From Ex Parte McCann, decided today by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals: Albert James Turner was charged with capital murder. At trial, he was represented by Patrick McCann and Tyrone Moncriffe. In June 2011, Turner was found guilty and sentenced to death. The trial court appointed counsel for Turner’s direct appeal and the Office of Capital Writs (“OCW”) to handle Turner’s postconviction writ. As part of

Via Free-Range Kids: My son is only 4, and I have pretty much put the fear of God in him about strangers! It’s a constant conversation (especially lately) that is not at all sugar coated! He knows that there are very bad people that can take him and hurt him. I’ve told him that he would never see us again, and reminded him that there’s not a

From Channel 5 in Dallas/Fort Worth: Some drivers along a busy North Fort Worth street on Friday were stopped at police roadblock and directed into a parking lot, where they were asked by federal contractors for samples of their breath, saliva and even blood. It was part of a government research study aimed at determining the number of drunken or drug-impaired drivers. This—detaining drivers and requiring them

Most people who aren't securities lawyers—other lawyers included—don't have opinions on what SEC regulations say. Most people who aren't probate lawyers—other lawyers included—don't have opinions on the best way to write a will. Yet everybody—other lawyers included—has opinions about what the criminal law says, and how to try a criminal case. And virtually all of them are wrong. Everybody—other criminal lawyers included—has opinions about what First Amendment

Generated by Doctor Nerve's Markov Page, which "allows the writer to type in prose or poetry, and submit it to a Markov Chain engine. This engine munches through the writer's text, performs a statistical analysis, and spits out statistically similar text": Proposition 6 in one capacity eventually end the retirement age, aside from not just after the courts. It’s bad for the notion that judges, and were

I had a client pleading guilty in felony court last week; the sitting judge was out, and retired judge Mike Wilkinson was visiting, and took the plea. Wilkinson talks really fast, and as I was listening to his plea admonishments it occurred to me that to my client, fluent in English but not in Legalese, the judge must sound something like this: (If I had more time

In a comment to this post, in which I asked, "Why is it that when you tell peo­ple the truths they don’t want to hear, you are 'angry' and 'acrimonious'?" "Josh C" wrote: Blunt answers, unpadded with cour­tesy, come accross as rude. That is a fea­ture of Eng­lish. See e.g. https://www.courts.state.hi.us/docs/CADR/CADR_LaBelle_MitigatedSpeech.pdf It’s like fail­ing to use the sub­junc­tive in German. The link led to a brief article

Here's a Motion for Rehearing filed by the Harris County District Attorney's Office, and here, for your enjoyment, is my response (PDF, if it doesn't show up inline): https://blog.bennettandbennett.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Response-to-MRH-Redacted.pdf

This is not a tech blog, but when I spend time finding an answer to a tech question that Google doesn’t have, I’m going to publish it here. I use Vocalocity for my office phones. It’s a voice-over-IP service. I have one extension ringing ing the downtown office, and one extension ringing at the same time in the Heights office. I also have various forwarding schemes set

When the gentleman from the Texas Attorney General's Office called me on Thursday to ask if I would agree to the AG's petition to intervene and motion to extend time to file a motion for rehearing in the Court of Criminal Appeals, I think he was a bit put-out that I declined. ((Or it may have been my tone.)) I wasn't sure whether I was opposed or