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Recent Blog Posts
What Rhymes With “Brutal Thug”?
There was a dictator named ShweWhose couldn't get dates, straight or gay.To compensate for this lackHe imprisoned a packOf activists - watch what you say!
This being America, we don't have to watch what we say.
We can say, for example, that Burma's dictator, Than Shwe, is a subhuman pederast without fear of being imprisoned (TimesOnline, h/t Tannebaum).
The same is, sadly, not true the world over.
So here's the deal:
Blogosphere Poetry contest.
Theme: "Criticism of Burmese Dictator Than Shwe."
Form: Your choice.
Language: Your choice (extra credit for Burmese).
Leave your entry in the comments. If you have a blog and send in a poem, I'll give you some link love.
For this post only, the rule against anonymous ad hominem attacks is suspended. I don't know if they pick us up in Myanmar, but I don't want anyone thrown into prison on my account.
ADA: Advertising Makes the Man Edition
Spending lots of money on the web advertising yourself as a "DWI Lawyer" when you have taken only six criminal cases, only four of which were DWI cases (PDF) - and have never handled one to completion - in your home county in the three years you've been licensed is not quite enough, by itself, to win you an Asshat Lawyer of the Day Award.
Claiming to have "14 satellite offices" when what you in fact have is an arrangement with an executive suite with 14 branches is not quite enough either.
All of that puts you securely into the camp of "lawyers who give lawyers a bad name," but that's not quite enough to win you an ADA; I'm a tough grader on the ADA scale.
New Judges and Reversal Rates
It will be interesting to see the changes in the next few years. With eight courts being led by judges on a "learning curve," watch their dockets increase. Watch the appellate courts reverse decisions, the tax dollars wasted and the criminals who are set free.
Last week I discussed the first part of this chicken-littling - that dockets will increase. Today, on to the bogeyman of increased reversals by appellate courts (of which apparently the writer thinks the next two problems are sequelae).
A reversal on appeal means that the court of appeals thinks that the trial court judge erred badly enough that the accused should get a do-over. A judge who knows and applies the law will be reversed, but only very rarely. All but one of the new judges have more experience as lawyers than the outgoing judges had when they became judges. Shawna Reagin, Kevin Fine, Hazel Jones, and Herb Ritchie all have extensive trial experience. Shawna and Kevin have appellate experience (I know this to be true for them; it may be true for others among the new judges as well). David Mendoza and Ruben Guerrero even have judicial experience.
New Judges: Coda – Size Doesn't Matter
Chicken-littling (from a letter to the Chronicle) about the sudden appearance of new judges, not fresh out of the DA's office, in Harris County's Criminal Justice Center:
It will be interesting to see the changes in the next few years. With eight courts being led by judges on a "learning curve," watch their dockets increase. Watch the appellate courts reverse decisions, the tax dollars wasted and the criminals who are set free.
"Watch their dockets increase." What that means, for the uninformed, is that the courts with new judges might not be able to dispose of (by trial, plea, or dismissal) as many cases as the State files, so that the number of defendants on the docket will creep up. A report circulates regularly (weekly?) around the courts with a bar graph showing how many cases are outstanding in each court. It might take a couple of years for the trains to start running on time in those courts with new judges.
Need Help
I got this message from Lunarpages:
Hello Mark,I've checked your account usage and your cpu usage still seems to be higherThe current usage statistics is quoted below for your reference.fightt2fightthefeds.com1.790.040.1Top Process%CPU 92.0[php]Top Process%CPU 23.0/usr/bin/php /home/.../public_html/bennettandbennett/blog/index.phpNote that the acceptable usage range for shared plans is 1.0%average %CPU or less, 1.0% average %Memory or less 0.2% average %Mysqland Top Processes below 20%. Please check the script currently usinghigher resources and let us know when necessary changes are made tobring it down.Regarding the email forwarding, please try removing the existing forwarders and re-adding it.Please do let us know if you've any further questions.
Traffic is no higher than usual.
Can any Defending People reader suggest a hacker-for-hire who might be able to help me resolve this?
That Sharolyn Wood Is Such a Joker.
From this morning's Chronicle story (by Mary Flood and Brian Rogers) on the ouster of the Republican judges:
Civil District Judge Sharolyn Wood, who lost the seat she's had since 1985, lamented that voters have lost "about 250 years of judicial experience" in this sweep. She said Harris County's judiciary has been kept stable by an understanding that experienced judges weren't challenged, but that unspoken agreement was tossed out this year.
