I heard a complaint recently from someone who had hired a lawyer for a criminal case in Harris County after the lawyer a) texted her out of the blue on the cellphone; and b) promised to get her case dismissed within six months. The unsolicited text message was a violation of various rules and laws (see the TCDLA Voice for the Defense article here), and the

I won't pick on anyone in particular, but about two thirds of criminal-defense lawyers' websites are utter nonsense, if you know anything about criminal defense. But these folks are marketing themselves to people who don't know anything about criminal defense. It benefits them to keep the clients ignorant. I'd rather have clients who understand the system and what we, together, are up against. So let's pick on

Mark here. I've been writing online about criminal-defense issues for nearly two decades, at my Defending People WordPress blog, and in my Substack newsletter of the same name (if you subscribe, fees go to my 501(c)(3) nonprofit, the First Amendment Funding Organization). I wrote well over a million words on those two sites. If you wanted to understand how I think, you could go back and

How about this badge, which you may see this on other lawyers' websites?: It may even be accompanied by the claim that the lawyer is a "Top 100 lawyer in Houston" or a "Top 100 lawyer in Texas" or even "one of the top 100 lawyers in the U.S.A." The badge is nonsense, and the claim that it signifies "one of the top 100 lawyers in"

After almost 16 years of intermittent blogging, I'm moving along to a different platform, which I think will better suit both my talents and the times. Please visit https://defendingpeople.substack.com and subscribe to my newsletter. Thanks to you all.

Interesting voir dire question on Twitter, from a Gideon's Promise (it's a terrific program; if you have some charity dollars to direct, please consider sending them yeaward) alumna: Just want your thoughts: During a Voir Dire in a very conservative area, would you use the Trump impeachment process in any way? Just was a thought myself and instead of fleshing it out for myself, I’m calling on

I think I have discovered a bug in how DPS administers the sex-offender registry in dealing with people who have ten-year sex-offender registration offenses and prison sentences. If you went to prison for a ten-year-registration offense, and have been out of prison (regardless of parole status) for more than nine years, I'd like to hear from you. We may be able to do something on your behalf.

Some dolt ((Not an argumentum ad hominem: I'm not saying his argument is wrong, because he's a dolt. I'm saying he's a dolt, because his argument is wrong. Read on, and tell me if I'm wrong.)) in Illinois thinks my handling of the "speech of purely private concern" argument here is too "dismissive": https://twitter.com/msmith750/status/1187058113934790662?s=20 He bases this statement on his reading of the blog post I wrote

In an opinion rife with logical and legal error, the Illinois Supreme Court has upheld that state's revenge-porn statute in the face of First Amendment challenges. The opinion is here: [pdf-embedder url="https://blog.bennettandbennett.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/123910.pdf"] What's wrong with that? Just about everything. First,the Illinois Court explicitly claims, at *10-*12, not to identify a new category of speech that falls outside of First Amendment protection. It then holds that the statute

Dear Mr. Bennett, I'm writing to follow up on a voice mail I left late yesterday. I'm a writer with the ABA Journal, the American Bar Association's member magazine, and I'm writing an article on First Amendment challenges to revenge porn laws. This of course includes your current case for Jordan Jones before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. I understand from media reports that you may