield has signed up to do a Blawg Review in July. Excellent – looking forward to it.

Other criminal law bloggers out there – maybe even a prosecutor for a change – should seriously consider signing up as well. I can tell you the one I did definitely took some time and effort, but it was worth it.

For Pete’s sake!  Criminal defense (and, yes, prosecution) is inherently more interesting than Bankruptcy, Divorce, Labor Law, Mediation, Patent Law – more interesting than every other kind of law there is to practice.

Let’s get some more defenders signed up to host…

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So Roger Clemens’ lawyer Rusty Hardin gave an interview to New York Lawyer magazine about his representation of the Rocket. In part:

Hardin: What is a public person to do if he's falsely accused? Why do lawyers think that the safest strategy is the best strategy? Roger has made clear that he is not interested in the safest strategy. He has made clear that his public reputation, what his family and friends think, is what he holds dear. Who the hell am I to tell him that he's wrong?

Mag: You don't think much of your critics?

Hardin: I expect second-guessing. But these people on TV, they talk about whether I should "allow" a client to testify, whether I should "allow" him to assert his innocence. Their attitude is paternalistic and patronizing. Who the hell is the lawyer to make that decision?

Mag: It seems like he was asking for trouble.

Hardin: I saw it all coming. I knew there would be a deposition and a congressional hearing. I knew there would be a criminal referral. I fully advised Roger. He made the decision. He's a grown-up.

Mag: Even if that decision sends him to jail?

Hardin: I believe strongly that people that can fight, should fight. Roger has the means, the ability, and the heart to fight. I salute him.

So Clemens’ attorney is essentially broadcasting the story that:

• Roger could have taken the safe route
• I (the lawyer) told him the easy thing was to shut up
• He is big bad Roger and wants to fight for his reputation

Gosh. That might be what an innocent person would do. Or even what a “You can’t prove I’m guilty” person would do.

Might be part of an overall PR strategy.

So why are Scott and Stephen so sure that Hardin is sneaking behind his client’s back without his explicit permission to broadcast this story? Is Harden so dumb he doesn’t think this interview might get back to Roger?

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Western Justice has a post up titled “How to Pass the MPRE: WWJD ≠ WWLD”. Right off the bat, the title of the post is amusing.

For the non lawyers, the MPRE is the lawyer ethics portion of the overall Bar Exam that must be passed before you can be licensed to practice. WJ is claiming that to pass the ethics exam, first figure out what “What Would Jesus Do?” – and then mark the opposite answer to pass your legal ethics test.

It’s a lawyer joke. And actually, if it were left alone, or perhaps well supported, it might still be funny. But then WJ tries to back up the joke. (N.B. Jokes are never funnier when they have to be explained.)

So our anonymous prosecutor gives us an example:

Johnny confesses a crime to you. The elders of the community wish to know who has committed this horrible sin. Johnny wishes to keep his sins secret from the community, and confess to nobody. The elders, however, wish to get to the bottom of the matter and find out who is guilty of this heinous sin. What do you tell the elders regarding Johnny's confession?

Let us start with the first part of the equation: WWJD. Well, I cannot speak for all Christians and followers of Jesus' teachings, philosophy, and religion, but I can safely assume that in that situation, Jesus would convince Johnny to confess to the elders. Now, let us finish the equation: ≠ WWLD. The opposite of that is to not tell the elders and the people of the community that Johnny has committed the unpardonable sin. Furthermore, you, as his lawyer, should convince Johnny not to say anything about his sin--not to you, not to the police, not to anybody.

Now I’m not holding myself out as a biblical scholar, but I know enough about Christianity to know this is hogwash. It just feels like faulty analysis. Jesus hung out with prostitutes, lepers, adulterers, thieves, tax collectors – in other words: sinners and outcasts. If the War on Drugs had started 2000 years ago, he would have been in the alleyways with the drug addicts. And I certainly don’t recall any passages about him being a Narc of any sort – no matter what crimes (sins?) you were committing.

