The discussion of the stagnation of the blawgosphere and the vitality of the Practical Blawgosphere, as well as this post from attorney Anne Reed's Deliberations blog -- specifically, Juror Number 3, Len Aslanian's comment on the importance of geographical proximity to the success of a community -- has me thinking about the (metaphorical) geography of the (metaphorical) community of the blawgosphere. New York criminal defense attorney Scott

Last week I helped a client plead guilty to life in prison plus 20 years. He'll be eligible for parole, if all goes well, in 34 years. Realistically, though, he'll probably never get out. The motivation for his plea was, of course, that he might receive a death sentence if he didn't make a deal. He had confessed to the stabbing murder of his next-door neighbor in

There are lots of things that a person can get in trouble by possessing: drugs, weapons, and alcohol (if the person is a minor) to name but three.Possession is defined as actual care, actual custody, actual control or actual management.For possession to be illegal, it must be voluntary. Possession is voluntary if the possessor possesses the thing for long enough that he could have terminated his control

(I promised, on reading New York criminal defense attorney Scott Greenfield's Independence Day post, 231 Years and Still Trying, to write about the nature of freedom, the power of fear, and the abandonment of American ideals. This is the third post in the series; it covers the second topic. I discussed the nature of freedom and the abandonment of American ideals.)

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about Bennett's Chainsaw, which is the principle that: The more things you must contest and the more explanations you must provide in order to mount a defense, the more likely it is that you will be convicted.Here is the first corollary to Bennett's Chainsaw: In the defense of a criminal case, the second-simplest explanation that accounts for all of the

There seems to be a bit of a kerfuffle about whether the blawgosphere is "stagnant." Here's David Hoffman's (Concurring Opinions) post asking the question, and contrasting law blogs with progressive political blogs. Citing Stephen Bowers of Open Left, he characterizes the "short tail" (the highly trafficked sites) of the progressive political blogosphere as: marked by: (1) a norm of group blogging and a resulting wealth of new

Please welcome Fort Worth criminal-defense lawyer Shawn Matlock to the blawgosphere. Shawn not only has a great name for a criminal-defense lawyer, but he also has a thoughtful blog, here. I've added him to the blogroll. Today Shawn wrote about lawyers promising dismissals. It's good to have him adding his voice to the discussion of bad lawyer advertising. Technorati Tags: blawgs, criminal defense, Texas

I mentioned in passing here the "Defense Groups" that advertise on the internet, claiming to "handle cases in all 50 states." Legalpad has this post about the State Bar shutting down one such group, Criminal Defense Associates (cached by Google). Criminal Defense Associates was the "nationwide" criminal defense corporation that, while it was circling the bowl back in April, told the mother of a potential client that

(I promised, on reading SHG's 231 Years and Still Trying, to write about the nature of freedom, the power of fear, and the abandonment of American Ideals. This is the second post in the series; it covers the first topic.) When we talk about Americans' freedom, what are we talking about? The freedom to shop at Wal-Mart? The freedom to drive Hummers? The freedom to live in