May 6th, 2007
I like to write my pleadings in plain English. My goal is generally to write motions (and proposed orders) so that Lynn Hughes would not find reason to mark them up (which he tends to do). For example, a Motion to Y:
{Style of Case}
{Title of Motion}
Judge X,
Please Y because Z.
Thank you,
Mark Bennett.
An attorney-and-counselor-at-law (someone who [...]
May 4th, 2007
“Gideon” at a public defender brings us The Client Manifesto — five things that clients should require of their lawyers:
Has the state made any offers to me?
Will I get credit for my pre-sentence confinement?
Discuss your testimony
Will I be eligible for parole?
Have you filed my appeal?
He asks for more; here are another 5, off the top [...]
One of the distinguishing characteristics of the creative childlike mind is the ability not to suppress the ideas that are unpopular or unsuccessful.
Eminent First Amendment lawyer Jon Katz brings us this tale of an Illinois high school student who is being prosecuted for following his teacher’s instructions to “Write whatever comes into your mind; [...]
May 3rd, 2007
When I told a friend who’s a judge about this blog, he (knowing my antigovernment leanings) asked “does it have a bunch of radical stuff on it?”
Well, it doesn’t, but since he promised to check in I thought I’d post a little radical antigovernment story.
This is for the judges and prosecutors. (Our elected district [...]
May 2nd, 2007
Anne Reed brings us this post, which clearly fits into the “science” part of The Art and Science of Criminal Defense Trial Lawyering. Researchers in psychology discovered, by using an MRI tracking the brain activity of subjects reading text on a screen, that the brain spontaneously divides read text into discrete “events” in the same [...]
I blogged here about former prosecutors’ inherent qualifications as defenders. Manhattan criminal defense lawyer Scott H. Greenfield gives us his take on the subject here. “Many of our best were once on the dark side,” he says, but they’re not our best because they were on the dark side.
A highlight:
Young ADAs (assistant district attorney) are [...]
May 1st, 2007
I just happened upon my friend Jim Jenkins’s Florida Criminal Law blog. Jim is a Pensacola criminal defense lawyer, and a friend of mine from the Trial Lawyers College (TLC). I hadn’t heard from Jim in a long time, and I’m glad to see that he’s blogging. Other TLC lawyers with criminal-defense blogs are Jon [...]
Today Miami criminal defense lawyer Brian Tannebaum brings us this judge’s verdict in a possession of marijuana case in Palm Beach County. After a bench trial in which the accused represented himself the judge found the accused, in Brian’s words, “not-guilty-really-really-not-guilty.” The only evidence against the accused was that he was driving in a car [...]