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

What will they do to Ken Lay? Give him life plus cancer?

That’s from Jeralyn Merritt, on July 13, 2005, the first known use of the phrase “life plus cancer”*. Her question was not as macabre as it sounds now, since we know that Lay met an untimely death, some guess by suicide, in between his own conviction and sentencing date. No, she was commenting on the 25 year sentence that had just been handed out to Bernie Ebbers, and asking how much Lay would get, since the amount of his fraud dwarfed Bernie’s.

Jeralyn is credited with coming up with the question, what are they gonna do… give him life plus cancer? Greenfield often uses the life plus cancer conceit in discussing proportionality of and disparity between sentences, especially white collar or other non violent crimes. How much is enough? If Mr. X gets 10 years, and Mr. Y’s crime is 4 times as bad mathematically, shouldn’t Mr. Y get 40?

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Here’s an open records request I just emailed and faxed. (Microsoft Word format, if you want to use it as a template.)

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To Gideon (vs. Wainwright).

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Greenfield posted this morning about lawyers advertising their services on hot dog stands outside the courthouse. Reminded me of a few things that only I would consider blawgworthy, but then I make the decisions around this place, so here goes.

First, we used to have a Porfirio’s Tacos truck serving muy delicioso tacos, including my favorite, the al carbon. (My favorite might have been the al pastor, but they didn’t serve that.) They would pull up in a little truck and park halfway onto the sidewalk outside “the annex” – that is, what we used to call the criminal courthouse.

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My wife and I were watching the news last week when this tidbit came to our attention:

As Indiana Democratic leaders scramble to replace Evan Bayh in the US Senate race, one name is emerging from left field: rock musician John Mellencamp.

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Ouch:

Three police cars pulled into Christina FourHorn's front yard one afternoon just before she was supposed to pick up her daughter at school. The officers had a warrant for her arrest.

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