From the Detroit Free Press, via crimprof: Detroit is one of dozens of U.S. cities with a shortage of cocaine, causing prices to skyrocket as law enforcement efforts in the United States, Mexico and Central and South America disrupt sources.Is it true? Probably not -- in April 2007 Drug Czar John Walters (the source for the Free Press's information) reported in a letter to Senator Charles Grassley

Often in the course of our investigation we will discover the telephone numbers of alleged witnesses to an offense. If the witnesses use cellphones, we can get a wealth of useful information about them from their cellphone records. Start with FoneFinder. If you enter the area code and exchange (first three digits after the area code) into the first two boxes and hit "search by number," you'll

Bryan, Texas criminal-defense lawyer Stephen Gustitis wrote last week about The Seeds we Sow, pointing out that "we lawyers have it pretty good." Indeed. This is something I think about often. Consider . . . What would you do if you went out to start your car tomorrow, and your car wouldn't start? How would you get to work? What if you needed $1,000 to fix the

Via Beaumont, Texas criminal-defense lawyer Ryan Matuska (one of my former UHLC trial ad students now fighting the good fight), the Six Big Witness Rules: #1 TELL THE TRUTH – ALWAYS! NEVER GUESS. IF YOU DON’T KNOW THE ANSWER, JUST SAY SO. SAY "I DON’T KNOW" OR "I DON’T REMEMBER." ABSOLUTELY DO NOT GUESS OR MAKE UP DETAILS THAT YOU ARE UNSURE ABOUT. ONLY SAY WHAT YOU

Thanks to Gideon of A Public Defender for this quote from New Haven public defender Tom Ullman: It would be a terrible message if I didn’t take this case. There was never any hesitation in my mind about taking it. As a lawyer, I would always rather be on the side that’s advocating for someone’s life rather than planning, plotting, strategizing and intending to kill someone.Sometimes all

About four days ago, I got no email for a four-hour stretch in the afternoon. Email service resumed, but the messages sent to me during that time never arrived. Technorati has stopped finding my new posts. My webhost no longer recognizes my account. (Fortunately, my webpages seem to still be up.) What's going on?

We defenders are, as New York criminal defense attorney Scott Greenfield writes, Diggers of Dirt. In fact, one thing that distinguishes the zealous defender from the businessman-masquerading-as-defender is the alacrity with which the defender digs the dirt. While the businessman is typically thinking about how not to annoy the State, the judge, the complainant, the cops, and so forth, the defender is digging away, hoping for some

I mentioned here that a Texas jury could, when setting punishment, make a binding recommendation of probation in almost any case in which (a) the the sentence was ten years or less and (b) the accused had not been convicted of a felony or placed on felony probation before. This was true even in murder cases. There are some cases in which a person can commit murder

Did any of you think that in this post, Technicalities, compared Joel Jacobsen, the prosecutor author of this post, to Norman Bates, or was it clear that I was comparing him to an unwitting Alfred Hitchcock? See his unimpressive response. "Some people," he says, "would like to have a criminal justice system that has more to do with right and wrong" rather than the rules. Hey, me

Scott Henson (Grits for Breakfast) brings us news of Collin County, Texas's efforts to cut costs by denying appointed counsel to people who own over a certain amount of assets or have income over a certain amount. The numbers? The rules are in this document (PDF): The financial standards set forth below shall be used to determine whether a defendant is indigent and shall be applied equally