When I saw this Polygon post last month, about how Twitter "gives so little attention to the now-routine harassment experienced by so many members of the service" because "it drives engagement," I thought, "surely there's a market solution": I've done some Twitter scripting, and the three proposed tools would, I think, be easy for a third party to implement. — Mark W. Bennett (@MarkWBennett) July 31, 2014

Here's a survey of what's going on in Texas with regard to the First Amendment in criminal cases: Texas Penal Code Section 33.021(b) (online solicitation by explicit communication) was held unconstitutional by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in Ex Parte Lo. In Ex Parte Chance the Court of Criminal Appeals granted relief on habeas to someone who hadn't raised the unconstitutionality of the statute either in

I use 28-pound printer paper for my pleadings. Have done for years. Judges and prosecutors often notice the paper: it's heavy, stiff, and smooth. It also costs almost four times times as much as cheap paper (2.3 cents, vs. 0.64 cents per page), which can add up; my justification for using it has been that the things I'm filing with the court are important, so they should

In There's No "Ick" in Victim, in which she lauds victims for speaking up, Brooklyn lawyer ((And cousin of my officemate Jay Cohen!)) C.A. Goldberg turns her truly dizzying intellect my way: Then you have the George Wills and Mark Bennetts of the world who argue that society is victimized by victimhood. The former famously claimed that victims revel in their victimness and that “victimhood” is a

I've started taking improvisational theater classes again, now at The Station Theater, about halfway between my house and my downtown office. (I took classes at ComedySportz and at Bay Area Theater Sports several years ago, but neither theater is as convenient as The Station.) One of the perks of taking classes at The Station is free admission to shows at the theater. So I'll be seeing, as

I noticed this at the bottom of an email from a lawyer on a First Amendment civil case (he's suing, I'm defending): NOTICE OF DISCLAIMERS & CONTRACTUAL AGREEMENT NOT TO REMOVE DISCLAIMERS: This communication and any files or attachments transmitted with it are confidential, may be legally privileged, and are intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to which they are addressed. Because this

The original version of this post included two lawyers who had cried "victim." I identified neither; only a very small group (six people) knew who both were; those six already knew my opinion. While I had not identified him and had explicitly disclaimed calling him a sociopath (he has mental-health problems, but they undisputably do not include a lack of conscience), one of them recognized himself and

After reading Martha Stout's 2006 The Sociopath Next Door recently I've been thinking a great deal about sociopaths. Stout contends that four percent of the U.S. population are sociopaths, people without conscience, which Stout describes as "an intervening sense of obligation based in our emotional attachment to others." Here's a snippet from Stout's book describing some of the positions that sociopaths might enjoy, including this: But you

I had filed a pretrial writ of habeas corpus challenging Texas's Online Impersonation statute on First Amendment grounds. The prosecutor agreed with me off the record, dismissed the case, and instead filed a (less serious) Fraudulent Use of Identifying Information charge. Also, the Harris County DA's Office flagged the Online Impersonation statute in its charge bank as "possibly unconstitutional." What is wrong with these people? Doesn't Devon

Harris County Assistant PD Nick Hughes had a huge win in the First Court of Appeals on Schuster v. State. Mr. Schuster had pled guilty to online solicitation of a minor by explicit communication, enhanced with prior felony convictions, and been sentenced to forty years in prison while Ex Parte Lo was pending. Hughes appealed, arguing that the online-solicitation-by-explicit-communication statute was unconstitutional (the issue in Lo). The