Illinois criminal-defense lawyer Jeremy Richey asks, "is it ethical to plead not guilty" when you know that you are factually guilty? He (being a criminal-defense lawyer) gets the answer right, of course: no [edit: duh, yes].But I've been thinking: in addition to the fact that any boob who has ever sat through an episode of Law and Order thinks himself an expert on the criminal justice system

In the comments to Murphy's Law of Investigation we had a little discussion of what a lawyer should do when his client maintains his factual innocence, and he discovers that there is evidence that, if analyzed, could either confirm that factual innocence or conclusively disprove it.Renaissance man Joel "JDog" Rosenberg wrote of a hypothetical rape kit with untested DNA:If you open Schroedinger’s rape kit, you’re pretty sure

A few rules for those looking to hire a criminal-defense lawyer to represent them in Houston:If you've been arrested for a felony, and you don't think you're in at least $10,000 worth of trouble, please call someone else.Some cases are going to cost a lot more than $10,000 to defend. No felony charge should be treated as less than $10,000 worth of trouble.If you recognize that you're

When the government wants to stick a needle in a human being's arm and inject chemicals into his body until he's dead, is it too much to insist that they be able to convince 12 other human beings, selected in a process that is fair to the government, that a) the person will be a danger to others if he's sentenced to life in prison instead of

A person who is 17 years of age or older commits an offense if, with the intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person, the person, over the Internet or by electronic mail or a commercial online service, intentionally communicates in a sexually explicit manner with an individual who represents himself or herself to be younger than 17 years of age.That's one part of

Rick Casey researched Mark Sandoval's disciplinary record back in October of last year (when he was representing Elizabeth Shelton's mother).Sandoval has been sanctioned four times by the State Bar of Texas. The least serious was failing to show up for four successive trial settings for a client.The most serious involved submitting a voucher to an insurance company for a settlement in a wrongful-death case listing as clients

More trial music: Greg Trooper's Perfect World, also from his Noises in the Hallway CD. Best line ever: "I'm not the prince of darkness; tonight I am its king." Buy the album. Then buy every other Greg Trooper album. Then buy everything by Slaid Cleaves and Eric Taylor. Impossible to go wrong with these singer-songwriters. They're the sole practitioners of the music business.

Greg Trooper's Pirate's Life, from his Noises in the Hallway CD. Trial music!

Here is an interview with Scott Greenfield that I recorded a couple of months ago. CharonQC's interview of Brian Tannebaum inspired me to try to put it on line. Let's see if it works, shall we?

From Social Services for Feral Children comes this story, which the Houston Chronicle seems to have flat-out missed.Follow along here:Elizabeth Shelton has a car crash. She rear-ends Lance Bennett (no relation AFAIK; I have a cousin Lance who went to LSU, but I don't think he's a truck driver). Her boyfriend, Matthew McNeice (the Chronicle renders it McNiece, but the District Clerk's civil records have McNeice), is