Defending People

the tao of criminal defense trial lawyering

The Club

Mark Bennett | June 6, 2009

Gerry Spence spoke today at the end of the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association’s annual Rusty Duncan Seminar. I could see why they put Gerry last—if he spoke first, most of the lawyers talking about lawyer stuff would seem largely irrelevant or quaintly unself-aware.
One speaker, for example, advocated telling jurors who gave “good” answers on [...]

To a Criminal Defense Lawyer Who Just Lost a Case

Mark Bennett | February 2, 2009

I’ll tell you a little secret that most lawyers don’t seem to realize: our losses make the best war stories; the cases you win are, but for the things that went wrong, not stories worth telling.
When you’ve lost a jury trial, I don’t want to hear about how your client, your investigator, the judge, or [...]

Transcript of CharonQC’s John Kane Interview

Mark Bennett | January 30, 2009

English law blogger CharonQC interviewed U.S. Senior District Court Judge John Kane of Colorado a couple of days ago. Judge Kane had some interesting things to say about the war on drugs (as well as about civil procedure); I linked to the interview here.
With the permission of CharonQC, I’ve commissioned a transcript of the podcast. [...]

Power Doesn’t Like Truth

Mark Bennett | November 29, 2008

Scott Greenfield got an email critical of his position on marketing, and published it unedited to his blog. In one portion, the writer (Santa Ana, California probate lawyer David Allen Hiersekorn) writes:
Even more disturbing, you actually write on your website that you are better than other attorneys and would get a better result for your [...]

The Nature of the Job

Mark Bennett | October 20, 2008

The job is antidemocratic, to begin with. Our Constitutional mission is to confront and resist authority, which, in America (where we like to elect our authority figures) means flouting the more-or-less democratically expressed will of the majority. Successfully defending people usually means telling those whom the majority has chosen to enforce the laws made by [...]

Truth and Jury Nullification

Mark Bennett | March 27, 2008

Jurors in Texas must swear that they “will a true verdict render according to the law and the evidence.”
My Guest Blogger maintains that a nullification verdict is not “a true verdict according to the law and the evidence,” insisting that “true” in the context means “Guilty if he’s guilty and not guilty if he’s not.”
He [...]