One: Murray Newman reports that Pat Lykos has been subpoenaed to testify before the 185th Grand Jury. My guess is that it's unprecedented for a Texas grand jury to subpoena a sitting District Attorney. Getting subpoenaed is bad. Taking the Fifth would be political suicide. Others might take the Fifth as an obstruction or delay tactic, but if Pat Lykos takes the FIfth, it's because she really

Once I decide who the best candidate for Harris County District Attorney is, I'm not going to endorse him or her publicly, because I think my endorsement might have a negative effect. By the same token, the best endorsement Mike Anderson has received so far, to me, is Harris County Republican Party Chairman Jared Woodfill's public support for Pat Lykos.

"Fearless, relentless, and righteous." That's how the Chicago Sun-Times described my friend Dave Boyle in his obituary. Dave got to Vietnam just in time for the Tet Offensive in 1968. He didn't talk much about his time in Vietnam, but he always planned to go back some day and tour the country in peacetime by motorcycle. Dave was what a Republican presidential candidate would sneeringly call a

© 2011 Ruben Bollin @rubenbolling

In the voting on Popehat for Censorious Asshat Of The Year, I am torn between Thedala Magee and her lawyer Vicki Roberts, and Joseph Rakofsky. In any other year, Marc Stephens would be a contender, but what he did was, basically, pretend to be a lawyer like Vicki Roberts or Joseph Rakofsky. It wouldn't be fair to Roberts or Rakofsky to give the award to wannabe Stephens when they,

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