713-224-1747
Recent Blog Posts
Guest Post from an Iraq War Veteran
The following is a guest post, emailed to me in response to one of my Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)-related posts (possibly this one).
I nearly fell out of my chair on reading this post.
Due to the large number of TX NTL Guard soldiers and large numbers of active Army from El Paso and Fort Hood you are dead right on the sheer volume of possible problems which will and have come back to Texas. When the 56 BCT deployed to Iraq from Texas in 2005 we took over 3000 souls with us. Many redeployed with other units and the entire unit goes back in September.
I reenlisted in the Guard only because of the war after a five year break in service. Because the unit was already ramped up to go they wanted me to stay and help train soldiers to go over.
My brief bio: I have about 120 college hours in civilian education. I have been a guest instructor at the TX Military Academy for 3 different cycles training troops in my specialty. I was a competitor in the states machinegun competition for four years. I'm a nurse and have been held in regard (I'd like to think) as one for over ten years now. At the time of my deployment I was married for 15 years.
Anger, Retribution, Oh Crap, Splat.
"I'll show him!" That's the retributive impulse in a nutshell, isn't it? The desire, when someone angers us by making us feel a loss of control or a perceived loss of dignity, to regain control and dignity by "teaching him a lesson"? It's the impulse driving lots of human misbehavior - control and dignity probably come in third and fourth after money and sex as motivators (for some people, maybe first and second - some people might not surrender either perceived control or imagined dignity for sex or money. I can only imagine.).
It drives prosecutors to put people in prison (hold them accountable! teach them a lesson!), it causes domestic assaults, and it results in road-rage incidents.
Today's Chronicle had a good example of "I'll show him!" gone terribly wrong. Three motorcyclists were riding together late Friday night in unincorporated Harris County. A Mazda Miata (that most innocuous of vehicles) nearly collided with one of them. It happens. The three motorcyclists decide to show him, and chase the Miata through a neighborhood and onto a major thoroughfare, where one of them, a 48-year-old male (not the one almost hit by the Miata), "attempted to kick and strike the driver of the car while riding his motorcycle". He lost control (his son, the third rider, "said... that he believes the Mazda driver caused the crash by swerving into his father's motorcycle"), left the road, hit a tree, and died (helmetless).
Quis custodiet Custodes Ipsos?
This post, "about how Chicago police were noting that the 10% increase in homicide this year compared over last is possibly attributable to the lack of aggressive policing, due to increased police misconduct lawsuits", on Chicago criminal-defense lawyer Rob Deters's 26th St. Bar Association blog, brought to mind this Simple Justice post, about former DOJ lawyer John Yoo's contention that if government officials risk being liable in court for their misdeeds:
... we will have a government that will avoid any and all risks, shun making any move that is not an exact repetition of locked-in procedure of 20th-century vintage, and keep plodding along the same path regardless of contemporary circumstances. These are exactly the conditions that make a nation susceptible to a surprise attack, whether a Pearl Harbor or a 9/11.
ABA Ten Principles of a Public Defense Delivery System
The ABA's Ten Principles of a Public Defense Delivery System:
1. The public defense function, including the selection, funding, and payment of defense counsel, is independent.2. Where the caseload is sufficiently high, the public defense delivery system consists of both a defender office and the active participation of the private bar.3. Clients are screened for eligibility, and defense counsel is assigned and notified of appointment, as soon as feasible after clients' arrest, detention, or request for counsel.4. Defense counsel is provided sufficient time and a confidential space within which to meet with the client.5. Defense counsel's workload is controlled to permit the rendering of quality representation.6. Defense counsel's ability, training, and experience match the complexity of the case.7. The same attorney continuously represents the client until completion of the case.8. There is parity between defense counsel and the prosecution with respect to resources and defense counsel is included as an equal partner in the justice system.9. Defense counsel is provided with and required to attend continuing legal education.10. Defense counsel is supervised and systematically reviewed for quality and efficiency according to nationally and locally adopted standards.
