After the Georgia Supreme Court's disappointing First Amendment showing in Scott v. State, upholding the state's dirty-talk-to-minors statute (for the children!) despite the Free Speech Clause (the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals have both struck functionally identical statutes, and we have filed a cert petition in Scott citing this split in authority), I was somewhat cheered this morning to see that Georgia

The subject of the review (call her "Jane") doesn't advertise free consultations. Suzanne called her wanting free legal advice. Jane didn't give the free advice. Suzanne did not like that. Suzanne punished Jane.Jane didn't give Suzanne an answer (or at least didn't give Suzanne the answer she wanted to hear); Topek and Topek spent 45 minutes on the phone with Suzanne, who never intended to hire them, and

  Alex Bunin is a badass, to begin with. He is a talented administrator, a great lawyer, and a kind and humble human being. Whoever nominated him as a candidate when Harris County was considering forming a public defender's office deserves a medal. The Dispute over Writs Nobody but Judge Mary Lou Keel knows how the dispute between Keel and the Harris County Public Defender's Office really

After I wrote Trial by Myspace, something related came across my Twitter timeline. I've sworn off Twitter till after the election (more time to blog!), so I'm not going to bother to go look it up (does it matter?), but it was to the effect, "People who complain about 'likes' and 'retweets' need to realize that most social interactions in real life are about the weather." I hate to

If you get this twice via email, it means it's working. Due to popular demand (my Dad wasn't getting emails) I'm moving away from the "subscribe2" WordPress plugin that didn't work reliably, and to MailChimp, which should work better. If you were subscribed before, I've moved your email address over to my MailChimp list. If you weren't, there's a new subscription box in the right column. Once

I had to share this. I think it came out looking like a Dutch Renaissance painting. I call it "Miniature Clydesdale With Human Skull" or "Hey, Ridiculous Dog, Where Are You Going With My Still Life?"

Yesterday we had Trial by Myspace. Today Scott has Assault by Twitter in the First Degree, riffing off an article by a lawprof whose theory is that by sending a link to an epileptogenic video to a journalist, the sender committed an assault: "intentional creation of a reasonable apprehension of imminent bodily harm." An assault by threat, as we'd say in Texas — a class C misdemeanor, fine-only stuff. There

When I read this description of how all sorts of tech toys could be used to prevent human interaction in the courtroom of the future, I first thought, "surely Mitch Jackson doesn't try cases." But apparently he does. Weird. The tech and legal issues are unbelievably complicated. The parties to this case are concerned that the average Orange County juror just isn’t going to be able to get

Regular readers know that for nearly three years, since right after killing the dirty-talk portion of Texas's Online Solicitation of a Minor statute, I've been going after the balance of that statute, which appears at first to forbid only actual solicitation (which is unprotected speech), but on further reading explicitly criminalizes protected fantasy by eliminating lack-of-defense and fantasy defenses. The argument is that the statute is constitutionally

I took a closer look at John Casement's "LegalJot" website (archived here): The New Jersey Courts' index of attorneys shows no "Tyler Schultz." The New York Courts' attorney search shows no Erin Brooks. California shows several John Russells, one of whom might be in the same age range as the guy in the picture. I've reached out to him to inquire. But I'm betting that "John Russell,