Houston criminal-defense lawyers Herman Martinez and Dane Johnson report separately on the state of the Harris County DA's DWI DIVERT program. Here's Herman:This week the HCDAO decided that a defendant needs to decide if they want to be considered for the DIVERT program by their second court setting.  This is patently unfair and lends itself to the biggest complaint against the program, that is coercive.  And Dane:The new

I had a client recently—call him Sam—who got in the law's bad graces for some conduct involving alcohol and the brandishing of a firearm in his garage while his young daughter slept upstairs. The daughter—well-fed, well-loved, well-adjusted and well-cared-for—was never in any danger and never even knew what had happened.Only a total idiot would think it was a good idea to take that child out of that

Yesterday at the ABA Journal Blogs, Debra Cassens Weiss asked, Are Ghostwritten Blogs Unethical.In the comments, "defunct big law associate" (in other words, my Rhodesian Ridgebacks have spent more time in law offices than he has) BL1Y writes,The fact that this is even a question shows a fundamental flaw in understanding how law firms operate. Legal opinions are largely derived from treatises and best practice memos published

Dan Hull (What About Clients) writes (again—it's a recurring theme on his blog) about anonymous blogging and commenting:This blog does not publish anonymous comments. Absent compelling reasons, nameless blogosphere participants, in our view, are rarely worth anyone's time, thought, or respect--even when they think and say brilliant things. Anonymous writers have already "discounted" themselves. They are second-class citizens. And they generally say third-rate things; they have no

After Rosa Villegas-Vatres ran a red light and hit and killed Steve Morrison, she was arrested and charged with criminally negligent homicide (John Nova Lomax, Houston Press; easier to read all-on-one-page print version).Villegas-Vatres wanted to plead guilty to misdemeanor deadly conduct. The prosecutor, Brent Mayr told Steve Morrison's family that, and warned them that it was a difficult case and that the chance of a guilty verdict

On April 16th, 1995 (three days before the highly-significant-to-militias April 19th anniversary of the Oklahoma City Bombing and the burning of the Branch Davidian Compound in Waco), Scott Roeder was arrested with bomb-making materials.Roeder claimed association with the "Freemen" movement, yet another batch of personal sovereignty kooks. On May 31, 2009, Scott Roeder shot down abortion doctor George Tiller in church in Wichita, Kansas.There are thousands like

In this morning's Houston Chronicle, criminal-defense lawyer (and HCCLA ex-president, and former U.S. Navy officer) Pat McCann asks, Since When are Americans Afraid of Trials?Those who are caught in the act of a crime or afterward and can be prosecuted in our justice system, however, should be prosecuted. There is no simpler way to reveal these people for what they truly are, and no better way to

42 criminal defense blogs.

I wrote a couple of posts over at Social Media Tyro about the ethics of ghostblawging (something I'd scribbled about here before). One ghostblawger's response raised broader issues that fit better here at Defending People.In an email, Jenni Buchanan of LegalGhostblogger.com invited private discussion of the ethics of ghostblogging, and asked that I remove my link to her testimonial page:[P]rofessional responsibility is not something I take lightly,

It's easy to respect the rights of the pretty people, the popular ones, the charming folk, the nice guys.  No one's going to run roughshod over Mr. Rogers' rights.  We probably don't need a Constitution to protect the Prom Queen.  It's the assholes we need to write the rules for.  It's harder to treat them well, to be fair to them, to refrain from punching them. Preaching