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The Best Free Show in Town
If you find yourself downtown between 9:30 and noon on a weekday morning, drop by Judge Larry Standley's court, Harris County Criminal Court at Law Number 6, on the 9th floor of the Harris County Criminal Justice Center at 1201 Franklin Street (at the corner of San Jacinto).
Judge Standley genuinely cares about the defendants appearing before him, and the plea colloquy when he accepts a guilty plea from a 17-, 18-, or 19-year-old defendant is the best free show in town.
A sample:
He'll have the defendant's parent or guardian stand with the kid at the bench. Then he'll ask the kid: "How many friends do you have?" He'll press the kid to name a number. Five, ten, twenty-one, whatever.
Then he'll tell the kid to turn around and look at the courtroom. "How many of those friends are here for you today?" None (of course). "That's right. You've got one true friend, and she's standing right up here next to you."
Carry Me
I've written before about the annoying (and unexceptional) experience of being set for trial, coming to court prepared for trial, and then having the trial continued or reset because the State is not ready, or the court wants to do something else, or the court reporter is out sick.
Slightly more irksome is going to court on Monday morning prepared for trial, trial box loaded, big white notepad under your arm, Spiderman bandaid on your finger, nasty surprises for the State prepared, hair cut, boots shined (more or less), and calendar cleared, only to be told that you are third in line for trial in that court that week, and that you should come back Wednesday afternoon. You are, in the argot, carried till Wednesday.
And then returning on Wednesday afternoon, equally prepared (the criminal-defense lawyer's credo: always ready, seldom prepared), to be told that now you are second in line for trial in that court that week, but that of course the court won't be picking more than one jury, so thanks very much for being available and now we're resetting your case till June.
If You Come See Bennett & Bennett...
... do not wear a hoodie.
Someone just walked past the front of the home office wearing a dark hoodie, and both dogs (ROUSs - Ridgebacks of Unusual Size) went absolutely insane.
Rhodesian Ridgebacks are excellent judges of character (else they wouldn't be welcome in the office); in their view, apparently, trustworthy people simply do not wear hoodies.
Faith-Based Legal Argument
The same sorts of questions, it seems, pop up over and over again where lawyers gather to discuss the law. Questions like:
"Isn't it a violation of the disciplinary rules for a lawyer to talk to another lawyer's client about taking his case?"
and
"Shouldn't I put my client on the stand, so that I can make a record that I have conveyed the State's offer and he has rejected it?"
The correct answers (no and hell no, in these two specific instances) are easily ascertained by someone with more than a passing familiarity with the DRs. It's okay for a lawyer to talk to another lawyer's client because the client is not the lawyer's property, and because the client has the right to a second opinion or even to change lawyers. It's not okay for the lawyer to make a public record of his communications with his client because such communications are privileged, it is not in the client's best interest to have them aired publicly, and airing them publicly sets the lawyer and the client at odds.
Trial Again Tomorrow
Knowing that a bunch of Harris County prosecutors are reading sometimes cramps my blogging style. I've got a felony cocaine and heroin case (less than a gram of each) set for trial tomorrow, and I feel constrained to say nothing more at this point than this:
It's an automatic-probation case if we lose, but my client, a lawyer, has a whole lot more at stake than the State does. So I have been very thorough in preparing some rather powerful surprises for the State.
It's probably better this way. I was inviting all sorts of trouble blogging about trial tactics and strategies that might have had something to do with the cases I was trying.
Oh, and today I punched a hole with a heavy-duty industrial 3-hole punch through the fingernail on my left index finger and into the top of the finger. (The sound of a hole punch puncturing fingernail is not a pretty one.) Perfect 300-degree arc out of the nail, perfect circular profusely-bleeding incision. That's gonna leave a mark.
Fond Memories of Snookems
Ron-in-Houston writes about "when he first realized Pat Lykos was insane":
Little did I realize that I was about to descend into the twilight zone. One day I get a call at the office from Her Honor Pat Lykos ordering me to come down to the criminal courthouse. No consideration to my schedule was given, I was ordered to come down to the courthouse. It didn't matter that this crazy judge had no jurisdiction over me whatsoever. My client was obviously concerned about his future and apologetically asked if I would just cooperate.
