Chapter 1, The Tao of Criminal Defense Trial Lawyering

Qalmlea at A Musing Taoist has been dedicating a post to each chapter of Lao Tse’s Tao Te Ching, along with her own commentary. The version of the book that she’s using is Stephen Mitchell’s, which I recommend highly. Qalmlea also provides a link to the text of Mitchell’s version online, but it does not [...]

Cheap Meat or Prime?

There are — you may have noticed this — lots of lawyers taking criminal cases.
What distinguishes you from the bulk of these lawyers? (Why does it matter? It matters because, unless you have a low opinion of yourself, you realize that the clients will be better served by at least considering hiring you. If you [...]

In Waaaayyyyyyy Over His Head

Today the lawyer I described in this post called me (it’s been three weeks, by the way). He wanted to know why his client (my former client) had been detained. I probably should have made like Matlock and flipped him off. But instead, I explained to him the presumption of detention in a federal drug [...]

What Are You Wearing?

On Sunday Malum in Se wrote about running into a prominent criminal defense attorney at the local Walmart. On Sunday afternoon, the lawyer was wearing khakis, a long sleeve shirt and a tie. Alright, you might say, he had probably just come from church. Or maybe brunch with his mother.
But this Prominent Lawyer gave [...]

Loyalty Oaths in the Courtroom

This morning (right now, actually, thanks to the wonders of Verizon wireless broadband) I’m in state district court in one of the counties adjoining Harris County. The judge of this court begins her day by having the courtroom stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.
I am not a big fan of loyalty oaths. I don’t believe [...]

Criminal Defense Contract v1

If you take retained criminal cases, you need a good contract. You don’t have to have a written contract with the client in every case, but there will be cases in which you will at some point wind up saying either “I wish I had gotten a contract signed” or “I’m damn glad I have [...]

Harris County Jail Population

Here is a tabulation of Harris County’s jail population as of September 20, 2007.
There are 10,000+ inmates in the Harris County jails.
The largest single group, by far, is pretrial detainees on felony charges: 4,367 (including people held on dual charges and people held on state jail felony charges).
By contrast, 411 people are in the Harris [...]

Russell Plea Bargain Agreement

Here is the plea bargain agreement in the Russell case. As you can see, Mr. Russell pled guilty to misprision of a felony by:

Having knowledge of the commission of a federal felony — that is, possession of child pornography;
Failing to notify federal authorities; and
Deliberately taking some affirmative step to conceal the crime — that is, [...]

Do You Take Payments?

No, I don’t take payments. If I put you on a payment plan, I’d be loaning you the money to pay me. I’ll give you some time to get the fee together, but if nobody you know will loan you the money to pay my fee, why would I?
Banks are businesses dedicated to loaning people [...]

Texas Bar Journal

I generally have very little use for the State Bar of Texas and its official propaganda arm. I skim the Texas Bar Journal every month for the sole purpose of confirming that I’ve neither died nor been disbarred without my knowledge.
This month’s bar journal arrived today, and its theme is criminal law. So I browsed [...]

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