From 1991 (Geesa) to 2000 (Paulson), criminal juries in Texas were given this definition of "beyond a reasonable doubt: It is not required that the prosecution prove guilt beyond all possible doubt; it is required that the prosecution's proof excludes all “reasonable doubt” concerning the defendant's guilt. A “reasonable doubt” is a doubt based on reason and common sense after a careful and impartial consideration of all

Sometimes it's all you've got. [PDF]

I showed here that the cops know not to talk to the cops when they -- or their buddies -- are being investigated. In his new Frisco DWI Lawyer & Attorney blog and weblog, Hunter Biederman points out that the cops also know not to take field sobriety tests when they're stopped for DWI.

"How important is it to be involved in local politics or the local bar?" Politics? Unimportant. Do it if that's what interests you. The local bar, generally? It probably depends. Here in Houston, with 14,000+ lawyers, it's unimportant. I have never belonged to the Houston Bar Association, and probably never will. But I'm not a joiner. If you're a joiner, you might benefit from making those contacts.

The third of Adam Levin's questions that young criminal-defense lawyers might have: "Do you perform volunteer, pro bono, or low bono work? Why or why not?" While defending people in the criminal courts, even for pay, is for the public good (so that we don't need as many karma offsets as others). As a criminal-defense lawyer helping people, you will be doing a tremendous amount of ad

I've edited the Legal First Aid -- DWI edition sheet a little bit, and added two more: Legal First Aid -- Search Warrant Edition ("The police are at the door with a search warrant. What do I do?"); and Legal First Aid -- Arrest Edition ("I'm being arrested. What do I do?"). As always, I welcome your comments. After all, the people reading this information may wind

Thanks to Grits for Breakfast for calling my attention to this Houston Chronicle article about former Harris County District Attorney Johnny Holmes (Scott Henson calls it a "puff piece" and a "hagiography"). In the article Houston criminal-defense lawyer George "Mac" Secrest gave Holmes a compliment, as much a shot at other elected DAs as praise of Holmes: Former assistant district attorney George Secrest called Holmes "the antithesis

The day before yesterday evening I was out with my family when the cell phone rang. A man called because his wife had been arrested that evening for DWI in Harris County. I could tell immediately that he was frantic. I calmed him down, reassured him, and explained how to get her bonded out of jail. Three hours later, at about 11:30 p.m., he called again. She

Houston Chronicle reporter Mary Flood has a blog entitled "Legal Trade: A blog about lawyering" (is "to lawyer" a verb anywhere but inTexas?); today's post is about lawyers' salaries in Texas. (Thanks to Luke Gilman for the heads-up.) The median salary for all Texas lawyers is $113,500. The post links to a story in today's Chronicle about the reality of lawyers' salaries -- "first-year graduates from the

Yesterday we attended a pretrial conference on a 19-defendant federal cocaine conspiracy case. Such cases are few and far between in Houston nowadays; the 15 lawyers in the room were in high spirits. When we were making our appearances on the record, the appointed lawyer for one defendant announced that he was asking to withdraw from the case because his client had hired the Snitch Lawyer to