It would, as Alexis Madrigal points out at The Atlantic, be a mistake to think that this is all about Lt. John Pike: Let's not pretend that Pike is an independent bad actor. Too many incidents around the country attest to the widespread deployment of these tactics. If we vilify Pike, we let the institutions off way too easy. Neither should John Pike be let off scot-free.

When I read, at Simple Justice, commenters' rationalization of a grad student's failure to act when he saw a ten-year-old boy being raped by a football coach—typical of which was this:I would like to point out that Mike McQueary was a graduate student back then. Had he done anything more, his entire career would have been over before it even started, and the coverup probably would have

Appellate Squawk. He's been blogging for nearly a year, and I've never heard of him. I've been excising the bloggers-for-profit and the long-defunct noble efforts from my feed reader, so it's good to be able to add someone who blogs for love (though he might say, "for anger"). Who else am I missing? (h/t Greenfield.)

A jury acquitted Crystal Desormeaux of capital murder. A grand jury then indicted her for the offense of injury to a child. Injury to a child is a lesser-included offense to capital murder of a child (In Re L.M.). Desormeaux filed a writ of habeas corpus in the injury-to-a-child case, alleging that the Double-Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment barred her trial for injury to a child

Before we try tough cases clients often ask, “if things don’t go well, we can appeal, right?”Well, sure. If we lose, we can appeal, but the appeal isn’t about retrying or even revisiting the facts of the case. If the appellate court finds that “no rational trier of fact” could have found proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, the case will be reversed for legally insufficient

[Update: I got a call this morning from Jim Leitner of the DA's Office. He said that in his interview with Amanda Culberson, recorded by both sides, she said that the power-supply problems would cause the machines not to work, but would not, as far as she knew, cause false results. Meanwhile, a lawyer with intimate knowledge of the BAT vans wrote: "What Oliver and DPS doesn't

I didn't go to the 185th for the hearing yesterday, but Murray Newman, Paul Kennedy, and Mr. Kelly Case did (Kelly didn't blog about the proceedings, but I link to his blog so that you can encourage him to write more).Bottom line: Judge Brown announced that she was recusing herself, based on the motion to recuse filed by Randy Schaffer, Steve Morris's lawyer. Delay of game, as

An introduction to neurolaw, from David Eagleman of Baylor College of Medicine: Eagleman teaches a seminar on the subject at Rice University; I'm signing up.He also has a book: Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain

[Update 7 November 2011, 9:32 a.m.: Murray was half-right, and I was half-right: the lawyer for one of the alleged contemnors (not the DA's Office) reportedly (according to Paul Kennedy on Twitter) filed a motion to recuse. We'll discuss it when I get a copy.] Murray Newman's guess: After talking to Todd, my guess would be that the District Attorney's Office is going to file a Motion

Aransas County Court-at-Law Judge William Adams spoke out through his lawyer today, questioning his daughter’s motives for releasing a video that amassed millions of hits on YouTube, sparked a national debate about child discipline, and thrust his family’s personal turmoil into public scrutiny.Corpus Christi Caller, 3 November 2011. Here’s the PDF of the letter.Perhaps Hillary Adams should explain, if she felt she was raised by a tyrannical