So I called my resident Bible expert/fellow attorney Stephen Vigorito – he who helps build and maintain his Church by day, and supports himself by moonlighting for sleeping lawyers and doing their jail releases at night – and I ask him: Does the bible say anything about priest-penitent privilege? Sounds like a Roman Catholic concept, but is there some quote from Jesus, some Bible passage that I can use to counteract this seemingly counterintuitive example?

Never one to disappoint, Steve tells me he has referenced Jesus as the “first criminal defense lawyer” in sermons. He quotes the First Epistle of John Chapter Two Verses 1-2:

My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:

And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for [the sins of] the whole world.

Of course. This is the basis of Christianity itself. Sinners (i.e. all of us) have an advocate with the Father. Confessing your sins to Jesus and repenting through him – not the Pharisees – that’s the path to eternal salvation. 

Jesus is the ultimate defense attorney.

WJ, your ‘safe assumption’ has no basis in scripture.

Coming Soon (to a criminal defense blog near you): Jesus, the adulterer, the accusers, and casting the first stone.

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Dallas defense lawyer Robert Guest has an interview today with a substance abuse treatment expert. Here’s #8 from the Q&A:

8. Does prosecution help addicts?

I think that if a person doesn’t learn from his past transgressions, and still doesn’t recognize the harm he or she is doing to themselves and others than you need to instill justice on that person to protect them as well as society from being harmed by their actions. But again, prosecuting an addict could also entail effective rehabilitation so that the person does not continue to make the same mistakes.

“You need to instill justice on that person.”

Sadly, that’s actually the best reason to support incarcerating addicts: “Because it’s for their own good”. Sometimes I think people either believe that 'logic' or they don’t; and there’s not much use trying to convince someone that the phrase…

You need to instill justice on that person

…doesn’t make sense - if they aren't immediately offended by the notion.

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So the day I post my own story about Absentmindedness vs. Shoplifting, Bad Court Thingy alerts me in the comments section to the story of a man who paid for $150+ worth of groceries, forgot the $4 worth of soda under the cart, and was of course arrested:

Have you ever accidentally forgot to pay for some heavy item that you stowed under you shopping cart? We have, too! Unlike one Cleveland man, however, we did not go to jail for it.

[Name Removed] has a long receipt showing the $157.20 worth of two grocery carts full of groceries that he bought at a Brooklyn supermarket Saturday night. After going through the self checkout, the man said he forgot a $4 case of pop under the cart.

A police officer working security at the store asked to see his receipt.

"I went looking for the receipt, the pop wasn't on it and they decided to have me arrested," he said.

[Name Removed] was arrested on a petty theft charge.

As usual, where commenting is allowed, morons prove they have access to the internet as well as the rest of us. (Or are ‘we’ in the minority?) A sampling:

Well, the article makes it seem as though he intended to pay. We're not getting both sides of the story, really.

Let’s see, the rest of the story – since we must always be fair and balanced – is what? “I’m the rent a cop and I can read his mind. I know this was not mistake?” another comment:

Actually that is one of the best ways to shoplift because most people don't suspect it and if caught give you the benefit of the doubt. Trust me I've seen it numerous times working retail.

I think we can file that under mind reading again. You’ve “seen it work”? Meaning no one has ever forgotten an item and walked past the door?

In Texas – or at least in Austin - most of the time when shoplifting under $50 is suspected, the person will be issued a citation. But not here. This lead to an arrest. Here’s a letter written by his wife about the aftermath of the arrest:

We are both shamed and embarrassed at what happened but it is a mistake made by a lot of us every day…after all, we are only human and our lives are busy ones because we have 3 kids, 2 of whom are disabled.

My daughter has Down Syndrome and my youngest son has mental issues. I am disabled myself…so my husband has a lot of daily responsibilities that most men would run from…but he loves me enough to stay and take care of all of us plus work as a home health care aid.

My husband is currently out on bond to the tune of $150.00…none of that will we see back. We lost groceries because they sat in the car for several hours while he was shackled to a bench at Brooklyn jail.

