What’s that Roaring Sound?

Jun 17th, 2007 by Mark Bennett

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Scott Greenfield of New York is all atizzy over my Lucky Stars post. Scott challenges his fellow lawyers in the third-largest state to comment on why the New York criminal liberty-rendering system sucks less than Texas’s. No response yet from the tassel-loafer brigade.

Over at A Public Defender, though, Gideon makes the case for the Duchy of Grand Fenwick being a better place to be arrested than Texas. He points out that (like Texas but unlike, as I understand it, the People’s Democratic Republic of New York) Grand Fenwick extends the right to a jury trial to anyone charged with a jailable offense. Even without knowing about Grand Fenwick’s probation eligibility law, I’ll concede that cute-as-a-bug Grand Fenwick might have a better system for protecting the accused than Texas or New York. With fewer people and more lawyers than Harris County, with two-hundred-plus years of experience with the Bill of Rights, and with property, sales, and income tax money, it damn well should.

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5 Responses to “What’s that Roaring Sound?”

  1. on 17 Jun 2007 at 11:14 pm1Gideon

    What do you mean probation eligibility law? Whether probation is available for every offense other than murder? If so, then no, it is not. There are some offenses for which there are mandatory-minimums.

    Texas doesn’t have income tax? That’s really nice! Our state tax is only 5%, but still.

  2. on 17 Jun 2007 at 11:53 pm2Mark Bennett

    In Texas, probation is available for murder too.

  3. on 18 Jun 2007 at 12:30 am3Gideon

    For plain ole pre-meditated, cold blooded murder? That’s quite something.

  4. on 18 Jun 2007 at 1:35 am4Scott Greenfield

    Oh sure, probation is available. But then you gotta live in Texas. So what’s worse, life in prison or probation in Texas?

  5. on 18 Jun 2007 at 2:42 am5Mark Bennett

    Quite right, Scott. Living in Texas is not for the weak or the soft. The rains we’ve been having would turn those tassel loafers into dog chew-toys.

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