The Center for American and International Law is presenting its seminar on The Mind and Criminal Defense again July 17-18, 2008. The program is funded by a grant for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, so you'll wind up paying $185 (or less if you regularly represent the indigent accused) for 13.25 hours of CLE and a couple of good lunches at the CAIL's first-class facility in

Anne Reed writes at Deliberations about blind strikes: In a "blind strike" voir dire, both sides exercise their strikes simultaneously. If you get four strikes, you strike four jurors, without knowing (until it's over) whether your opponent struck those same jurors too. All these years I've been using blind strikes without even knowing it. In Texas state courts, as well as (as far as I recall) in

Suppose that you were a prosecutor prosecuting a first-time DWI case, and that I was defending it. Suppose further that the accused's husband, an ex-cop, watched her performing the field sobriety tests at the scene, and would testify that she did fine. That the arresting officer claimed that his in-car video camera wasn't working. That the shop records for the car didn't show any video camera repairs

Given that Americans' second most common justification for the death penalty's fairness is its provision of "satisfaction and closure" to the victim's loved ones, it's astounding to me that Kelly Siegler ("Prosecutor-for-Hire", according to her tagline) admits in a blog post that there's no such thing as closure (H/T AHCL). A successful death penalty prosecutor concedes that, where closure is concerned, the emperor has no clothes: it's

Sometimes the best you can hope for is for the rope to break.

There's a criminal attorney in Houston (I'll call him "Ollie") who is a really busy guy. Ollie reportedly has a cab driver who waits outside the jail in the wee hours of the morning when people are released on bond and refers them to Ollie for representation. Ollie charges a nominal fee ($500 or so to start); he will even fill out the clients' retainer checks for

Two of my favorite blogs, Law of Criminal Defense and Court-O-Rama, have posted that they're listed in the "The Top 100 Criminal Justice Blogs" by "Criminal Justice Degrees Guide." I'm not going to link to the list because, while I think Law of Criminal Defense and Court-O-Rama are fairly in the top 100, there's something highly suspect about a list of top criminal justice blogs that includes

Richard "Racehorse" Haynes is, as we say in Texas, one tough sumbitch. He tried 11 jury trials last year (did you? I sure didn't), and he's in trial again now -- at age 82. A reader writes: I thought that your readers might like to know that opening statements start tomorrow at 9 am in United States v. Nguyen. Mr. Nguyen is accused of being part of

I've represented several young men with these three characteristics: Bipolar disorder; High IQ; and Homosexuality. The client is usually between 21 and 30 years old. I've been told that bipolar disorder appears in males when they are in their 20s. Often the client had an earlier diagnosis of attention-deficit disorder. It's typically the young man's mother who calls when he is in trouble, and I guess correctly,

The Chronicle's Allan Turner sure knows how to write a straight line: Alarmed by a 4-foot rat snake found in a janitor's closet, wildlife experts Thursday searched the Harris County Criminal Justice Center's fourth floor for signs that more reptiles had infested the headquarters of the district attorney's office.