Dennis Elias’s Latest Tweet :. Injustice News Twitter Feed :.Mark Bennett | January 8, 2010
Here is The Question: Why do you defend people who you know to be factually guilty?
The question is often phrased as “How . . .” or “How can you sleep at night when you . . .” but those demand smartass answers like “very well” or “on a pillowcase full of hundred-dollar bills.”
Typically, the laypeople [...]
Mark Bennett | December 1, 2009
If you’re the sort of person who needs anyone other than your dog to think you’re noble, criminal defense is the wrong line of work for you. Still, it’s nice that former criminal defense lawyer and now prosecutor Ken Lammers thinks that the criminal defense lawyer who takes the job of defending a “Reviled One,” [...]
Mark Bennett | October 21, 2009
Quite often a guilty subject will invoke such expressions as, “I swear to God I’m telling the truth,” “I hope my mother drops dead if I’m lying,” “I’ll swear on a stack of Bibles,” etc. Although expressions of this type cannot be considered as symptoms of deception, they frequently are used by guilty subjects in [...]
Mark Bennett | September 28, 2009
Heard at the criminal courthouse:
We are 99% animal and 1% civilized, and it’s the one percent that gets us into trouble.
It’s true, I think. Not because the one percent of us that is civilized motivates us to do the bad things that get us into trouble, but because the one percent likes to pretend that [...]
Mark Bennett | June 27, 2009
Defending People reader “Ryan”, writing at Plain Error, the official blog of the Innocence Project of Florida, responds to my “Law and Justice Explained.” post:
As someone with the status just above armchair philosopher (disclosure: I will be attending graduate school for a PhD in philosophy in the fall), I have a few words on that [...]
Mark Bennett | June 25, 2009
A few rules from growing up Bennett:
Never lose altitude unnecessarily.
Slow, slow. Look, Look.
Never pass up a chance to relieve yourself.
Don’t let too much small stuff pile up (this is the companion rule to the more widely known “Don’t sweat the small stuff” and “It’s all small stuff”).
There’s always a hair in the food.
This last rule [...]
Mark Bennett | March 16, 2009
I first met “Brother Dave” when he was the case agent for an informant on a cocaine case I was trying. It was a state-court case, but the witness against my client had worked off a federal beef in part by making the case against my client, so Special Agent Brother Dave of the DEA [...]
Mark Bennett | January 26, 2009
I asked regular reader Interested Counsel, a British criminal-law barrister, for a list of points that he found interesting or was curious about regarding the U.S. criminal justice system. He obliged me, prefacing his email:
It is clear here that the Ministry of Justice is enamoured of all things American. It is easy for us at [...]
Mark Bennett | January 19, 2009
Prosecutor Ken Lammers has advice for young criminal lawyers:
I know that no one will listen to me, but I think the world would be a better place if they did. Whichever side you feel are “the good guys”, start on the other. Practice there not for 6 months – or even 2 years; practice there [...]
Mark Bennett | January 13, 2009
My Harris County colleagues may have seen this already — it was my President’s Letter in the Winter 2008-09 HCCLA Defender — but I think it might be worth publishing a little more broadly.
To the Harris County Judiciary:
Wow. That was a surprise, wasn’t it? Who’d’ve thought that remaining judge in Harris County might require [...]
