[Update: the below is a nightmare. It is not how things are, much less how things have to be. I’ve identified four ways a good lawyer might make the nightmare end; I’m sure I’ll think of others as I litigate these cases. Your takeaway from this post should not be that there is no hope, but rather that the relief that people convicted of 33.021(b) should—morally, ethically,

In Peeler v. Hughes and Luce the Texas Supreme Court held that a convicted criminal defendant’s crime is the sole proximate cause of any consequences of that crime, so that a criminal-defense lawyer cannot be sued for malpractice “without first establishing that she has been exonerated by direct appeal, post-conviction relief, or otherwise.” Does “exonerated” in this context mean “proven innocent,” or just “unconvicted”?

In a post notable only for its stupid title, Staci Zaretsky writes at Above the Law, Man Claims First Amendment Right To Take Pornographic ‘Upskirt’ Pictures. Here's the story to which she links: Lawyer Defends Client’s MBTA ‘Up-Skirt’ Photos, Claims They Should Be Protected by the First Amendment: A lawyer representing an Andover man arrested in 2010 for allegedly taking photos up women’s skirts on the T

This is a Pope to emulate. Bravo. Claudio Peri/EPA/Landov

At days like crazy paving, jaythenerdkid writes Ten things male feminists need to stop saying. She includes things like, “I’m really attracted to strong women”; “But I haven’t done any of those things!”; and so forth: all things that either sound like feminism only to men, or make the discussion about them, or both. In her comments she writes that male feminists who want to contribute to

What hellish dystopia is this? Without Eckert's consent: 1. Eckert's abdominal area was x-rayed; no narcotics were found. 2. Doctors then performed an exam of Eckert's anus with their fingers; no narcotics were found. 3. Doctors performed a second exam of Eckert's anus with their fingers; no narcotics were found. 4. Doctors penetrated Eckert's anus to insert an enema.  Eckert was forced to defecate in front of

The easier a statute makes it to regulate undesirable speech, the less constitutional the statute. For example, Texas Penal Code Section 15.031, Criminal Solicitation of a Minor is more difficult for a prosecutor to prove than Section 33.021(c), Online Solicitation of a Minor because the former requires proof of the specific intent that a crime be committed, but the latter (in subsection (d)) dispenses with that requirement. Given

From April 11, 2005 (Evan Schaeffer’s Blawg Review #1) to July 2, 2012 (Paul Kennedy’s Blawg Review #324) “Ed.,” the anonymous editor of Blawg Review, midwifed into existence a weekly (for the first six years, intermittent after that) “blog carnival,” in which one law blogger or another, hosting on his or her blog, gathered interesting law blog posts from the previous week and connected them together in

In light of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals decision holding Section 33.021(b) of the Texas Penal Code (the “dirty talk” portion of the Online Solicitation of a Minor Statute) unconstitutional under the First Amendment, there is a good constitutional challenge to Section 33.021(c) (the “solicitation” portion of the Online Solicitation of a Minor Statute): A person commits an offense if the person, over the Internet or

Choose your poison: In Houston, “Big Guy” lay dead in the street at the intersection of Travis and Anita for nearly a day on Monday. Passersby thought it curious enough to take pictures, but not curious enough to check on him or even call the authorities. I’m with my old friend and adversary, HPD Homicide Sergeant Brian Harris, on this one: "If they just had used their