Harris County prosecutor Warren Diepraam (mentioned before here and talking about "honoring the dead" here) writes in the TDCAA forums: Harris County is doing a July 4th No Refusal Program and hopefully joining some area counties for a multi-jurisdictional effort. Ours will be for all agencies in Harris County with one prosecutor stationed in the northwest portion of the county for those agencies and one stationed down

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel

I've heard several reports that when the power blinked out yesterday at the Harris County Criminal "Justice" Center all of the electronically actuated doors (including exits from holdover areas to courtrooms, and doors to fire stairs) locked. That'll make things really exciting when there's a fire and a power outage at the same time.

Gideon makes his objections to the Texas defense of property law on which Joe Horn based his defense known here. He pares down Texas's defense-of-property-of-others law: A person can use deadly force (as in this case) if he believes it is immediately necessary to terminate the trespass/burglary/robbery AND the property being taken cannot be recovered by any other means AND he has a reasonable belief that the

I've had many potential clients tell me that they had taken deferred adjudication probation because their lawyers (and, in some cases, judges) had told them that deferred adjudication would not appear on their records. I've long ascribed this to miscommunication -- to criminal-defense lawyers telling the literal but misleading truth about deferred adjudication (that it is not a conviction) and clients hearing what they desperately want to

Young Matt Skillern over at the new Greater Houston Criminal Defense Law Blog (another LexBlog product; not everyone can roll his own blawg. I've added it to the blawgroll nevertheless) writes about the no-bill of Joe Horn for the shotgunning of two burglars (illegal immigrants from Colombia) after they left his neighbor's house: What do I think? Well if you ask, based on the facts as presented

From the website of Andy Nolen, who practices in the Harris County Criminal Justice Center: RATED BY GOOGLE AND YAHOO AS ONE OF HOUSTON'S: BEST CRIMINAL ATTORNEYS BEST CRIMINAL DEFENSE LAWYERS BEST CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEYS BEST CRIMINAL LAW FIRMS BEST CRIMINAL DEFENSE TRIAL LAWYERS I suppose he would say that his name pops up in a search for "best criminal attorneys Houston" and so forth. Because, of

Republished with the kind permission of Paul Bush at CourtPort.com (who saw this post and volunteered his list of Texas criminal law links), following is a comprehensive list of Texas criminal court and jail online links. I've removed all of the sex offender registration links (because lists of sex offenders are so inclusive that they do more societal harm than good and offend my sensibilities) and "most wanted"

MR. SPENCE: You notice that I didn't object to Mr. Day's opening. There's were things that were objectionable. Why don't I object? I want you to hear what he has to say. I don't want to interrupt his train of thought. I don't want to interrupt his presentation or rhythms. I don't want the Court interjecting himself in responding to objections. I want you to hear what

Richard "Racehorse" Haynes is the only person I know who has a nickname for his nickname. He's "Racehorse" to the world and "Race" (or just "Richard") to the his "brothers and sisters of the bar". I mention Richard because there are a very few lawyers -- and Richard is one of them -- whose tales a lawyer (no matter how smart, highly trained, talented, and experienced) will