The only virtue of the Court’s approach (if it can be misnamned a virtue) is that it leaves judges free to reach the “fairest” result under the totality of the circumstances. If the dastardly police trick a declarant into giving an incriminating statement against a sympathetic defendant, a court can focus on the police’s intent and declare the statement testimonial. If the defendant “deserves” to go to

I knew I was going to have to appeal this case when a prosecutor said to me, "this hearing won't take long—the case wasn't a misdemeanor." If the case wasn't a misdemeanor, you see, I filed the wrong sort of writ of habeas corpus—an 11.09 writ rather than an 11.07 writ. If I should have filed an 11.07, I should have done so in the Court of

One of our kids got the opportunity to go to a summer leadership program in one of the farther reaches of the country. In the old days there would have been a simple way to do this: get on a plane with her, fly up there, rent a car, drop her at the program, fly back, then return when the program is over and pick her up.

The Supreme Court has ordered that the referendum proceed with this structure that appears on the ballot. And we’re complying with the court’s order.Texas lawyers elected not to adopt these rules. We expect that this will not be the end of the Supreme Court’s interest in making revisions to these rules.The first quote is part of State Bar President Terry Tottenham’s response to my theory that the

Texas Lawyer Blog: State Bar of Texas members vote down proposed amendments to Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct A big "thank you" to all who voted and encouraged others to do the same. Forty-percent turnout is apparently astounding for such a referendum. State Bar President Terry Tottenham said, "We expect that this will not be the end of the Supreme Court’s interest in making revisions to these

From my source in the Harris County DA’s Office, Mr. X: From: “Jordan, John” <JORDAN_JOHN@dao.hctx.net> Date: February 15, 2011 11:19:24 AM CST To: “Misdemeanor Division” <MisdemeanorDivision@dao.hctx.net> Cc: “Bridgwater, Roger” <BRIDGWATER_ROGER@dao.hctx.net>, “Evans, Catherine” <EVANS_CATHERINE@dao.hctx.net> Subject: Trial Competitions We are now six weeks into the new year and I wanted to announce some Trial Competitions.

Let’s say you’re a criminal-defense lawyer, and you’re about to pick a jury. You want the jury to trust you and to be generous with your client, but you’re not sure you can trust them to. What can you do to improve your chances?Here’s the new-agey TLC kumbaya answer: trust them first.

Harlingen, Texas criminal defense lawyer Larry Warner has been practicing law for 37 years. He served for three years on the State Bar Disciplinary Rules Committee charged with drafting the proposed rules. He served as a member of the Texas House of Representatives and has taught professional responsibility to law students. He is also board certified in criminal law. Warner writes:For three years I was a member

When I read Padilla v. Kentucky, I didn’t give much thought to the question, but after hearing considerable debate among smart lawyers of whether the rule in that case (that counsel is ineffective for not telling the defendant about clear immigration consequences before a guilty plea) is retroactive, I took a closer look at the retroactivity of Padilla.There are two different retroactivity questions that the courts will

Pop quiz:Several Houston police officers savagely beat a surrendering suspect. The attack is captured by a private citizen on video. The Harris County District Attorney's Office seeks to keep the video from being published. The private citizen provides a copy of the video to another private citizen, who releases it to the media, who publish it.Does the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association:A) Publicly state its opposition to