Posted on
January 6, 2015 in
IS UNLAWFUL TO INTENTIONALLY DISCLOSE, DISPLAY, DISTRIBUTE, PUBLISH, ADVERTISE OR OFFER A PHOTOGRAPH, VIDEOTAPE, FILM OR DIGITAL RECORDING OF ANOTHER PERSON IN A STATE OF NUDITY OR ENGAGED IN SPECIFIC SEXUAL ACTIVITIES IF THE PERSON KNOWS OR SHOULD HAVE KNOWN THAT THE DEPICTED PERSON HAS NOT CONSENTED TO THE DISCLOSURE Ariz. Rev. Stat. § 13-142 (effective 2014). (b) A person commits an offense if the person: (1)
Posted on
January 5, 2015 in
Scott Greenfield wants the backstory? Here's the backstory. I asked the Collin County Sheriff's Office for Sergeant (now Investigator) Christopher M. Meehan's personnel file. Robert J. Davis, representing the Sheriff's Office, requested an opinion from the Attorney General allowing the Sheriff's Office to withhold the bulk of the cop's personnel file for various reasons, ranging from the specious ("There is certainly no information contained in the personnel
Posted on
January 5, 2015 in
[A]ll trial lawyers who make improper arguments…have no business lamenting the public’s low perception of lawyers. They need only look in the mirror. I wasn't even very hard on him: I just republished part of a dissenting opinion criticizing a closing argument that Justin Keiter had made, and connected Keiter's name with it. Keiter took the criticism hard. I was riding on the elevator today when Justin
Posted on
January 4, 2015 in
There are dangerous pedophiles in the world, and some of them are civil lawyers. But that is no reason to assume that Dallas lawyer Robert J. Davis is either a pedophile or dangerous. Because assuming that a civil lawyer like Robert J. Davis is a dangerous pedophile would be like assuming that a criminal lawyer is in cahoots with dangerous drug dealers. And I wouldn't do that.
Posted on
January 3, 2015 in
When the media need an opinion on some legal issue, often they will go to the nearest law school. The reasoning—which is sound in theory—is that if a professor lists, say, "immigration law" as one of her subjects, then she will be an expert in the subject.Most law professors, who live lives of quiet desperation writing academic articles that few will ever read, are happy to opine
Posted on
January 2, 2015 in
A prosecutor asked me recently whether I might be willing to work with legislators to write a revenge-porn statute that would pass First Amendment muster. I replied that I would, but that I didn't think it could be done. The United State's Supreme Court's modern approach to First Amendment challenges to content-based penal restrictions of speech, as applied in U.S. v. Stevens and U.S. v. Alvarez, is
Posted on
January 1, 2015 in
A defendant should never "plea guilty" because "plea" is not a verb. The infinitive is "to plead." The past tense is "pleaded" or "pled." Which you use is a matter of personal preference, either yours or your readers', but the Oxford English Dictionary and Garner's Modern American Usage both prefer "pleaded." A case should not under any circumstances "be plead," but it might be pled (or pleaded)
Posted on
January 1, 2015 in
People don't like being manipulated or controlled by other people. They will bridle and resist if they think you are trying to convince them to do something. The harder they think you are trying, the harder they will push back. But trial advocacy is the practice of convincing people to do things. So ideally, trial advocacy should be transparent. At the end of the case the jurors,
Posted on
January 1, 2015 in
I do not write I'm sorry I haven't written more lately; here's why; I promise to do better blog posts. The first part strikes me as narcissistic—as though it matters to the world that any particular blogger hasn't written more lately; the third part is usually a lie—people who write these posts almost always return to silence shortly afterwards. And I don't figure readers generally care much
Posted on
December 19, 2014 in
In the name and by authority of the State of Texas: The Grand Jury for the _______ term of the ___ Judicial District Court of Williamson County, Texas, having been duly selected, empaneled, sworn, charged, and organized, presents that before the presentment of this indictment, on or about the ___ day of ____, 2013, in Williamson County, Texas, X, hereinafter “defendant”, with the intent to arouse or