Criminal defense lawyers in Texas are all but immune from liability for malpractice. In Peeler v. Hughes and Luce the Texas Supreme Court held that a convicted defendant's crime is the sole proximate cause of any injury he suffers as a result of the prosecution; in order to sue a criminal-defense lawyer for negligence, he has to reopen the case and win. Many criminal-defense lawyers have no

One of the highlights of the year, in my itinerant childhood overseas, was the end of summer, when the new kids arrived—in high school at AES in New Delhi, maybe 20% of the 150 students were new each year. It was an exciting time, full of possibility for new friends, and it never disappointed. I got good at making new friends fast.I feel a little of the

It is commonly said among criminal lawyers of all stripes that "there can be no immunity for perjury" or "you can't take the Fifth for perjury."What does it mean?Clearly, a witness can't use immunity as cover for lying on the stand. So false testimony given under a grant of immunity is and should be admissible in a perjury prosecution.But what if the witness had perjured herself last

(The reason for this post is that nondisclosure and expunction are simple enough that lawyers, at least, should get the facts right, and they don't. I do not seek more clients who want to clear their criminal records, so I will probably regret posting this—lookie-loos and wannabe clients will ignore this disclaimer and call me with their record-clearing questions. If you call me with such questions, please

From an offense report:On this date investigator spoke to [prosecutor] and asked him if it was still okay to speak to the suspect at the county jail even if his attorney had faxed over a letter reminding investigators that he is representing the suspect and reminding investigators not to speak to the suspect without him being present. [Prosecutor] informed investigator that investigators could speak to the suspect

But the issue of the defendant's innocence must be resolved at the guilt stage of trial, not by the trial judge at a pretrial hearing. Judge Fine has demonstrated his favoritism toward the defendant in this case by implicitly making that determination prior to trial.And he reiterated his assumption that the defendant was innocent by noting that society is not "willing to let our own be the

Ethics “expert” Jack Marshall conceded that he was wrong about Eric Turkewitz’s April Fools’ Day hoax. Which was good. Better, I thought, to sometimes be wrong and realize it than always to be right. A very simple apology should have followed: Dear Mr. Turkewitz, I was wrong. I screwed up. I have no idea what I was thinking. I cannot overstate the magnitude of my error, and

I've now heard about two Republican criminal court judges telling other judges that they will not give court appointments to criminal-defense lawyers who are running for other Republican criminal court judges' benches. It's unattributable at this point, but my sources are credible and have provided information in the past that has turned out to be correct. I'll keep asking them to allow me to name names before

[L]awyers like Turkewitz are forbidden by their ethics rules (Rule 8.4, to be exact) from engaging in intentional misrepresentation or dishonesty, and there is no April Fool’s Day exception.They didn’t have a thing, didn’t lay a glove on me, although they appear to think they did. What the collected protests, rationalizations and insults (to me) did show—and this has great value—is the warped and inadequate way far

The State has moved to recuse Judge Kevin Fine from the Green case. You saw it first here:State's Motion to Recuse Judge Fine from Death Penalty Case I haven't analyzed the motion closely (and, truth be told, I probably won't unless someone wants to pay me to), but one part of the argument seems to be that because the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and the U.S.