Dennis Elias’s Latest Tweet :. Injustice News Twitter Feed :.Mark Bennett | March 18, 2010
I recently read Clotaire Rapaille’s The Culture Code. Rapaille is a marketing researcher who “is an internationally known expert in Archetype Discoveries,” which is a field of study that he invented. In The Culture Code Rapaille discusses some of the results of his research into “the unconscious meaning we apply to any given thing—a car, [...]
Mark Bennett | January 30, 2010
I wrote a couple of posts over at Social Media Tyro about the ethics of ghostblawging (something I’d scribbled about here before). One ghostblawger’s response raised broader issues that fit better here at Defending People.
In an email, Jenni Buchanan of LegalGhostblogger.com invited private discussion of the ethics of ghostblogging, and asked that I remove my [...]
Mark Bennett | January 27, 2010
Guy James Gray and his client didn’t talk for six weeks before trial:When asked, “How can you defend a guy when you’re not communicating with him?”, Gray replies:
I filed a motion asking to get off the case. The judge didn’t want a delay, and he made me try it, and I tried it.
So having asked [...]
Mark Bennett | January 26, 2010
This is going to remind many of you of David Martin’s conduct in the Cameron Willingham case, but this isn’t normal for Texas criminal defense lawyers. Really. I promise.
After Matt Baker got sentenced to 65 years in prison for the murder of his wife:
Baker’s Kerrville-based attorneys, Guy James Gray and Harold Danford, said they respect [...]
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 | January 6, 2010
Mitchell Sassower is doing it. Marc J. Chase is doing it. Myron Kahn is doing it. Many others are doing it too, but those three are at the top of the list.
What are they doing?
They’re funding FindLaw’s crappy little rip-off (all above links are nofollow) of the name of Eric Turkewitz’s excellent New York Personal [...]
Mark Bennett | December 24, 2009
Some folks like to “quote” Edmund Burke on evil:
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
Aside from the fact that the quote is quite bogus (see the link), it’s wrong. In order for evil to triumph, it is not sufficient that good people not act; they [...]
Mark Bennett | December 21, 2009
Harris County Civil Court at Law Number 1 Judge R. Jack Cagle sent out this Christmas card, paid for with campaign funds:I’m not on Cagle’s Christmas list, but a civil-lawyer friend passed the card on to me, commenting, “Usually when a judge thinks I’m unwise, it’s because of my lack of legal skills, not because [...]
Mark Bennett | December 17, 2009
Nobody could possibly have predicted way back in August that Pat Lykos’s failure to seek outside counsel to prosecute Don Jackson, a misdemeanor judge before whom she had appeared (through her assistants) every court day since January, and before whom she may have to appear again every court day until one of them leaves office, [...]
Mark Bennett | December 15, 2009
If he does, the State Bar doesn’t mind.
First, a story: the Texas Legislature amended section 38.12 of the Texas Penal Code, entitled, “Barratry and Solicitation of Professional Employment,” in September. The former statute had been held unconstitutional by Judge David Hittner in Moore v. Morales, John Cornyn had opined formally as Texas AG that the [...]
