If, like Francis M. Pignatelli, you moved from Ohio under a cloud and started representing people in Colorado, you wouldn’t even have to read the rules in their entirety to find it; it’s right there in Rule 1.2(a) of the Colorado Rules of Professional Conduct: In a criminal case, the lawyer shall abide by the client’s decision, after consultation with the lawyer, as to a plea to

Today I had the great pleasure of dealing with one of Harris County District Attorney Pat Lykos's new prosecutors, hired from outside the practice of criminal law. I was sitting in the jury room behind a felony court, hanging out with my fellow criminal lawyers  (defense and prosecution), waiting for a prosecutor from the child abuse division of the DA's office to turn up so that we

CharonQC's podcast interview with U.S. District Judge John L. Kane of the District of Colorado. Judge Kane (not a fuzzy thinker) has some strong words against the "War on Drugs" and the politicians who have not yet caught on that the war on drugs has failed, cannot be won, and could never be won; and that most people realize this.Judge Kane, appointed for life, demonstrates why judges

Houston Press article describing Houston criminal-defense lawyer Murray Newman's blog as "A Digital Bathroom Wall for Pat Lykos".As rumors spread of continued purges, of internal memos being distributed "Re: unprofessionalism of reading toxic antiregime blogs at work" and of investigations being conducted regarding improper use of county computers, Newman predicted that his former colleagues may soon become so paralyzed by fear that the courts will choke with

From a Defending People reader's description of his experience with the criminal justice system:So, I got a good attorney. My bond was $5,000, and I was out for almost a year keeping my nose clean. Then he called me in and announced that he couldn't do anything for me and that I was getting 20 years. I thanked him, asked if we were paid up, he said

Telephone message from Terry Fifer, Tel. 480-345-3324: "New case -- an injury that I was involved in. Please call me."Since a) I don't take injury cases; b) this is an out-of-town number; and c) the call went directly to my answering service (a listed number, but not one that I give out, so that the only people who call it are telemarketers) I googled the number.It's the

The new edition of the American Society of Trial Consultants The Jury Expert is out. I'll be paying special attention to Gail Herde's Take Me to Your Leader: An Examination of Authoritarianism as an Indicator of Juror Bias. I think authoritarianism might be what I'm trying to get at with this scaled jury question; I expect to be able to improve on it with the help of

A comment, in response to the Houston Chronicle's front-page article today about the possible release, on PR bonds, of low-risk pretrial detainees (which article incorrectly describes the accused as "offenders"):This is a horrible idea! Releasing them on PR bonds defeats the purpose of tough justice. We need to keep them there so that we can force plea bargains down their throats. As soon as they're on the

From a post, The Nature of the Job, last October:Clients sometimes think that they want a lawyer who will act unethically for them, but they don’t: first, because a defense based on lies is almost always doomed to fail; and second, because clients need lawyers they can trust. Unethical lawyers are . . . unethical. A lawyer who behaves dishonestly “for his clients” can reasonably be expected

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 the Bar to put this down to their desire to commodify