Defending People

the tao of criminal defense trial lawyering

Stand and Deliver in Tenaha

Mark Bennett | February 8, 2009

For those who like to pretend that the government can be trusted to do the right thing, I offer this Houston Chronicle article about black drivers driving through the town of Tenaha, Texas, near the Louisiana line, being pulled over and shaken down:
Law enforcement authorities in this East Texas town of 1,000 people seized property [...]

Biggest. Blank. Check. Ever!

Mark Bennett | September 22, 2008

Seven Hundred Billion Dollars and xx/oo cents.
I can’t understand why it’s better for the U.S. taxpayer to buy more than two-thirds of a trillion dollars of bad debt, than to fill in the hole that the banks dug for themselves, with the banks still at the bottom of it. It’s clearly above my pay grade, [...]

Welcome to Downtown; Don’t Pick Up Any Hitchhikers.

Mark Bennett | August 27, 2008

In what some enterprising capitalist thought was a neat idea, Houston’s Federal Detention Center is no longer going to be used for pretrial detainees, but rather for people who have already been sentenced. In other words, instead of a detention center it’s going to be a prison. Smack dab in the heart of downtown Houston.
This [...]

Raises for Prosecutors and Defenders, or More Pork for Other Projects?

Mark Bennett | August 18, 2008

Western Justice points out that the John R. Justice Prosecutors and Defenders Incentive Act of 2008 has been signed into law. I’m sure I’ve missed hoopla about this elsewhere, since there was lots of hoopla about it last May. Now that I have more than six readers, I’ll ask again the two multiple-choice questions that [...]

HR 916 – a Dissenting Voice

Mark Bennett | May 31, 2007

It’s hard to find anyone in the blawgosphere who’s not in favor of HR 916, the John R. Justice rosecutors and Defenders Incentive Act of 2007. Gideon calls it “excellent news,” as does Capital Defense Weekly. PD Stuff calls it “absolutely fantastic.” Jeri Merritt calls it “good news.” Fight ‘Em ‘Til We Can’t urges us [...]