You see, I am disabled and do not drive so I had no way to get my groceries home. If he loses his job, we don’t know what we will do…see even if he is found innocent…the original charge will still remain on his record. So who wants a guy with a petty theft charge for a home health care aid?

Sounds like a worthy pro bono cause for some New York defense lawyer out there…

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The argument that will eventually convert the most people to a sensible drug policy is the economic one. How does it hit you in your pocketbook? (Sorry, we are selfish beings. There are better arguments for decriminalization – I’m just predicting this is the one that will work.)

From NPR’s All Things Considered today:

California's potential $16 billion budget shortfall has led state officials to an unusual source for tax revenue — medical marijuana storefronts. In a state where it's legal to buy prescription pot, those shops generate millions of dollars each year. But there's just one problem — buying and selling marijuana is still a federal crime.

Richard Lee, owner of a coffee shop and marijuana dispensary in Oakland, says he's proud of the more than $200,000 a year he pays in sales tax. His store sells marijuana buds in one-eighth ounce bags.

Let’s see. $16 billion dollar deficit this year alone. According to the story, “Medical marijuana advocates estimate that the aggregate annual sales tax revenue that's paid by the approximately 400 dispensaries in California is $100 million.”

One hundred million isn’t chump change.  As for the other side of the equation.

How much could Californians save, by not incarcerating folks for non medical marijuana possession?

Sorry, my calculator only goes to ten digits.

Related Posts:

• It’s the (Prison) Economy Stupid
• Mass Incarceration in the United States: At What Cost
• The War on Drugs is the new New Deal
• How to Convince (Rather Than Argue) Drug Policy Reform

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Yes, the official Drug Czar blog linked to this:

[HatTip: Drug WarRant]

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From the Orange County Register “Special license plates shield officials from traffic tickets”:

Vehicles registered to motorists who are affiliated with 1,800 state and local agencies and who are allowed to shield their addresses under the Confidential Records Program.

An Orange County Register investigation has found that the program, designed 30 years ago to protect police from criminals, has been expanded to cover hundreds of thousands of public employees – from police dispatchers to museum guards – who face little threat from the public. Their spouses and children can get the plates, too…

The confidential plate program shields these motorists in ways most of us can only dream about:

•Vehicles with protected license plates can run through dozens of intersections controlled by red light cameras and breeze along the 91 toll lanes with impunity.

•Parking citations issued to vehicles with protected plates are often dismissed because the process necessary to pierce the shield is too cumbersome.

•Some patrol officers let drivers with protected plates off with a warning because the plates signal that the drivers are "one of their own" or related to someone who is.

I'm waiting for Austin's red light camera blog to weigh in on this one...

[Update: Thanks Grits.  I'm sure that's what I would have said about this, had I done more than just cut and paste...]

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If you are the clerk at the 7/11 around the corner from my home or my office, then you probably know me. Sometimes that convenience store price premium is worth not fighting the lines at HEB. Bottom line? If you’re the one behind the register, you probably recognize me.

Coffee in the morning, fountain drinks in the afternoon. My legal assistant now keeps me well stocked on Folgers and Cokes and Mountain Dews, but she wasn’t always around – and that’s only #168 on the list of ‘why I appreciate her’. But as usual, I digress.

So, I used to go to the closest Stop-N-Rob on a regular basis, and that sets the scene for the rest of this story.

One day, while preparing for eating lunch by myself, I stopped by the 7/11. I was planning on perusing the magazine counter, so I would have something to do while lunching alone.

Probably out of habit, I went and filled up a monster fountain drink. I’ve always been a sucker for that “Yes, it’s twice as much as you need, but it’s only 20 cents more” marketing. Then over to the magazine rack, to see what there was to offer.

Ever notice that there’s really not much worth reading or that catches your fancy in those magazines? Why do they only stock People, and Star, and Monster Truck Madness Review? 

Maybe the Economist. Or Consumer Reports, but no, those are unavailable. And they cost 5 to 6 dollars? I don’t need any of these.

So I walked out to the car.

And as I started to put my keys in the door, I had a mini-heart attack.

