Dennis Elias’s Latest Tweet :. Injustice News Twitter Feed :.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 16, 2009
If I were to pick one U.S. District Judge from the Southern District of Texas before whom one should not appear pro se, it would be David Hittner:
(I’m guessing Judge Hittner wants to get the parties before him to see if the plaintiff can control his temper better in person.)
Mark Bennett | May 13, 2008
Notes I wrote during a federal judge’s voir dire a few months ago:
A judge’s voir dire is calculated to get jurors to promise to follow the law while a lawyer’s voir dire is calculated to find those who might have difficulty following the law.
A judge’s voir dire is calculated to get jurors to agree with [...]
Mark Bennett | February 13, 2008
Scott Greenfield’s Simple Justice blog just celebrated its one-year anniversary. Anne Reed’s Deliberations celebrated its anniversary on Saturday.
I had a blog back in 2004-2005, when the blawgosphere was young. I posted 17 times between August 2004 and June 2005. Then I quit, figuring that this “blogging” thing would never catch on.
When I resumed blogging in [...]
Mark Bennett | December 6, 2007
So . . . the Government puts on this witness, see? And this witness, she works for Air France, right? So the Government puts her on the witness stand in a federal jury trial, and asks her about airfares. They want to know what the lowest fare from Houston to Port Harcourt was in April [...]
Mark Bennett | December 5, 2007
This morning I was visiting with dinosaur-in-training Feroz F. Merchant (actually a super lawyer despite the cheesy SuperLawyer designation) about developing the trial lawyer’s art. Feroz was lamenting the many lawyers practicing criminal law who are just there for the money, and care more about their clothes than about either their clients or their art. [...]
Mark Bennett | December 4, 2007
What do you get when you combine my friend (and fellow dinosaur) Norm, a federal drug case, 20 minutes of lawyer-conducted voir dire, and a 35-person jury panel?
Nothing even remotely resembling a jury. Come back and try again later. With 11 people disqualified for cause, that panel is not big enough. We’ll bring in 40 [...]
Mark Bennett | December 2, 2007
Last Monday I went to federal court to help my friend (and fellow dinosaur) Norm pick a jury on a cocaine case. Before the jury panel was brought in, the judge handled some motions in limine. She became frustrated, first with the prosecutor and then with my friend because she thought that they should both [...]
Mark Bennett | December 1, 2007
If you’re a young lawyer interested in defending people in federal court, listen up. A few days ago an anonymous commenter to this post asked:
How would you recommend that a new lawyer get started defending people in federal court? How did you get started?
I started in federal court long enough ago that I [...]
Mark Bennett | November 23, 2007
This guy is back. Now he’s been retained to represent another of my former clients.
It’s beyond me why people hire this guy. He has handled five federal criminal cases to completion, all at least six years ago. Between 2001 and this year he didn’t have his name attached to a single federal criminal case in [...]
