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.¹ 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

“It has come to my attention that you have now asked an additional question: ‘Does the President have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on American soil?’ ” the attorney general, Eric H. Holder Jr., wrote to Mr. Paul. “The answer to that question is no.” Car­ney added that, “if the United States were under attack, there were

"May all those you love get what they deserve."

So what about the charge for which DPS issued subpoenas to Twitter?¹ § 22.07. TERRORISTIC THREAT.  (a) A person commits an offense if he threatens to commit any offense involving violence to any person or property with intent to: (1)  cause a reaction of any type to his threat by an official or volunteer

We all know the rule that ex parte communications between counsel and the court are generally forbidden. We also know that judges—even judges of good will—who know the rule break it all the time. This week I got a little bit of insight into how this might happen when a Harris County jurist, someone who has been a judge for longer than I've been a criminal-defense lawyer,

The San Antonio Express reports that Jason McMurray, a Texas Department of Public Safety Agent¹ out of Tyler sent an administrative subpoena to Twitter in San Francisco for records of two Twitter accounts, @deniseromano and @prisonforbush, including the IP addresses used from July 17 to July 19, 2013:     Twitter sent one of the account holders (and presumably both of

Yesterday I wrote about stand-your-ground laws generally. I did so because I didn't know the mechanics of such laws, and there is a great deal of talk about such laws from people who seem to have no greater understanding of them than I have. In the Zimmerman jury instructions, the jury was instructed on the stand-your-ground law: If George Zimmerman was not engaged in an unlawful activity