Listening is vital to trial lawyers. It's probably more important than any other single skill, but it is less studied, less trained, and less practiced. Lawyers often don't listen very well. I've seen egregiously bad examples from all sides of the criminal bar; many times I've wanted to shake a lawyer or judge by the collar and shout, did you not hear what that person just said?

Murray Newman is a witness in Ex Parte Temple. The writ hearing has been going on sporadically for several weeks. One of the issues is whether Kelly Siegler concealed exculpatory information from the defense. Newman testified early, and Siegler has been on the witness stand for at least four days (orthogonally: here and here are the transcripts of Siegler's first two days of testimony). So when Newman

One of my gun-totin' libertarian friends asked me: What do you think about those legal insurance funds for CHL holders? For example: https://www.texaslawshield.com/ https://www.secondcalldefense.org/ Any good? Worth it? Or no opinion? I have different issues with the two companies. Texas Law Shield is not "insurance," but rather "a licensed legal services company." It purports to provide "legal representation by an attorney"—an attorney, not the attorney of your

My fellow Delhi-walla Samir Chopra writes, in a post entitled "Mark Bennett is a Sexist Tool": Over at the blog Defending People, Mark Bennett, a Houston-based criminal defense lawyer, writes a long, technical, closely argued post critiquing Danielle Citron‘s putative "Putative." Which means that Chopra is at least partly on the right page: there is some doubt about Citron's rebuttals. rebuttals of arguments–based on First Amendment concerns–against

Texas HB496: Sec. 21.16. UNLAWFUL DISCLOSURE OR PROMOTION OF INTIMATE VISUAL MATERIAL. (a) In this section: (1) "Intimate relationship" means a marriage relationship or a relationship of a romantic or intimate nature between two persons. (2) "Promote" and "sexual conduct" have the meanings assigned by Section 43.25. (3) "Visual material" has the meaning assigned by Section 43.26. (b) A person commits an offense if the person: (1)

I guess I missed it at the time because it's on Forbes.com, which I try to avoid. But last April Danielle Citron wrote Debunking the First Amendment Myths Surrounding Revenge Porn Laws: Disclosing someone’s nude image in violation of trust and confidence (often known as nonconsensual pornography or revenge porn) is a destructive invasion of privacy that can cause irreversible harm to a person’s physical and emotional

In France if you print cartoons inciting discrimination and hatred against Muslims, you may be murdered by a band of armed thugs. This is censorship. In France if you print cartoons inciting discrimination or hatred against Muslims, you may be arrested, tried by a court, and imprisoned for a year. Only if you resist can you be murdered by a band of armed thugs. This is civilization.

Being of questionable character, she then quietly changed her model law, without conceding her initial model law was fundamentally flawed, or acknowledging that her detractors had a point, to add her “public interest” exception. This, she contended, cured all First Amendment problems, aside from all the others she continued to vehemently deny Following up on SHG's comment, here is Mary Anne Franks's model revenge-porn-criminalization statute from October

Revenge-porn-criminalization mouthpiece Mary Anne Franks writes in her Guide for Legislators: The law SHOULD contain … narrow exceptions for disclosures made in the public interest. Otherwise, individuals could be prosecuted … for recording and reporting unlawful activity, such as flashing. Franks's model statute "does not apply to": Disclosures made in the public interest, including but not limited to the reporting of unlawful conduct, or the lawful and

I interrupt my regularly scheduled blog post for this.