Those who are released on bail [I think Hartley and his colleagues mean "released on recognizance"] and represented by a private attorney are twice as [they got it right this time] likely to be incarcerated as those released on bail [again, "recognizance"] but being represented by the public defender.This is an interesting fact. Recall what I've written about the plight of the working poor. Is it possible

The data for this study are from Cook County (Chicago), Illinois, and are a random sample of 2850 offenders convicted of felonies in Cook County Circuit Court.Hartley, R.D., et. al., Do you get what you pay for? Type of counsel and its effect on criminal court outcomes, Journal of Criminal Justice (2010).I asked here, if you don’t know whether hired lawyers beat more cases outright than PDs,

Here are some conclusions that can be drawn from Hartley’s data: In Cook County, Illinois, in 1993, convicted defendants were: 1.81 times as likely to have been released on their own recognizance if they were charged with a class 1 felony as if they were charged with a class X felony. 2.10 times as likely to wind up incarcerated if they were hispanic as if they were

Various readers generously sent me copies of the Hartley article I mentioned here (Hartley, R.D., et. al., Do you get what you pay for? Type of counsel and its effect on criminal court outcomes, Journal of Criminal Justice (2010)), and I'm puzzling my way through it, giving myself a crash course in statistics on the way.That crash course is not simplified by the fact that, throughout the

Black defendants who retain a private attorney are almost two times more likely to have the primary charge reduced than black defendants who are represented by a public defender. That's a quote, according to Miller-McCune, from a research paper by Richard D. Hartley. (Hartley wrote his doctoral dissertation at University of Nebraska on the same subject.) The paper costs $20, and I'm probably not going to spring

It took a little over a month. The Houston Police Department Chief's Command issued a memo of questionable legality forbidding cops from talking to defense lawyers without permission. Some 60 HCCLA members, incited and led by former president Robb Fickman, descended upon Houston City Council to protest (video). And the Chief rescinded the suspect order.Except he didn't call it a rescission. He called it a clarification. Because

Divorce lawyer John Clinton, running for criminal court judge, seems to be saying that when he was a Houston police officer he "amassed years of trial experience." [quicktime]https://blog.bennettandbennett.com/video/YearsOfTrialExperience.mov[/quicktime] (Full video here.) This could be true only in the sense in which a career criminal has amassed years of policing experience. Maybe Clinton spoke awkwardly, and meant to convey that as a lawyer he had amassed years of

Houston DUI lawyer Paul Kennedy, in Going for the Gut, calls to our attention this Boston Globe article by Drake Bennett about how disgust may shape our moral judgments. A few thoughts: First, one of the experiments discussed: In one study, [psychologist Jonathan Haidt] had some of his unfortunate test subjects respond to four vignettes related to moral judgment while sitting in a room that had been

It is unlawful, in Maryland, for any person to [w]ilfully intercept, endeavor to intercept, or procure any other person to intercept or endeavor to intercept, any . . .oral . . . communication[.] "Oral communication" means any conversation or words spoken to or by any person in private conversation. "Intercept" means the aural or other acquisition of the contents of any wire, electronic, or oral communication through

In regard to the search of a place, the United States Supreme Court has consistently favored the issuance of a warrant by a neutral and detached judicial officer as a more reliable safeguard against improper searches. See Lo-Ji Sales, Inc. v. New York, 442 U.S. 319, 326, 99 S.Ct. 2319, 2324, 60 L.Ed.2d 920 (1979). The failure of the magistrate who issued the search warrant to act