Can DUI Be Expunged in Texas?
From the Search Terms Files, the question that forms the title of this post: "Can a DUI be expunged in Texas?"
First: in most parts of the U.S., the crime of driving while one's capacities are diminished by the ingestion of alcohol is described as DUI (driving under the influence). In Texas it's DWI; "DUI" in Texas is the crime committed by a minor who drives with any alcohol in his system.
Next, the answer: a DWI arrest (rules for minor DUI are different) can be expunged only if you beat the case, that is, if you are acquitted, if the case is dismissed outright (with no probation), or if the charge is reduced to a class C misdemeanor and you successfully complete a class C misdemeanor deferred adjudication probation.
If you are convicted of DWI and pay a fine, or if you are convicted of DWI and take probation, the charge is on your public record till the crack of doom. There is, by statute, no deferred adjudication for DWI in Texas.
Likewise, if (as happens regularly in some counties other than Harris County) the charge is changed to some other class B misdemeanor (typically obstructing a roadway or reckless driving) and you are convicted, the record of your DWI arrest remains forever.
Another Mark Bennett
I used to get nocturnal telephone calls from young ladies looking for this guy.
Thoughts on Independence Day
In his Independence Day post, Scott Greenfield writes:
Americans will not be deeply concerned about freedom in our 233rd year. They will be concerned about eating, jobs, gas and keeping a roof over their children's heads. Abraham Maslow explains why higher order concerns take a back seat to basic needs. For most of its history, America did a superb job of feeding and housing its citizens. But in this flat world, where our dreams are counted by the price of a barrel of oil, we may have run out of American miracles.
I've hesitated to write about this, because its connection to the art and science of criminal defense trial lawyering is tenuous: hungry people aren't going to be as concerned about putting people in jail as well-fed people will be (retribution is nowhere in Maslow's hierarchy). Hungry people also aren't going to be as concerned about staying out of jail as the well-fed, so my criminal-defense lawyer brethren and sistren had better have a Plan B.
DUI No-Refusal Weekend
Harris County prosecutor Warren Diepraam (mentioned before here and talking about "honoring the dead" here) writes in the TDCAA forums:
Harris County is doing a July 4th No Refusal Program and hopefully joining some area counties for a multi-jurisdictional effort. Ours will be for all agencies in Harris County with one prosecutor stationed in the northwest portion of the county for those agencies and one stationed down south on the Galveston County line for those agencies. Three judges will be available to review the warrants for PC.The prosecutor down south will be teaming up with a judge, prosecutor, and police in Galveston County to review search warrants for their no refusal program. The prosecutor and judge in the northwest will be available for Ft. Bend County if their judges are not available.Montgomery County was the first area jurisdiction doing search warrants and usually does one, but I have not heard anything definite from them.Brazoria County will also be doing a "No Refusal" program over the 4th of July. For this area, it will probably/possibly be Brazoria County, Chambers County, Fort Bend County, Galveston County, and Harris County.I may be a bit optimistic on my counties, but we are trying.... ?
The Declaration of Independence
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. - That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, - That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. - Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
Not Fail-Safe in the Courthouse
I've heard several reports that when the power blinked out yesterday at the Harris County Criminal "Justice" Center all of the electronically actuated doors (including exits from holdover areas to courtrooms, and doors to fire stairs) locked.
That'll make things really exciting when there's a fire and a power outage at the same time.
Contact Us if You're
Ready for a Better Future
Schedule a consultation today by filling out the form below or calling our office at 713-224-1747. We look forward to representing you.
The use of the Internet or this form for communication with the firm or any individual member of the firm does not establish an attorney-client relationship. Confidential or time-sensitive information should not be sent through this form.
I have read and understand the Disclaimer and Privacy Policy.
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.
Results listed are not a guarantee or indication of future case results.
917 Franklin Street, Fourth Floor, Houston, TX 77002
713-224-1747
