Dennis Elias’s Latest Tweet :. Injustice News Twitter Feed :.Mark Bennett | November 30, 2009
Personal injury lawyer Paul Luvera has written about Applying Reptile Concepts in Trial—describing how plaintiffs’ lawyers should appeal to jurors’ reptile brains.
The reptile brain is the core of the human brain, sitting right at the top of the spine surrounded by the later-developing dog brain and ape brain. The reptile brain is a survival engine, [...]
Mark Bennett | November 28, 2009
Back in July, before the Harris County DA’s DWI DIVERT program went into effect, I noted:
There will be lots of high-volume lawyers who see this as the best thing since deferred adjudication for resolving cases without actually, y’know, trying, but I don’t see myself encouraging clients to sign it unless the State has them dead [...]
Mark Bennett | November 26, 2009
Avvo has this “Avvo Answers” thingumbob, in which “consumers” (that’s potential clients to you and me) can “Ask legal questions and get free advice from lawyers” (that’s from the header text). Avvo is pushing the “free advice” thing pretty hard—the URL of the page is http://www.avvo.com/free-legal-advice.
That’s not how the people answering the questions see it, [...]
Mark Bennett | November 25, 2009
Houston’s own Lindeman, Alvarado, and Frye has made ATL with four of its website pictures tastelessly illustrating “Child Sexual Assault & Internet Solicitiation [sic] of a Minor” (shown below), “Rape & Sexual Assault,” and “Family Violence.” (H/T Gideon, whose post is entitled “Why people think criminal defense lawyers are scum.”)
I know Jim Lindeman, Gil [...]
Mark Bennett | November 21, 2009
In “An embarrassment to Texas justice,” Houston criminal defense lawyer Tom Moran writes about the case of his client Robert Thompson, executed the night before last after Texas Governor Rick Perry refused to commute his sentence despite the recommendation of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, for a capital murder in which he was [...]
Mark Bennett | November 21, 2009
In August the Fifth Circuit decided U.S. v. Rodriguez-Parra, an illegal-reentry case in which Mr. Rodriguez argued that his fully-probated five-year sentence for marijuana trafficking should not have been used under section 2L1.2(b)(1)(B) to increase his offense level for illegal reentry by 12 points.
The court found that Mr. Rodriguez should indeed not have suffered the [...]
Mark Bennett | November 18, 2009
It’s not a blog of general interest, but if you’re interested in DWI law in Houston, read lawyer Dane Johnson’s Houston DWI Law Blog (a LexBlog Joint). Dane has been doing great work this week, writing successively about Houston DWI cops’ blood draw training, the falsifiability of HGN results, and the coerciveness of the Harris [...]
Mark Bennett | November 18, 2009
A reader recently asked me for advice on persuading a loved one to stop believing the personal sovereignty / straw man / redemption theory / UCC-as-supreme-law-of-land hogwash. I’ve written about this at least a couple of times, here and here. It’s frustrating because people who subscribe to this particular delusion think that all lawyers are [...]
Mark Bennett | November 18, 2009
As Scott Greenfield reports, Judge Gary Donahoe in Arizona has held Deputy Adam Stoddard in “indirect civil” contempt for plundering defense counsel’s file. From the court’s ruling:
[T]his case is not about disobeying a court order. It is about protecting a defense attorney from misbehavior and harassment by another officer of the court. It is [...]
Mark Bennett | November 16, 2009
1. If you’re looking for The Promised Land, you’re in the wrong place. This is the Wild West, Pilgrim.
2. There are clients online—sophisticated, moneyed clients—but they don’t find lawyers the way you think they do. That is, they don’t find lawyers the way the marketers want you to think they do. Clients—sophisticated clients, clients with [...]
