In a comment to my "Who Are You" poll post, reader Sean Shopes writes: While I checked the "non-lawyer, elsewhere" box I thought I'd chime in as a criminal defense professional - I am a defense investigator in San Francisco. I am curious about your thoughts regarding defense investigators (to include Public Defender Investigators as well as private investigators that do court-appointed and retained work) and their

There are many reasons people commit crimes: addiction, anger, avarice, arrogance, fear, ignorance, and disease, to name just a few. Typically more than one reason can be identified for the commission of a particular crime. Addiction and avarice, for example, or ignorance and fear. Arrogance can cause crime if a person know that the rules apply to him but, for some reason, thinks they should not. Ignorance

Over at Life at the Harris County Criminal Justice Center, my evil twin has caught DA candidate (and former judge) Patricia Lykos in a lie. Not just a lie, but a whopper -- Lykos publicly claimed (in the KHOU Debate) not to have sought the campaign support of police organizations, less than six weeks after seeking (and not receiving) the Houston Police Retired Officers' Association endorsement .

Who reads Defending People?[poll=3]

What do Defending People readers value most? I know I left out a bunch of possibilities (love, honor, respect, order . . .); please choose the best fit out of the four options I've given you. [poll=2] And by all means drop me a comment.

Via Dallas Criminal Defense Lawyer Robert Guest, the pro-War-on-Poor-People Drug Free America Foundation's poll on whether drug use is a victimless crime. As Robert notes, 2/3 of the poll's respondents agree or agree strongly. I voted for "Strongly agree. What a user chooses to do themselves is no one's business." But three of the other choices -- including "Disagree. Individual drug use affects society" had some appeal

He came to me with a real legal mess, and I steered him through it. Not a magic-wand result, but a favorable agreed resolution that included a misdemeanor probation in felony court.

I'm in favor of people in sensitive positions being able to blog anonymously so that they can bring us insights that we wouldn't otherwise [edit: receive]. But -- and maybe this is just me -- I think if you're going to blog anonymously you should treat people with at least as much respect as you would give them were you face-to-face.Dick DeGuerin is one of the respected

Yesterday Mack Arnold's daughter Angela and HCCLA President Pat McCann opened bank accounts for the "Mack Arnold Trust". Pat writes: As you may know, Mack was felled by a stroke recently, and will be a long time in recovery. To my knowledge he has no medical insurance and as anyone who has dealt with a catastrophic illness or injury knows, even if you do it never covers

I had an email conversation recently with a friend who's a prosecutor. I wrote: Our next DA needs to know that he or she is not part of a dynasty, is only temporary, is human and fallible, and answers ultimately to the families of the accused, who greatly outnumber the families of the victims. He wrote: I've felt compassion for defendants from DWI offenders to murderers. But