I had just deliberately and obviously walked in, filled up a soda, and walked out without paying.

Now, here’s why my story – thankfully for my sake – diverges from some of my potential clients.

No one had seen me. Barney Fife hadn’t just parked his patrol vehicle. I ran back in immediately, stood in line, and even the clerk didn’t say anything.

He hadn’t noticed.

But…

I had walked out the door without paying. If I had been not just absent minded, but unlucky as well, my bar card could have been at stake.

Worst case realistic scenario, I would have been ticketed, not even arrested for Class C Theft. But what then? Take the ‘deferred disposition’ and get the hell out of Dodge with my ‘guaranteed’ dismissal? Expunge the whole thing. Forget about it.

Or roll the dice at jury trial, and hope my side of the story held up? Risking a conviction for theft – a crime of moral turpitude, and a conviction that could cost me my livelihood.

I think about that scenario often – when I tell my clients the “Do X, Y and Z and get your case dismissed” offer. Is that a good deal or not, when you are factually innocent, but the potential testimony at trial could get you convicted?

More on several related topics soon.

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Houston Criminal Defense Lawyer**[see first comment] Mark Bennett pokes some good natured fun at me about a recent post and lists some of the phrases where he covets high Google SERPs:

Austin criminal defense lawyer Jamie Spencer talks about “how to rank high on Google’s natural results.”

I have heard — and it makes sense — that a page that uses the phrase “Houston criminal defense lawyer” or “Houston criminal defense attorney” will rank higher on Google than a page by a Houston lawyer that talks about criminal defense trial lawyering without those words strung together in that order, even though it’s not usually necessary for a Houston lawyer practicing criminal defense to use the words “Houston criminal defense” in a post about the subject.

I’d like Defending People to pop up at the top of a Google search for “Houston criminal defense lawyer” or “Houston criminal attorney,” but blatantly inserting those phrases into a post has always seemed a bit obnoxious. Your thoughts?

[Do I need to reiterate? He’s poking fun at me.]

And what’s his ranking on the phrases he listed? 

Houston criminal defense lawyer: #9. Houston criminal defense attorney: #26. Houston lawyer practicing criminal defense: #11. Houston criminal defense: #18. Houston criminal attorney: #9.

Not bad. Several of those are already on the first page of the results. Some aren’t. But numero uno is always best right? If it ain’t obvious, yes I’m handing out some link love – but, Mark writes a great blog, and recently his RSS feed changed requiring that you reup your subscription – so I’m only trying to help him out , aight? Let’s check back in 6 months and do an update on those numbers, shall we?

On a related note, Dave Matson of High Steppin’ Searches left a comment on that same post:

Certainly it's pretty difficult to rank well without quality content, but the measure of that is links.

Having a quality blog means other quality blogs and sites with credibility link to you. Authority bestows authority.

Being widely blogrolled is a huge benefit to your rankings. And that wouldn't be the case if you didn't write things that people think are worth linking to.

Of course, being on the LexBlog network of blogrolls doesn't hurt, either.

I agree. When folks call me to ask me about LexBlog, “being added to the blogroll” is one of the benefits I list. And no, I don’t get any kickbacks from Kevin for tooting their horn – I actually like talking about blogging, perhaps because it was one more way to postpone actually doing it.

But ‘just’ being added to the blogroll won’t get you anywhere really – not in the long run. As Dave says, you’ve got to write stuff folks think is worth posting about. Google ranks that higher than anything else. In fact, out in SEO land speculation is that they recently changed the algorithm to lower the value of blogroll links.

Having something you actually wrote cut and pasted and then commented on will do you a lot more good. And, that takes us back to rule #1: content, content, content.

Defending People is all about content. Mark ranks as high as he does now based entirely on that. The others in front of him, for now, have SEO folks getting backlinks from other sites, but that won’t defeat good content in the long run.

On a completely side note, if I don’t want to start ranking ‘high’ in the Google SERPs for stuff like Austin SEO, and Texas search engine optimization, I need to get back to substantive defense blogging. It’s fine to take a sabbatical, and start blogging about blogging, but at some point, I’ve got to remember why I started this whole thing in the first place.

