I try to avoid talking about the news of the day here, but sometimes the news bumps right into the Art and Science of Criminal Defense Trial Lawyering, and I can't avoid it.You've heard about "Matthew Alexander", who led an interrogations team assigned to a Special Operations task force in Iraq in 2006 and wrote a piece for Sunday's Washington Post about his impressions and reactions to

This year Harris County sent nobody to death row (Rick Casey, today's Chronicle).Previous years:2003 = 92004 = 102005-2007 = 7 total all per Casey (the Death Penalty Information Center says 3 in 2005 and 3 in 2006; I couldn't find a specific number for 2007).These numbers reflect a turn away from the death penalty in Texas generally -- in the entire state, 9 people were sentenced to

The Honorable Devon Anderson and the Honorable Brock Thomas will be joining the Houston criminal defense bar after their tenures end in January. I knew and had a case against each when they were prosecutors before they were judges, so it won't be the least bit weird calling them "Devon" and "Brock" again.I hope for the sake of their clients that Devon and Brock, like those other

Following the politically-motivated firing of several prosecutors perceived as dangerous to her regime, Harris County's soon-to-be District Attorney Pat Lykos has taken further steps to improve morale in the Office.The bold steps taken were, to be honest, a surprise to me. I expected the measures to include the announcement of a barbecue, or maybe a cocktail party using forfeited assets in the style of our near northern

Dallas, Texas criminal-defense lawyer George Milner, Jr. IDed in trial as perpetrator by complainant in deadly conduct case (via Waco, Texas criminal-defense lawyer Walter Reaves).The prosecutor "believes the reason the witness misidentified Milner is she saw him when she testified at a grand jury hearing." Inspires confidence in the reliability of eyewitness identifications, dunnit?

Soon-to-be Houston criminal-defense lawyer Murray Newman (formerly AHCL) has written several times on his blog, Life at the Harris County Criminal Justice Center, about the Harris County Criminal Justice Center -- not just prosecutors, but also the defense bar and the courts' staffs -- as a "family". To a certain extent he is right -- I'll give you "family" if you give me "intensely dysfunctional". We beat

I am not subject to political hatchet jobs. (Watch the video. Then read Houston soon-to-be criminal-defense lawyer Murray Newman's (F/K/A "AHCL") posts on the firings here and here.)

From today's mailbag (the correspondent somehow tried to post it to the version of this post that lies on my long-defunct blog on Wordpress; he left the name "Michael" and an email address, but the email address failed):From the standpoint of justice, what matters is whether the factually guilty are found legally guilty, and the factually innocent are found legally not guilty.  Other things may not matter

Lunarpages screwed up my website this morning for a few hours. Defending People first reverted back to the antique-looking version of a month ago, then was entirely unavailable.Murphy's Law being what it is, this happened following a string of high-traffic days, courtesy of the ABA Journal.The problem seems to be fixed now, but after spending 26 minutes on hold waiting for tech support to answer, only to

Lunarpages screwed up my website this morning for a few hours. Defending People first reverted back to the antique-looking version of a month ago, then was entirely unavailable.Murphy's Law being what it is, this happened following a string of high-traffic days, courtesy of the ABA Journal.The problem seems to be fixed now, but after spending 26 minutes on hold waiting for tech support to answer, only to