I recently mentioned that part of being prepared for trial is having "nasty surprises for the State prepared." For each of the cases I have set for trial, I have an NLS prepared. Often the Nasty Little Surprise ("NLS") is the cornerstone of the successful defense of a criminal case. An NLS can be a piece of evidence that I have that the State doesn't have; it

The other half of my appearance on the anti-drugwar radio show "Cultural Baggage" with Dean Becker, February 20th on Pacifica station KPFT. (Transcript.) Here is the previously-posted first half, and the transcript.

I finally got the video of Kelly Siegler and Murray Newman's appearance on Reasonable Doubt up and running. It's not as high-res as I would like, but it's watchable. Now stop bugging me.

Attention Houston-area criminal-defense lawyers: Back in The Day, before blogs (when I was a much younger lawyer) six or seven of us would gather at Jim Skelton's office on Richmond Avenue every Wednesday evening to discuss our cases with each other and with Jim. My recollections of those sessions are fuzzy; there may have been beverages and/or food involved; sometimes other experienced lawyers would join us. It

I keep trying to upload the video of the February 21st Reasonable Doubt with Kelly Siegler and Murray Newman to Google Videos using the Google Video Uploader. The upload seems to go smoothly (I've tried several times with different video formats), but the video never appears in my list of uploaded videos. I can't figure out what the problem is; I welcome input or assistance from anyone

The world of the New York criminal-defense lawyer is very different from that of the Houston criminal-defense lawyer; these differences go deeper than just the much greater number of cases that Texas lawyers try to juries. Scott Greenfield, writes about the plea offers mailed to 60 of the 62 alleged Gambino defendants in the Eastern District of New York: According to the story, the offers ranged from

If you find yourself downtown between 9:30 and noon on a weekday morning, drop by Judge Larry Standley's court, Harris County Criminal Court at Law Number 6, on the 9th floor of the Harris County Criminal Justice Center at 1201 Franklin Street (at the corner of San Jacinto). Judge Standley genuinely cares about the defendants appearing before him, and the plea colloquy when he accepts a guilty

I've written before about the annoying (and unexceptional) experience of being set for trial, coming to court prepared for trial, and then having the trial continued or reset because the State is not ready, or the court wants to do something else, or the court reporter is out sick. Slightly more irksome is going to court on Monday morning prepared for trial, trial box loaded, big white

. . . do not wear a hoodie. Someone just walked past the front of the home office wearing a dark hoodie, and both dogs (ROUSs -- Ridgebacks of Unusual Size) went absolutely insane. Rhodesian Ridgebacks are excellent judges of character (else they wouldn't be welcome in the office); in their view, apparently, trustworthy people simply do not wear hoodies.

The same sorts of questions, it seems, pop up over and over again where lawyers gather to discuss the law. Questions like: "Isn't it a violation of the disciplinary rules for a lawyer to talk to another lawyer's client about taking his case?" and "Shouldn't I put my client on the stand, so that I can make a record that I have conveyed the State's offer and