With that in mind, I’m about to pen a post I’ve been thinking ages about. So without further ado, here’s a self link to:

My Own Personal Shoplifting Experience.

Enough about ‘blawgs’. Back to criminal defense. If I use the word Google in my next 50 posts, somebody just shoot me. Even I’m tired of the topic by now.

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You Don’t Make Friends With Salad responds to my recent $1,000,000 post:

Jamie is decrying the online ad spending of the local criminal defense bar. According to his estimates, in the Austin market alone, criminal defense attorneys are spending about $1 million per year on Google's cost-per-click AdWords program. I'm not sure that the number is quite that high, but if it's an overestimate, it's not by much.

For the lawyers who are getting in and bidding upwards of $50 for the most popular keywords and phrases, I have to think that Jamie's right. This cost is being passed on to the clients. But lots of costs get passed on to clients: rent/mortgage payments, staff salaries, etc. In a market like Austin where the fight for clients is so competitive, you have to have some way to drive potential clients to call, email, or walk in the door. Referrals are great, especially from former clients, but it takes a long while for a practitioner (however great) to develop a critical mass of new clients based solely on reputation.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong, certainly in and of itself, with passing costs on to clients. And when it comes to professional services, that often includes advertising. Actually, the post was just my amazement at the numbers.

As for the numbers? YDMFWS’ suggestion that I might be overestimating made me rethink. I claimed one million was conservative in the original post. I’ve crunched some numbers.

If you include not just [Geographical Location] criminal defense lawyer, but various individual offenses, such as DWI, assault, marijuana, theft, etc. with [Geographical Location] County Jail, Bail Bonds, etc… well…

It might be an overestimate, after I tried to figure it out. Let me restate.

I’m working with some unknown factors here. I’m going to give the one million dollar estimate a confidence interval of only 50%. Not very confident, for the mathematically challenged. But at five hundred thousand dollars or more?

99% confidence. (N.B. I’m using the Statistics definition of confidence interval.)

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Blogrolling ACDL… Thanks go out to the following blogs that have recently added permanent links, linked to me in a post of their own or commented on recent posts:

• Rabid Sanity
• Android’s Reminiscences
• Power of Attorney: Not Happy at the Bar
• Iowa Champion
• Washington Criminal Defense
• Not Guilty
• Massachusetts Driving Laws
• What's My Exposure

Stole the idea from Evan Schaffer’s Legal Underground. Evan makes sure to return link love on a regular basis by having a frequent ‘Blogrolling’ post.

I do check Technorati for recent bloggers who have linked to me, but please also feel free to email me if you add me to your blogroll, or link to me in a post. I’m thinking I can make a twice monthly feature out of this.

And, since this a new feature, and I’m certain I haven’t gotten around to doing it for everyone I should, please let me know if U’ve left you out in the past – or just would like to be reincluded in the future.

I know in the back of my mind I’m leaving some people out – so again… email me.

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I know just enough about SEO – search engine optimization – to be dangerous.

That is to say, I find it interesting, and I’ve looked into it, but I’m not remotely an expert.

But folks come up to me in the Travis County Courthouse frequently – other lawyers that is – and ask me point blank, “How does your site rank so high on Google?” Or “How do you get to Number One on Google?” As a quick aside, the questions amuse me, because it’s always phrased that way, and never includes the necessary part to make the question sensible, that is… “for the phrase [fill-in-the-blank]”.

After all, I certainly don’t ‘rank’ number one for the queries New York Times; Paris Hilton; Mapquest; or GameCheats for Playstation.  

Back to the original question at hand, though: How do you (Jamie) rank so high for [Austin, Tx, Criminal, Defense, Lawyer, or some other similar combination]?

Now there’s a lot of collegiality amongst the defense bar, at least in Austin, but I’ve always wondered whether anyone thinks about the possibility that I might not want to reveal a ‘trade secret’. After all, these are technically speaking my competitors. (I like to think they ask me because they think I’m a no nonsense guy that says what he thinks. But enough about how wonderful I am.)

