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Recent Blog Posts
Johnny Holmes and the Personal Moral Judgment
Thanks to Grits for Breakfast for calling my attention to this Houston Chronicle article about former Harris County District Attorney Johnny Holmes (Scott Henson calls it a "puff piece" and a "hagiography").
In the article Houston criminal-defense lawyer George "Mac" Secrest gave Holmes a compliment, as much a shot at other elected DAs as praise of Holmes:
Former assistant district attorney George Secrest called Holmes "the antithesis of the typical district attorney.""He was a man of immense integrity," said Secrest, now a criminal-defense lawyer.
Most notable to me, though, was the article's parting section, a discussion of Holmes's death penalty views:
Holmes rarely seeks to participate in debates on the death penalty, regarding beliefs on the matter as part of an individual's private system of moral values.Still, he personally believes there are "proper cases" where the death penalty is an appropriate sentence."Obviously," he added, "what is a proper case is not ultimately up to the prosecutor, but to the fact-finders."
Legal First Aid — DWI
The day before yesterday evening I was out with my family when the cell phone rang. A man called because his wife had been arrested that evening for DWI in Harris County. I could tell immediately that he was frantic. I calmed him down, reassured him, and explained how to get her bonded out of jail.
Three hours later, at about 11:30 p.m., he called again. She was still in a city jail in the northern part of the county, and he wanted me to call the bonding company to ask them to make what they call a "two-trip bond." The bonding company's representative would have to drive from downtown to the jail (about 35 miles), get the accused's signature on the bond, drive back downtown, get the bond processed by the Sheriff's Office, return to the jail with the completed bond, and then return to the office, for a total of 140 miles of driving. It was going to take the company (Burns Bail Bonds, 713.227.3400) two hours of driving to make the bond, a major favor, so they didn't want to do it except at my request. I told the husband that I would call the bonding company and call him back - he seemed to be genuinely grateful for my help. I called the bonding company and asked that they make the bond. Then I called the husband again. He thanked me and we scheduled a meeting for yesterday afternoon. (This was, bear in mind, about 11:45 at night.)
Lawyer Salaries
Houston Chronicle reporter Mary Flood has a blog entitled "Legal Trade: A blog about lawyering" (is "to lawyer" a verb anywhere but inTexas?); today's post is about lawyers' salaries in Texas. (Thanks to Luke Gilman for the heads-up.)
The median salary for all Texas lawyers is $113,500. The post links to a story in today's Chronicle about the reality of lawyers' salaries - "first-year graduates from the three Houston law schools make as little as $30,000 a year and have a median salary of around $70,000."
If you have a job making the median $70,000 in salary a year right out of law school, you're doing pretty well for yourself.
The Snitch Lawyer
Yesterday we attended a pretrial conference on a 19-defendant federal cocaine conspiracy case. Such cases are few and far between in Houston nowadays; the 15 lawyers in the room were in high spirits. When we were making our appearances on the record, the appointed lawyer for one defendant announced that he was asking to withdraw from the case because his client had hired the Snitch Lawyer to represent him.
The Snitch Lawyer is notorious for rushing every client to the U.S. Attorney's office to cooperate with the government. He has not - and he will freely admit this - tried a case in the last 15 years.
A few people charged with federal crimes should indisputably plead guilty; a few people charged with federal crimes should indisputably go to trial.
The Snitch Lawyer doesn't have a small docket. He represents lots of people at a time. In the last 15 years, he has, without a doubt, pled guilty some people who should indisputably have gone to trial.
Most people fall in the grey zone in between, in which either trial or plea might be appropriate depending on the accused's tolerance for risk. These people need the advice of a competent lawyer who can explain all of the options to them before they make the plea/trial decision. In order to explain all of the options, the lawyer has to consider all of the options. The snitch lawyer, who doesn't try cases, won't try cases. That's not an option open to him. If your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail; if your only tool is cooperation, every client looks like a cooperator.
