Dennis Elias’s Latest Tweet :. Injustice News Twitter Feed :.Mark Bennett | March 3, 2010
David Ball, co-author of Reptile, is asking criminal lawyers to help him develop a list of “reasons we lose criminal defense cases.” He wants to hear from lawyers in the trenches who deal with these problems all the time. The list will help him and his team develop the use of Reptilian advocacy for criminal [...]
Mark Bennett | January 22, 2010
Try this:
Stand up. Raise one foot off the ground. Now shift your weight forward. Don’t set your raised foot down. What happens?
You fall down.
But if you do the same thing and set the raised foot down to stop your fall, you take a step. Raise the other foot off the ground, shift your weight forward, [...]
Mark Bennett | December 8, 2009
Bennett’s Chainsaw dictates that it will not be easy, but I love the what really happened? case—the one in which the client is innocent, but his innocence is entirely incompatible with the proof the government thinks it has. In these cases, often a thorough investigation reveals the key to the case, discrediting or clarifying some [...]
Mark Bennett | November 4, 2009
Via Simple Justice, this video of Maricopa County Sheriff’s Deputy Adam Stoddard raiding the file of a criminal defense lawyer while her back is turned:
Notice the pathetic weak passive behavior of Judge Lisa Flores.
Mark Bennett | October 23, 2009
On Facebook, one of my friends commented on this post:
I’m really okay with the DA prosecuting fault for serious car crashes (these are not “accidents”), assuming they charged it appropriately. Houston leads not only Texas but the nation in terms of car crashes, and Houston-area auto owners pay among the highest liability insurance rates in [...]
Mark Bennett | August 14, 2009
We lawyers love to hear ourselves talk. That can be the death of a jury selection. In a good voir dire, the jurors do most of the talking. Even if I can’t hear what the lawyer and jurors are saying, I can tell a good voir dire from a bad one by listening, as long [...]
Mark Bennett | August 14, 2009
They are once again on their way. They are walking through the forest. Shrek belches.
[...]
Mark Bennett | May 13, 2009
My Paladin Didn’t Charge Split Fees post stirred up some interesting discussion between criminal defense lawyers and others in the comments.
Mississippi criminal defense lawyer Remy Orozco, who wrote the post that inspired mine, commented:
This last year in private practice has brought me very few cases where my clients actually wanted to go to trial . [...]
Mark Bennett | May 9, 2009
Everyone thinks that his way is the best. In his “How to Hire a Gun Slinger…” blog post (a staple of criminal law blawgs: the post suggesting to potential clients criteria they should look for in hiring a lawyer, and explaining how the blogger fits those criteria; I may have written that post a time [...]
Mark Bennett | April 7, 2009
By all rights, I should be in trial today. My client was arrested in his brother-in-law’s house, which contained 12 kilos of cocaine in the attic, a pound of marijuana, and two guns. Mere presence is not a crime, but the Government claimed that he had made harmful admissions to agents.
He maintained his innocence. I [...]