Actually, I’m always happy to give them the best answer I know. Like the secret of real estate, it boils down to three basic elements, but instead of location it’s:

• Content
• Content
• Content

Content relevant to the keywords your potential customer is looking for. That’s it.

And blogging is the best way to frequently update your website with good quality content about your practice area – after all, a blog is just a specific type of website, nothing magical, nothing more.

I’ll add three more factors to the mix.

Time: For me, blogging takes time. I enjoy doing it, but it’s not always easy. Bloggers Block happens frequently. So, OK, I don’t post for a while. And then it comes in several productive spurts. Not everyone can be Scott Greenfield, with his 4.5 post per day average. Or is that 45 per day? I can’t keep up.

Knowledge: You’ve got to know what you’re talking about. If you don’t, it will show. That’s fine if Grandma is the only one reading your personal diary type blog – she already knows you’re the dimwitted one in the family and loves you anyway. But if you’re doing it even in part for commercial purposes, that’s going to be a problem.

Style: Blogging is writing, and every good writer worth reading has their own style. Mine probably leans a little too far towards the ‘smart alec’ side of the spectrum for my own good, at least for the ‘commercial purposes’ mentioned above, but it’s still my own tone of voice. I think your style comes through, makes the writing genuine and personal, and let’s the reader know how you feel about the subjects you’re blogging about. When it comes to hiring a lawyer to defend you in court, don’t you want to know something about who he really is?

That’s basically it.

Pretty basic stuff. Ask yourself why you use Google as your search engine of choice. The answer is invariably going to be a variation of ‘because it gives me the answers I’m looking for’.

Right. You went and sat at the computer and Googled the phrase [fill-in-the-blank] because you wanted to know more about [fill-in-the-blank]. You don’t want to see a one or two page static website trumpeting the virtues of Q. Benedict Huntington III, Esquire, with the promise that if you call him and/or pay him money he will tell you all about [fill-in-the-blank].

So put some content on your website (blog) that potential customers are literally yearning for, and Google will give you credit for it, and your rankings will go up.

Just don’t ask me how they do it. They will.

Related Post: How to Give Google A Ton of Money

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Per year. $1,000,000.00 into Google’s coffers.

That’s my guestimate as to how much local defense lawyers are spending in these parts to advertise various phrases through Google’s AdWords program.  I’m going to attempt to make this a substantive post, not just something that Google – or the other search engines – scans and reads for various keywords and phrases, so I’m not going to list what the most popular keywords are… but you can imagine that they focus on a combination of geography and the profession itself.

This guess isn’t just off the top of my head either.

I have it from pretty reliable sources within several of the various law firms that participate in Google’s “Why Don’t You All Just Outbid Each Other” marketing, or often from the horses’ mouths themselves just how much some law firms are spending per month. There are several paying Google more than $10k per month. Some are spending substantially more than that.

Sure, some folks jump into the market at first, and then disappear, when they realize the high cost of being #5 or in some cases #10. But most stick around, and keep driving up those Google profits.

And knowing how AdWords is structured, that is, the higher the ranking in the Sponsored Results, the more the bidder is paying, combined with watching various internet advertising over the last year or so, I’d say one million spent in Austin alone for lawyers advertising criminal defense services is a conservative estimate.

Amazing.

That’s a lot of advertising costs that get passed on to the clients.

Related Post: Ranking High on Google For Free

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Erstwhile defense attorney and current prosecutor/blogger Ken Lammers points to Western Justice, a relatively new prosecutor in the practical blawgosphere:

Cool, we're now up to 3 prosecutors who actually blawg about *GASP* criminal law.

I’m pretty sure Ken is including himself, Western, and of course, Tom McKenna at Seeking Justice. (Since Tom’s URL is ConfoundingTheWicked.blogspot, here’s some too old to still be under copyright Mozart for the classical music lovers out there.)

Let me throw Joel Jacobsen’s erudite Judging Crimes into that mix as well. It’s from a prosecutor’s point of view, and worth an addition to any criminal lawyer’s RSS reader.

