Ethical question: if you think that a judge might be corrupt, but that the corruption can never be detected or prosecuted, do you join in his corruption for the good of your clients? Or do you avoid it for the good of everyone else? I am, you will not be surprised to learn, on judicial political campaign mailing lists. The 2014 political season is begining, and I

The Fourth Court of Appeals (Texas's San-Antonio-based intermediate appellate court) three weeks ago in Ex Parte Thompson held unconstitutional (pdf) the portion of Texas's improper photography statute that outlawed taking photos of other people without their consent in places other than bathrooms and dressing rooms with the intent to arouse or gratify sexual desire. This week a twelve-year-old girl was "convicted" (adjudicated delinquent) in juvenile court of

Paul Kennedy writes: But when questions arose regarding who was eligible [for the DWI pretrial intervention program] and who wasn't and what defendants would be required to do as a condition of their "probation," there was no one around to answer them. No one was in charge. With Mr. Anderson out of the picture, no one wanted to step up and take any heat for unpopular decisions.

  Me, six years ago:     When we react with anger to some­one else, we’re gen­er­ally try­ing to teach them a les­son. A judge once told me that anger is usu­ally the result of either a loss of con­trol or a per­ceived loss of dig­nity; I think that he got it right. When we try to teach another per­son a les­son, we’re try­ing to show them

From the New York Times: Hemisphere covers every call that passes through an AT&T switch — not just those made by AT&T customers — and includes calls dating back 26 years, according to Hemisphere training slides bearing the logo of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. Some four billion call records are added to the database every day, the slides say; technical specialists say

You may have seen this: The NSA seal is protected by Public Law 86-36, which states that it is not permitted for “…any person to use the initials ‘NSA,’ the words ‘National Security Agency’ and the NSA seal without first acquiring written permission from the Director of NSA.” It's the statement the NSA sent The Daily Dot in response to a story about these t-shirts with the

This weekend a young cat abandoned her two newborn kittens under our house. We are not cat people. Or at least, we are not stray-cat people. I have had pet cats, but I have no emotional attachment to stray cats, which are wild animals of an invasive species. ((And which, not "belonging to" anyone, may lawfully be humanely killed.)) Our neighborhood is overrun with the vermin, which

So today's my birthday. And what better to do on my birthday than go to court. Representing a guy charged with a family-violence assault. Pro bono, because he's in the Army. Wait. Back up. A couple of weeks ago I go to court for this guy. And there's an envelope in the State's file. It doesn't say "work product," so I pull the papers out and start

"I hope our new DA will take cor­rec­tive actions and remind his DAs to not par­tic­i­pate in these long-standing ex parte dia­logues." -Robb Fickman, commenting here, January 19, 2013. From: Hill, Belinda Sent: Tuesday, August 13, 2013 11:57 AM To: All Prosecutors Subject: Ex Parte Communications Recently, we have received some complaints from the defense bar about improper ex parte communications occurring between prosecutors and judges.  Whether

There is an ilk of lawyer practicing in federal criminal court that gets a great deal of retained business through the jails: an incarcerated client talks up the lawyer and the miracles he can work to his cellies, some of whom get their families to scrape together the money to hire the lawyer, fire their court-appointed counsel, and themselves become evangelists for the lawyer. Now, just about