An understanding? You understood that all you had to do to have life tenure was last a term or two? And this was by unspoken agreement?
Really?
Wasn't it more that, until 2008, the Democrats so despaired of winning under the Harris County One-Party system that nobody could be stirred to run, even against the most dismal incompetents?
Alternate Titles I considered for this post:
Well, Why Didn't You Just Say So Earlier?
The New Judges: How Bad?
There's much gnashing of teeth among the prosecutors and other right-wingers down at the courthouse this morning about the Democratic near-sweep of the nine open felony court benches.
Those who have suddenly realized that partisan election of judges is not a good thing should consider...
First, that this was not the first partisan election of judges ever. The judges who were replaced were themselves elected in partisan elections, if at all (Judge Bridgwater was appointed; this was his first reelection campaign. They weren't chosen by the voters in the first place for their judicial qualifications. (You're upset by unqualified judges being chosen by straight-ticket voters? Welcome to my world for the last 16 years!)
Second, that all of the replaced judges started their judicial careers with no judicial experience. (Tautological but true.)
Third, that when we discuss the new judges, we're not talking about a bunch of neophytes. Here's how long the newly elected Harris County criminal district court judges have been practicing law:
An Historic Election
Sure, a Black man was elected president, but the big news in yesterday's election comes from Harris County, Texas, which has a functioning 2-party political system for the first time since 1996. That year was the last in which a Democrat won a countywide race. Until last night.
In this year's countywide races there were several Republican winners: County Judge Ed Emmett (the County Judge is the County's chief executive; Emmett performed well during Hurricane Ike recently), District Attorney Pat Lykos (in a 4,000-vote squeaker), and County Tax Assessor Paul Bettencourt.
Democratic candidates took the County Attorney's Office, the District Clerk's Office, and the Sheriff's Office.
In Harris County's 17 civil district court races, Republican incumbents lost every bench but three (one of those three is too close to call until all the overseas ballots are counted). I hope that the Democratic civil judges will be a little less liberal in granting corporations' motions for summary judgment - injured people need restorative justice, and the criminal justice system doesn't need any more refugees from the plaintiffs' bar.
The Fifth Amendment Privilege Redux
There is the law as we learn it in law school, and there is the law as it is practiced in the real world.
I was reminded of this today in a telephone call with a federal prosecutor in a state that rhymes with bassachusetts. I told the lad that I expected my client, when haled before a grand jury, to take the Fifth, and inquired whether he planned to give my client use immunity for his testimony.
The youth was quite insistent that a person called before a grand jury can't just take the Fifth and refuse to testify without "a good faith reason to believe that the testimony might incriminate him."
Well, of course my client has a good faith reason to believe that the testimony might incriminate him: he'd be talking to the federal government. The government doesn't get to decide whether the witness has a good faith reason to refuse to talk; if it did, there'd be no point in having a Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
But aside from that, there is no such test, in the real world (which is where I practice) for taking the Fifth. As I have said here before, this is the way it works:
Get that Title!
In my capacity as small-town big-city lawyer I get lots of calls from people with problems outside the field of criminal defense. People seem to think that, because I have a law degree, I actually know probate law, or family law (I do know a bit, but don't tell anyone) or landlord-tenant law. Either that, or they don't know what kind of problem they have.
Often these callers don't really have legal problems; instead of Atticus Finch they need Winston Wolf, or a good therapist. I do my best to help them myself or steer them in the right direction.
One of the recurrent questions I get deals with the purchase of cars: "I bought a car, and the dealer hasn't given me the title. How can I get the title from him?" Non-criminal defense problem, right? Be patient, give the dealer another call, or talk to a civil lawyer of some type to put some heat on the dealer.
That's what I thought.
Then this morning as I was browsing Texas's theft statute, Penal Code Section 31.03 (we all need hobbies), I came upon this gem:
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From our office in Houston, we represent clients throughout Harris County and across the state of Texas. We assist with criminal cases in Conroe, The Woodlands, Kingwood, Bellaire, Friendswood, Highland Village, West University Place, Cypress, Willis, Austin, Dallas, For Worth, Arlington, San Antonio, Corpus Christi, Beaumont, Tyler, Plano, Spring, New Caney, Porter, Humble, Atascocita, Aldine, Cloverleaf, Pasadena, South Houston, Pearland, Fresno, Missouri City, Sugar Land, Pecan Grove, Richmond, and Katy.
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