Posted on April 13, 2009 in Uncategorized

Every Easter the Easter Bunny visits our house, leaving a trail of plastic eggs containing slips of paper. The slips of paper contain clues to the location of presents for the kids (Easter was never this big a deal when I was little).

This year the first egg, left in a prominent location, contained a clue (a rhyme, suitable for a five-year-old) to the location of another, which in turn contained a clue to the location of the next, and so on until the pieces fit together to make an 8.5X11 sheet.

On the back of the sheet, once the pieces were assembled, was the following:

Jennifer, when she saw it, had doubts that an 8-year-old would have the patience to decipher the message.

I figured it would take her half an hour or so with my help.

It took her 30 seconds to break the code. Thirty seconds.

When I saw how she had done it, my first thought was that she had made a couple of unwarranted assumptions.

But winning is often about making correct assumptions that your adversary thinks are unwarranted. In other words, the Easter Bunny was flat-out outsmarted.

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 Posted on April 12, 2009 in Uncategorized

Motive remains a mystery in gay Katy teen's death:

After giving conflicting stories, Banks confessed Monday that he shot Vogt to steal his car, said Harris County prosecutor Connie Spence.

Texas Disciplinary Rule of Professional Conduct 3.07:

(a) In the course of representing a client, a lawyer shall not make an extrajudicial statement that a reasonable person would expect to be disseminated by means of public communication if the lawyer knows or reasonably should know that it will have a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing an adjudicatory proceeding. A lawyer shall not counsel or assist another person to make such a statement.(b) A lawyer ordinarily will violate paragraph (a), and the likelihood of a violation increases if the adjudication is ongoing or imminent, by making an extrajudicial statement of the type referred to in that paragraph when the statement refers to:

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 Posted on April 12, 2009 in Uncategorized

Jen got me a Kindle for our anniversary. I am highly impressed. I still have a stack of dead-tree books to work through before I can start going crazy buying eBooks, but I'm enjoying reading the International Herald Tribune for world news. Being able to carry a huge amount of text in a format the size of a small magazine has inspired me. So here, for Defending People readers who are:

A. Criminal lawyers;B. In Texas; andC. Kindle owners,(is there anyone in that set but me?)

is the Texas Penal Code (2008-2009 edition) in Kindle format:

(West wants $52 for their hard-copy version, which weighs much more, takes up valuable briefcase space, and doesn't have nearly as cool a cover.)

I'll be bringing the Kindle version of the Texas Penal Code online soon, and then some other statutes and rules of interest to Texas criminal trial lawyers.

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 Posted on April 09, 2009 in Uncategorized

Hawkins said all prosecutors were notified Jan. 28 there was "potentialBrady material," meaning defendants and their lawyers must be told ofthe investigation into Wick if they make requests for evidencefavorable to their clients.

District Attorney Flags Officer's DWI Cases, Houston Chronicle April 8, 2009.

Really? That's what "Brady material" means, we have to be told if we ask?

Because for some reason I thought that the State had an obligation to reveal exculpatory and impeachment information, if not under Brady v. Maryland and its progeny then under Texas Disciplinary Rule of Professional Conduct 3.09(d).

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 Posted on April 08, 2009 in Uncategorized

With hurricane season approaching, now's a good time to start thinking about how you will keep your practice viable after a disaster.

I use Dropbox to back up my critical files to the cloud. I have a folder on my hard drive that the Dropbox software keeps seamlessly synchronized - when I change a file in the folder, it's uploaded to the cloud, where it's encrypted with AES-256 and stored. Actually, I have the same folder on multiple hard drives; when a file is changed on one of them, it's uploaded to the cloud and then downloaded to the others.

My blog images and PDFs are stored in my "public" folder in my Dropbox folder. If I move a file into the public folder, I can right-click to get a public link to that file.

I can also share a particular Dropbox folder with someone else who has Dropbox. So, for example, when I needed my virtual assistant in Alaska to summarize a batch of PDFs, I put them in a folder and gave her access to it (but not to the rest of my Dropbox folder).

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 Posted on April 07, 2009 in Uncategorized

Until recently, my faith in the criminal system, particularly the judicial system, was unwavering. But what some members of the prosecution team did nearly destroyed my faith. Their conduct had consequences for me that they will never realize and can never be reversed.

-Sen. Ted Stevens.

Impunity + Badges = Abuse.

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 Posted on April 07, 2009 in Uncategorized

By all rights, I should be in trial today. My client was arrested in his brother-in-law's house, which contained 12 kilos of cocaine in the attic, a pound of marijuana, and two guns. Mere presence is not a crime, but the Government claimed that he had made harmful admissions to agents.

He maintained his innocence. I thought the client had a better-than-even chance of acquittal and a chance of a 10-plus year sentence.

The government offered him a plea to misprision of a felony - a federal felony with a three-year maximum.

He rejected it. He had faith in God and me.

I thought that was a terrible decision, not because I disbelieved his protestations of innocence (I didn't), but rather because I believe that there are times when principle must give way to pragmatism (if he was convicted of the drug crime, he faced at least ten years in prison). My experience has been that God's plan for the accused is often not what the accused thinks it should be.

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 Posted on April 07, 2009 in Uncategorized

A DUI checkpoint in California (audio, H/T Troy McKinney).

A DUI stop in Texas (video from Dallas Morning News).

Phoenix police raid the home of a blogger who has been critical of the department (Photography is Not a Crime, via Simple Justice).

The Harris County DA's Office answers the age-old question, "what does it take to get a cop indicted for shooting someone in this town?"

Radley Balko would - not without some irony - call these "isolated incidents;" his theory is "that this stuff happens way more frequently than what's reported in the newspaper."

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 Posted on April 07, 2009 in Uncategorized

This is the case on which I was deselected from the jury last week. Now I'm glad Caroline "Wonder Woman" Dozier decided to strike me; I wouldn't want to be remembered for having sent a guy to prison during my tenure as HCCLA President.

The jury gave the defendant life in prison plus a $10,000 fine - which is adding insult to injury, since Caroline told us in voir dire that the fine didn't matter, and a person sent to prison wouldn't pay the fine.

There is something seriously wrong with giving the defense lawyer only 30 minutes to examine the 60 people from whom will be formed the jury that has the serious potential to send a guy to prison for life. How could any reasonable judge think that 30 minutes per side for jury selection was enough in this case? A case in which the accused is a suspected MS-13 gang member? In which there will be evidence of the murder in Honduras in 2006 of his ex-wife's parents?

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 Posted on April 03, 2009 in Uncategorized

HCCLA Reasonable Doubt, March 26, 2009. Hosts Todd Dupont and Neal Davis; Guest Harris County First Assistant District Attorney Jim Leitner. (I haven't watched it yet; tell me what you think.)

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