Posted on October 17, 2008 in Uncategorized

From a 2007 interview with improvisational comedy teacher Keith Johnstone:

GM: And you won't be nervous.KJ: No. Why should I be nervous? So I can screw up? If you can't screw up, you have to be nervous. I can't win them all. Usually it goes fine. But the one thing I mustn't do is to try to do better. People are so afraid in public they might make a mistake. If you make a mistake in public and stay happy, they like you. That was Johnny Carson‘s great skill. He was a genius at that. We loved him for that. I saw Jack Benny on TV the other day forgetting Liberace‘s name. I have a suspicion it was on purpose so he could demonstrate a total lack of self-punishment. That's the point I try to teach improvisers. If the improvisers screw up and stay happy, then we want to take them home and feed them grapes because they're these lovely people. But if they screw up and look unhappy and miserable, I can get that at home; I don't have to get it at a theatre to see that. I'm saying it should be an exhibition of good nature. I would happily go to see an exhibition of good nature any time.

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 Posted on October 16, 2008 in Uncategorized

Governor Palin's relentless promotion of the idea that literally anybody can run this country got me thinking, but it was Senator McCain's leveling plan to rescue the economy by spending my money bailing out those who weren't savvy enough to avoid buying houses that they couldn't afford (in some ways these Republicans are too liberal for me) that called to mind where we had read this story before (opens in new window).

All men and women are created equal before the law. But "all men are created equal" is not the literal truth. There are people who are smarter than other people; there are people who are better looking than other people; there are people who are stronger and quicker than other people. We all have our gifts - creativity, grace, musical ability, kindheartedness, whatever. The only way we can all be rendered equal is by suppressing everyone's gifts.

Just as we say that all men are created equal, we tell our children that in America anyone can be president. But the only way Jo Sixpack can become president is by suppressing the gifts of every more talented candidate. So "anyone can be president" is not the literal truth. Nor should it be.

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 Posted on October 16, 2008 in Uncategorized

Over at Women in Crime Ink, Katherine Scardino (one of Houston's leading criminal-defense lawyers) writes about the reversal of Robert Fratta's death-penalty conviction by Judge Melinda Harmon of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. (Via Grits for Breakfast.)

Guidry, Prystash, and Fratta were all charged with the murder of Fratta's wife. It was alleged that Guidry was the triggerman, Prystash the go-between and getaway driver, and Fratta the money-man in the plot to murder Farah Fratta.

Guidry and Prystash confessed to the police; his confession resulted from police misconduct (Detectives George Ronald "Ronnie" Roberts and Hoffman lied to Guidry and told him that Guidry's lawyer had given Guidry permission to answer their questions). Prystash confessed to the police; his confession may have resulted from police misconduct. Fratta did not confess. At Fratta's trial Guidry's and Prystash's confessions (redacted to remove references to Fratta) were admitted into evidence.

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 Posted on October 16, 2008 in Uncategorized

Harris County D.A. Candidate C.O. "Brad" Bradford will be appearing on HCCLA's Reasonable Doubt television show with Todd Dupont and Tate Williams this evening from 8 to 9 p.m. on Comcast Channel 17 in Houston.

Call in with your questions for Brad.

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 Posted on October 15, 2008 in Uncategorized

Dallas law firm Rose • Walker is representing software company McAfee in its suit against New York (?) law firm WilmerHale for overbilling McAfee while losing the securities fraud case of its former CFO, Prabhat Goyal. WilmerHale's team of former prosecutors billed McAfee $12 million to lose Goyal's case in federal court in San Francisco. (To their credit, they did try the case rather than rushing Mr. Goyal in to chat with the U.S. Attorney, though a cynic might wonder whether that was because the company was paying the bill.)

Judge Mark Rusch of the 401st District Court in Collin County, Texas this week allowed McAfee's fraud claim against WilmerHale to continue, but dismissed claims of breach of fiduciary duty, breach of contract, and gross negligence (ABA Journal, via Law of Criminal Defense).

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 Posted on October 15, 2008 in Uncategorized

A new comment on the post #991 "The Best Criminal Defense Lawyer in Houston" is waiting for your approval/2008/10/the-best-criminal-defense-lawyer-in-houston.htmlAuthor : kenneth (IP: 117.20.31.114, tw31-static114.tw1.com)E-mail : kennethquinn7@yahoo.comURL : http://[deleted].org/Whois : http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?queryinput=117.20.31.114Comment: Hey !!Great post found it pretty interesting and informative post keep it up ?

Mr. Quinn,

Do you think that I don't recognize this comment as spam? Or that I don't care that you're trying to use my blog to promote your worthless "Driving Under Influence" website?

I do care. If you want to add to the discussion here, I'll be happy to allow you to comment (though I may excise your URL if the site to which it links is worthless). If you make your living by posting generic comments on blogs to drive traffic to your information-free advertising webpage, kindly do so elsewhere.

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 Posted on October 14, 2008 in Uncategorized

The bailout, explained (Sinfest, via Mish's Global Trend Analysis):

Don't you feel much better now?

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 Posted on October 14, 2008 in Uncategorized

A couple of months ago, when the Mississippi Supreme Court's clerk refused to file a dissenting opinion in a nursing home wrongful death action, I thought, "thank you, Mississippi, for providing Texas with some solid competition in the ‘worst courts anywhere' contest."

This week Texas is coming back strong. We have reports (WSJ Law Blog [H/T SHG], Burnt Orange Report) that the clerk of Texas's Third Court of Appeals (the intermediate appellate court in Austin) has refused, on orders of Republican Chief Justice Ken Law (Austin American-Statesman), to accept for filing Democratic Justice Jan Patterson's dissent in the criminal money-laundering case of two of Tom DeLay's associates. Patterson has asked the (all-Republican) Texas Supreme Court, which is Texas's court of last resort for civil cases, to intervene; I wish her good luck with that.

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 Posted on October 14, 2008 in Uncategorized

1. DUI (in Texas, called DWI) / POM (Possession of Marijuana) charge. Turned wrong way onto one-way street. NT/NA (No Test, No Accident). Field sobriety tests on video with patchy audio administered by rookie APD cop on uneven ground.

The standardized field sobriety tests (FSTs or SFSTs) have three components: Walk-and-Turn, One Leg Stand, and Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus. In this case, W&T-3 (officer claimed 6), OLS-2 (officer claimed 3), HGN-6 (of course). That is, on the video the accused appeared to do three things wrong ("clues") on the Walk-and-Turn and two things wrong on the One Leg Stand.

The officer claimed to have seen more clues than are visible on the video. The results of the horizontal gaze nystagmus test are not visible on the video; only the officer performing the test can see how many "clues" the accused exhibits, so of course an accused always exhibits six clues on the HGN. (I think that's one reason juries aren't impressed by the "pen voodoo" HGN.) A prosecutor watched video and assessed the case as a 60% win for the State.

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 Posted on October 14, 2008 in Uncategorized

Last week John McCain found himself telling his scared supporters that they don't have to be afraid of President Obama.

Might "make people afraid" not be such a great idea?

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