So, I go to Lykos' court. She was determined to be a megalomanical chain smoking mediator in this case. I already knew this wasn't going to work. However when I was down there I must have expressed some displeasure at Her Honor's weird judicial tactics. She then tweaked me on the cheek and called me "Snookems." It was honestly a sexist demeaning tactic but I just continued on in the Pat Lykos dog and pony show. In the end, the whole attempt at judicial mediation failed. We ended up trying a civil jury case and the indictment against my client was eventually dismissed.
The Lesser of the Two Evils
Let's say there's a race for public office that you're interested in. And the ideal candidate is running for this office. But he really doesn't have a chance of winning because, when it comes right down to it, he's too much of a gentleman to do what needs to be done to win.
And let's say that there are two viable candidates for this office. And both of them have serious issues that makes you doubt whether either of them is suited to the job.
And let's further say that one of them is unquestionably much worse than the other.
So you've got A, who should get the job but can't; B, who shouldn't but who has a shot; and C, who really really really shouldn't but is the frontrunner. Whom do you vote for? A, because he's the right guy for the job? Or B, because your vote might keep C out of office?
Now suppose that you've got dirt on B. Do you publish?
The lesser of the two evils is, after all, still evil.
Lykos Reads the DA Playbook
From AHCL, talking about Harris County Republican DA candidate Pat Lykos:
A t a recent political event, she refused to speak until after the representative of the Siegler campaign had gone first (even though that wasn't the agreed upon order). Apparently, she didn't want anyone to follow up after her speech and point out (yet again) that what she said lacked all substance.
Now, it's funny to see AHCL, who often talks suspiciously like a prosecutor, complaining about someone "refusing to speak until [the other side] had gone first." AHCL's analysis is correct, of course: Lykos's actions suggest that she didn't want anyone to have an opportunity to point out that what she said lacked all substance.
So why is it funny?
It's funny because in every criminal jury trial in Harris County the prosecution has the opportunity to "close fully" - that is, to make his complete closing argument before defense counsel gets up to argue - and then to rebut defense counsel's argument, responding to anything new she brought up. (In Federal court, the Government is required to close fully.) Yet Harris County prosecutors never do so.
Babies and Bathwater
The Harris County Republican primary, with its fight among Jim Leitner, Kelly Siegler, Doug Perry, and Pat Lykos is very interesting. Conventional wisdom is that Pat Lykos, who may very well be the absolute worst candidate for the position (sharing Doug Perry's lack of trial experience but not his niceness nor honesty), has the nomination sewn up. Kelly Siegler's minions aren't giving up, though; they're going door-to-door every weekend talking to the people, getting a favorable response from voters, many of whom don't know that anyone but Kelly is running.
The Republican candidate will face ex-HPD chief C.O. Bradford for the job of D.A. Bradford hasn't come out to play with the other candidates yet - he hasn't had any reason to - but I'm hoping to get to know him better when there's one Republican left in the race.
We all know, though, that there's little chance the identity of the Republican candidate will make a difference in the general election in January. When all of the votes are counted, either the Republicans will have swept the countywide seats or the Democrats will have.
Information Wants to Be Free
In his lone post this morning, Scott Greenfield writes about a federal judge's attempt to shut down Wikileaks by "directing the Web site's Internet domain registrar to disable the wikileaks.org domain". The order came in suit filed by a Swiss bank complaining that Wikileaks had published confidential bank records.
The problem, as Mark Draughn (Windypundit.com) points out in a comment to Scott's post, is that you can't make a website go away by disabling the domain:
Speaking as a blogger, I'm pretty sure Judge White doesn't understand the 1st Amendment.
Speaking as an IT professional, I know he doesn't understand the internet. Disabling a domain name doesn't shut down a website. It just makes it harder to get to. Wikileaks is here:
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