Scott Greenfield is taking nominations for the best criminal-law blog post of the year. Please think about what you've enjoyed or learned the most from this year, and go nominate it in the comments to Greenfield's post. (Do me a favor, though, and don't nominate any of my posts. I'm not writing this to promote myself.)

I've been wondering why Special Prosecutor Stephen St. Martin sought to compel Rachel Palmer to testify without giving her use immunity. I mentioned the question to a colleague, a former Assistant DA, and he said, "well, she wouldn't testify." What do you mean, I asked. If she's given immunity, she either testifies or goes to jail for contempt. "Can't she choose not to accept immunity?" Aha! There

Suppose that a witness testifies before a grand jury. Suppose, then, that the grand jury questions other witnesses whose testimony casts doubt on the first witness's testimony, and then summons the first witness again. The witness invokes her Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. The special prosecutor assisting the grand jury wants the witness's testimony, but is not willing to give the witness immunity. Two questions: First, what

Brian Tannebaum proves himself once again to be a real mensch, listening in on a Rachel Kugel “teleseminar” promised to “enable you to design and implement a strategy to boost your practice revenues and boost them quickly!” Tannebaum doesn’t need to boost his practice revenues. If he did, he sure wouldn’t go to a six-year lawyer with no visible success. But he listened in on the advertisement

Murray Newman (why did his faithful commenters not nominate Life at the Harris County Justice Center, which has been doing sterling work all year, for the ABA Blawg 100…other than because they're pendejos?) brings interesting news from the third floor of 1201 Franklin, where dwell grand juries: Item the first: "Today, Special Prosecutor Chris Downey was appointed to investigate yet another allegation of wrong-doing by the Harris

Anthony Graves and Nicole Casarez on Reasonable Doubt on HMS. Streaming here.

A commenter asked recently why I hadn't written about the Joe Amendola circus. I haven't felt inspired because, like Scott Greenfield says, "It's not that being critical of Joe Amendola is the sort of thing any criminal defense lawyer wants to do." But "It's just that it can't be helped." Greenfield writes in Amendola, The Tactician: As for Joe Amendola, he's a complete disaster, a laughingstock, at crisis

Only the dumb need apply! « Kelly Case Law Firm One of my closest friends is a police officer in New York. During the horror of 9/11, he was trapped on the island and worked for the next 5 days from his station less than 2 blocks from the World Trade Center. I could not reach him for over a week and was greatly relieved when he

The mainstream media would have you believe that all American politics come down to a single spectrum: from liberalism on the left to conservatism on the right: That spectrum gives the simpleminded something to argue about—Republicans each trying to convince the other that they are the more conservative, and Democrats trying to convince each other that they are the more moderate. It also permits politicians to avoid

On NPR the other day, I heard a snippet of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's interview with Barbara Walters. With his little lisp, he makes a fascinating villain. If they ever make a film version of the Arab Spring, I know the perfect guy to cast as Assad: