A few days ago, I wrote a post, Great Cicero's Ghost. It was part of a discussion of legal ethics, causes, and conflicts of interest, arising from this post by Charles Thomas (which in turn arose from this post by Scott Greenfield). The discussion continued with Max Kennerly's "thoughts" ("there’s no requirement for the utmost zeal in representation, so we know that there’s no absolute duty to

Thanks to the Houston Chronicle, Cyber Civil Rights Initiative activist Mary Anne Franks got to bring her special brand of authoritarianism to my neck of the woods: Franks dismissed claims by some groups, like American Civil Liberties Union, that criminal penalties for posting the photos infringes on behavior protected by the First Amendment. "This isn't protected speech, at least under any theory I can think of," she

Arizona HB2515: AN ACT AMENDING TITLE 13, CHAPTER 14, ARIZONA REVISED STATUTES, BY ADDING SECTION 13?1425; RELATING TO sexual offenses. Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Arizona: Section 1.  Title 13, chapter 14, Arizona Revised Statutes, is amended by adding section 13-1425, to read: 13-1425.  Unlawful distribution of images; state of nudity; classification; definition A.  It is unlawful to knowingly disclose, display, distribute,

Max Kennerly asks: Is A Lawyer Ever Required To Present An Argument They Don’t Believe? The answer to the question is, to any true Scotsman criminal-defense lawyer, "absolutely." We don't decide whether our clients go to trial, and we don't pick the facts. If the second-simplest explanation that accounts for all of the government's admissible evidence is unbelievable even to us, then (unless trial psychosis helps us

Launch Next, the lawyer has to actually start jury selection. It is important for the trial to get off to a good start, and for this reason few lawyers rely purely on improvisation at this early stage. Most have a few phrases they have learned to trust, or an introductory framework they have polished over time. These tried-and-tested opening lines help the lawyer to sound proficient, experienced

Three questions a criminal-defense lawyer should ask herself when considering action in aid of the defense in a criminal case: Is the action effective?; Is the action legal?; and Is the action ethical? The first inquiry  is not, "will the action succeed." but "do the chances that it will make things better outweigh the chances that it will make things worse?" Because this is a very complex

I tried to help the kid. Truly I did. I reached out to him through a mutual friend and told him, "you can salvage this. Apologize." Things got worse for him. I emailed him directly, asked him to call me. I spent an hour on the phone with him. "You can salvage this. Apologize. I understand that you feel unfairly treated. That's a war that you're not

I took all of Carl Ceder's writings—blog comments and emails—from here, here, and here, and used them as the input to Dr. Nerve's Markov Page. You might be able to distinguish the result from Carl's actual writing. Agreed, please see my practice occurs in yours. Spend time at your content from my perspective. Frankly, I would think it seemed everyone else for each, which I am only

Harris County DA Devon Anderson, in response to President Obama's comment that marijuana isn't more dangerous than alcohol, "in terms of its impact on the individual consumer," issued a press release. She begins: I adamantly disagree with the President. Whether and how she disagrees with the President has nothing to do with whether he is correct. Let's see her argument. She continues: According to a 2012 Drug

Today in the UK, criminal barristers stopped work for the morning. (Don't call it a strike.) The non-strike was prompted by the government, falsely representing the criminal bar as well-paid fat cats (the Minister of Justice says "average £100,000…I mean, £84,000"; the truth is closer to £37,000, and criminal barristers' fees are already down 40% from the late 90s), proposing to cut £220 million from the indigent