Ken points out that both Western Justice and Defending People “share an affinity” for the same painting, Pollice Verso, so how about some prosecutorial props for Dallas Sidebar – and of course his masthead: Raphael’s Judgment of Solomon.

By the way, Mark has revamped his site recently, so the thumbs up/thumbs down painting is less recognizable- but more importantly, jury consultant Anne Reed reminds me to remind my readers that you need to resubscribe to Mark’s blog since he moved to WordPress. If “Blog or Government Propaganda Tool” is the last item in your reader, you are literally 50+ posts behind.

Back to prosecutors… Sarena Straus found a new prosecutor blogger in ‘You… For the People’ – but I fear that ‘You’ may have suffered the typical two posts and out fate that many bloggers suffer. Meanwhile, Sarena mostly tells us about her post prosecutorial upcoming TV appearances – such as this one:

We will be discussing the case of Jennifer Latham. Latham kidnapped an infant from a Florida hospital and was apprehended a short time later.

The judge, believing that Latham had no prior convictions, agreed to release her without bail on the condition that she wear an ankle bracelet with a GPS. It was later discovered that Latham had a criminal record in another state.

We will be discussing whether the judge's decision was appropriate. I'm sure you can guess what my position is....

I’ll cop to not seeing the show, but since I was asked to guess, let me surmise that her position was… “You’ve got to keep people in jail until you absolutely confirm that they have no prior history anywhere.” And then perhaps… “Once you confirm that there is no prior history, keep them in jail anyway, because you can’t ever actaully prove a negative”?

So Ken’s mostly right. There aren’t many prosecutor blogging about criminal law and almost nothing but criminal law. But I think there are more than three.

Anyone else out there subscribe to some that I haven’t mentioned?  And any prosecutors out there starting a blog, please feel free to email me, I'll be happy to give your new blog a little link love.

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Fellow blogging Texas lawyer Todd Smith already said it best, so this is just a cut and paste:

Kevin O'Keefe of LexBlog recently started a group on LinkedIn to try and connect with more folks in the legal industry who have an interest in blogging.  The group is already up to about 350 members and could eventually grow into the thousands.

Kevin says he's going to focus the group on ways to exchange information about blogging.  If you're on LinkedIn (I am, and you can view my profile here), then click through to Kevin's post and join.  And if you don't know Kevin, you should.  He really knows his stuff.

Requires signing up for LinkedIn – of course – but that’s already reconnected me to several folks I knew from a long time back. Basically I’m looking forward to 2 things. Subscribing to good blogs I didn’t know about, and yes, of course, the potential for link love.

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So the ad on Technorati read:

Does Your Teen Show Any of the Following Signs:

• Interest in music of the occult [check]
• Wears excessive amounts of black [check]
• Interest in music of the occult [check]

Become a PARMM member and save our community before it’s too late…

Parents Against Reprehensible Metal Music

So I was amused – and 99.9% sure it was some sort of a joke – but I clicked it anyway.

Turns out, Tipper is not headed back to the White House. It’s apparently an ad for the Toyota Matrix – marketed as some sort of dark-side Corolla. 

But since this blog is in part about protecting ourselves from government intrusion, how about an oldie but a goodie? Frank Zappa vs. some guy defending the ‘Parents Music Resource Center’ on Crossfire – from the Tom Braden/Robert Novak years:

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OK. So it makes for an amusing story about the cops bursting into a party full of teenagers drinking root beer, but, where was the reasonable suspicion or probable cause for the search and at least temporary seizures of every single person in the house?

Cars lining the street. A house full of young people. A keg and drinking games inside. Police thought they had an underage boozing party on their hands.

But though they made dozens of teens take breath tests, none tested positive for alcohol. That's because the keg contained root beer.

90 breath tests. No alcohol.

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From the same IP address, a search for “weed protest Austin Texas” followed a few days later by the query “names of inmates in Austin”.

Was there a protest or rally or march or some sort of event recently that I didn’t know about? And did it lead to any arrests?

Anyone know?

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