More Advice to the Young Criminal Defense Lawyer — Part 2. Books and Movies
A very short list of must-read books for the budding criminal-defense lawyer (just those that pop into my head right now)
"Wilkes: His Life and Crimes" (Winston Schoonover [Charles Sevilla])
"Frogs into Princes: Neuro Linguistic Programming" (Richard Bandler, John Grinder)
Stop the MADDness
Libertarian ex-prosecutor and anti-drugwar mouthpiece Robert Guest writes about Mothers Against Drunk Driving stealing our tax dollars. It seems that the National Highway Transportation Safety Agency has given MADD $400,000 to watch DWI court proceedings in New Mexico. Here's New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson's press release about the "contract." In part:
The court monitoring project will provide feedback to the state on the status and effectiveness of current laws and court processes. The program will increase dialogue between the criminal justice system and the state, in an effort to reduce alcohol-related crashes.New Mexico Department of Transportation Secretary Rhonda Faught said, "NMDOT is proud to be involved in this monitoring effort. The courts are a venue often overlooked by the public in the battle against drunk driving. We are pleased to be taking a detailed look at what is happening in court rooms in the counties on the front line in New Mexico's efforts against DWI."According to New Mexico DWI Czar Rachel O'Connor, "A large percentage of the calls that come in are from people concerned about the adjudication of DWI cases – such as swiftness of case handling, whether sentencing guidelines were followed and justified dismissals. This project will enable us to observe and record data and work cooperatively with the courts towards positive change."
Pistol-Packin' Prosecutors — An Englishman's Response
I wrote here about the new Texas law permitting prosecutors to carry guns to court. An English magistrate picked up on the story here:
The idea of knowingly allowing weapons to be taken into court is stupid enough; but by prosecutors? Most of the CPS [Crown Prosecution Service] I deal with are people I would not trust to feed my goldfish, even if I had any goldfish. If they turn up in my court packing heat – I'm going to look for something – anything – safer to do in my spare time.
The comments are diverting as well.
More Advice to the Young Criminal Defense Trial Lawyer — Part 1. Boundaries
The first of Adam Levin's questions that I'll tackle is, "What practical advice do you have for maintaining boundaries in your life?"
As a criminal-defense lawyer who has gone from practicing out of an "executive suite" straight out of law school, to a series of fancy offices downtown, to an office in my house (an upward move each step of the way), I've given a lot of thought to boundaries/
Social Boundaries
Except for the clients who were friends before they were clients, I don't socialize with clients outside of the context of our representation. I have had clients with boundary issues - calling excessively or at inappropriate times or for inappropriate reasons - and have managed to retrain them.
I see it as neither possible nor desirable, however, to remain detached from my clients. These are human beings, with human stories, and they will be best served by a lawyer who can feel their stories and relate them truthfully to juries.
More Advice to the Young Criminal Defense Trial Lawyer — Preface
I wrote back in April about Advice to a Young Criminal Trial Lawyer. Yesterday I got an email from Adam Levin of the Southern Criminal Law and Justice blog, asking for answers to specific questions that new criminal-defense lawyers might have. (Adam sent the email to nine other criminal defense bloggers as well; Jon Katz of Underdog has already posted his replies under the title, It's not how you dress, but how you persuade). I think you could write a book on the subjec - maybe The Education of a Criminal Trial Lawyer on the model of Herbert O. Yardley's classic The Education of a Poker Player. I'll try to answer all of Adam's questions in the next couple of days.
What is a Win?
"How many cases have you won?" I hate the question, because for the answer to mean anything, the person asking and the person answering have to mean the same thing by "won," and that can rarely be ensured.
If my client is acquitted, that's a "win," right? In most cases it would be. But what if, because we win one case, the government files a more serious charge (one that it can prove) against the client? I had a client whose 2-kilo cocaine case I beat in state court, only to see him receive six years in federal prison for the illegal reentry that the feds might not have bothered with had we not prevailed in state court. Is a pyrrhic victory a win?
At the far end of the outcome spectrum from an acquittal, a jury conviction is a "loss," right? Not necessarily - it might be a "win" if the accused is punished less for having gone to trial than she would have been for pleading guilty. This is a common outcome in Texas, where an accused can elect to have punishment assessed by a jury. It's less common in federal court, but I've had it happen several times.
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