The art at the top of the page is Jean-Léon Gérôme's 1872 Pollice Verso, which resides at the Phoenix Art Museum. The metaphor will be obvious to anyone who has ever tried a criminal case. So who's the defender and who's the prosecutor? Well, it's like they say: Some days you're the retiarius and some days you're the secutor.

David Feige's book, "Indefensible: One Lawyer's Journey into the Inferno of American Justice" has been on my "to read someday" list for months. I started reading his blog, and then ordered the book from Amazon. I started reading it last night. I may give a more thorough review of it later, but for now I'll say that I've found it extraordinarily true -- not that it's factually

Fellow defenders, Jon Katz over at Underdog Blog writes about a Georgia juvenile PD being jailed for contempt for arguing "contumaciously" with the judge. Did you know that when a Texas judge holds you in contempt for something you did in the course of defending someone, you have an absolute right to release on your own recognizance and a hearing before a different judge? Texas Government Code

There are ten or twelve stock arguments that most prosecutors learn to use and then never deviate from. For example: Smoke and Mirrors. The "Spaghetti" Defense. Explain it to Your Spouse / Neighbor. Send a Message. Plea for Law Enforcement.To those of us who make our livings toiling in the criminal courts, these arguments may seem trite. The fact that we've heard each of them many times

Today I helped one of my former students (he was in one of my classes when I helped teach criminal trial advocacy at University of Houston Law Center) try a misdemeanor case -- one of his first. I did my best to just butt out and give him backup and a few pointers; now I know how momma birds feel when they're watching their baby birds tumbling

Fellow criminal defense gladiators and gladiatrices: On May 11, the Harris County Criminal Lawyers' Association and the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers' Association are presenting a seminar in Houston on dealing with publicity in and out of court. I'm the course director. Our lead speaker is LCDR Charles Swift. He is joined by Rusty Hardin, Katherine Scardino, Randy Schaffer, and Houston Chronicle legal reporter Brian Rogers. The seminar

Keep your overhead as low as possible. You need a good laptop. You don't need a secretary. Join your local, state, and national criminal-defense lawyers’ organizations, and join their listservs. You don't need ProDoc (unless you're doing more than just criminal law). You might not even need an office at first – just a place where you can meet with your clients in private and have a

Miami criminal-defense lawyer Brian Tannebaum has some interesting comments about personal relationships between Cops and Criminal Defense Lawyers. When reading his post and the comments, it occurred to me that while cops who don't respect us and the system are dangerous to our factually innocent clients, the cops who are most dangerous to our factually guilty clients are the ones who respect and appreciate what we do.

Underdog Blog, written by Jon Katz and his partner Jay Marks of Marks & Katz in Silver Spring, Maryland is one year old today. Jon and Jay have blogged every weekday but four since April 20, 2006. That's a lot of words; Jon and Jay celebrated Underdog's birthday a day early in action by beating the government in court (again). Happy birthday, Underdog, you're an inspiration! Technorati

I've been glad to see the talk around the blawgosphere lately about the "sleep driving defense." The two-dollar word for this defense is "automatism." (I don't recommend using two-dollar words when talking to people, but they can add some oomph to an argument to a court.) Here are a couple of documents from a 2005 sleep-driving case that I had. First is a trial brief explaining the