Google launches legal search engine

There's a new tool out there for anyone needing to conduct legal research on a shoestring. Google Scholar is a new tool for conducting research in scholarly literature. The search engine allows you to conduct searches through both federal and state cases as well as through legal journals.

Type in your search terms and Google will pull cases containing your terms. The cites included in the opinions have hyperlinks to the cases cited. You can also see how and where your case has been cited.

As an example: type in "retrograde extrapolation texas dwi" and the first case on the list is Bagheri v. State. You can read the court's opinion and check out the cited cases in that opinion. Click on "How Cited" and you can review how the case has been cited and where it has been cited. To find out whether the case is still good law you can find the most recent cites and work your way back to the original opinion.

While the system is still in beta, it is a vast improvement over conducting online legal research piecemeal. By bringing these texts and cases together, Google has made it easier to conduct low cost (i.e. free) legal research.

Due process rights? What due process rights?

On November 10, 2009, the Harris County District Attorney's Office filed a motion seeking to recuse Judge Reagan Helm from hearing any domestic violence cases in his court. In its motion, the DA's office cites statements that Judge Helm allegedly made from the bench in five cases. The motion also cites statements Judge Helm made to male defendants who signed emergency protective orders (MOEP's).

Now I wasn't present in the courtroom for any of those cases (that I know of). I know many of the prosecutors who signed affidavits stating that their recitation of Judge Helm's remarks were true and accurate and I don't have any doubts about their truthfulness under oath.

The district attorney is alleging that Judge Helm has a personal bias when it comes to domestic violence. The motion alleges that this bias prevents Judge Helm from being impartial when presiding over such a case.

However, the DA's office takes its argument a little too far when it claims that Judge Helm's comments express an "extrajudicial belief to the prejudice of the State and the victims of family violence.

Pardon me if I'm mistaken, but a defendant in a criminal proceeding is innocent unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Unless the jury decides that a crime has been committed, there is no victim. Prior to trial, there is an allegation that a criminal act occurred. There is an alleged victim - the complaining witness. But there is no crime.

Furthermore, in any criminal case filed, there are two parties (unless multiple defendants are being charged and tried together) -- the prosecution and the person accused. The alleged victim has no standing to complain to the court. If the alleged victim wants to be a party to a lawsuit, the civil courthouse and the family law center and both less than a block from the criminal courthouse.

There is one more thing that's a bit troubling about the DA's motion to recuse. In Texas any motion filed by one party must be served on all other parties to the litigation in a timely manner. Every motion filed in a criminal, civil or family case has a certificate of service attached in which the moving party "certifies" that he or she has served a copy of the motion on all other parties or attorneys.

The DA's motion was filed on November 10, 2009. Judge Helm denied the requested relief on November 11, 2009. I was notified by phone on November 12, 2009 that the motion had been filed. I received a copy of the motion by fax on November 13, 2009. I received a copy of the motion via certified mail this morning (November 16, 2009) - the envelope was postmarked November 13, 2009.

Why does this matter? According to Joshua Reiss of the Harris County District Attorney's Office, a "true and correct copy" of the motion was served on my office by certified mail on November 10, 2009.

I wasn't even notified by the DA's office about their motion until after the judge heard the motion. That's not timely notification. That's a violation of my client's due process rights. He had the right to be notified of the filing of the motion and to be present at the time the motion was heard. Over at the civil courthouse an attorney is required to notify all other counsel of any hearing date at least three days in advance (some hearings require more notice). If the District Attorney is going to cite the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure in its motion to recuse a judge in a criminal case, the least Ms. Lykos' crew can do is to follow the rules on notice.

Facebook provides alibi for New York City teen

We've all heard stories about people who were caught in a lie or committing a crime as a result of something they posted online, an e-mail they sent, a cellphone call, a webcam photo or a toll tag log. But here's one in which a simple status update on Facebook exonerated a teenager on a robbery charge.

Rodney Bradford, a 19-year old living in New York City, was at his father's house in Harlem updating his Facebook status while, one minute later, a robbery was taking place in Brooklyn. Once Mr. Bradford realized the police were looking for him, he turned himself in, confident that he would be cleared.

He was eventually cleared, but it took two weeks. Not until the district attorney's office received records they subpoenaed from Facebook was Mr. Bradford released.

The lesson here is that the power of social media can cut both ways.

Ambiguity and hate crime legislation

Key Sun, Ph.D., a psychologist and associate law professor at Central Washington University, has his own interesting take on what's wrong with the Matthew Shepherd Hate Crimes Prevention Act. While he welcomes the bill's intentions, he fears that language of the bill makes prosecution under the act all but impossible.

He points out that the criminal law definition of a crime must (in most instances) define the mens rea, or criminal intent, of the actor. In Texas we categorize crimes by whether the accused acted intentionally, knowingly, recklessly or negligently. A crime in which the accused intended to cause the result is much more serious than a crime in which the accused acted with criminal negligence.

The Shepherd Act defines a hate crime as one in which "the defendant intentionally selects a victim... because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender, disability or sexual orientation of any person."

The problem, according to Dr. Sun, is that this definition substitutes the alleged victim's status for the defendant's mens rea. "Because of..." is not the same as "acting intentionally or knowingly."

Criminal law is, and should only be concerned with, defining what is, and what is not, a crime. It is not the purview of the penal code to provide an explanation of why a crime occurred. That is the job of the criminologists, sociologists, psychologists, psychiatrists and commentators.

Farming out discipline

Recently, in his blog "Simple Justice," New York criminal defense attorney Scott H. Greenfield wrote about zero tolerance and "three strike" policies in public schools (see "Zero Tolerance for Three Strikes").

This made me think about how school discipline in this part of Texas has largely been turned over to the justice of the peace and municipal courts. It used to be if you got into a fight at school that you were sent to the principal's office and you either received a paddling or in-school suspension. Not that I'm a big fan of corporal punishment in schools, but there was a mechanism in place to handle discipline problems.

Somewhere along the way school districts in the Houston area decided that they didn't want to handle disciplinary problems anymore (I think it was about the same time we allowed standardized tests to determine the school curriculum). They farmed them out to the local courts.

Now, instead of a trip to the office to see the principal (who's usually out and about schmoozing with community leaders for donations and sponsorships), our unruly juveniles are issued a citation by the school's resident police officer (more and more local districts now have their own police departments, too, but that's another story for another day) requiring them to appear in court with a parent.

Ironically enough, the court appearance typically is scheduled on a weekday morning -- while school is in session. So not only is the child missing class (?), now he's facing a criminal charge. And isn't that the last thing we need -- more citizens under the watchful eye of the criminal (in)justice system?

While most of these cases are dismissed as the result of deferred disposition (or adjudication), the costs are severe. The child has missed class, the parent has missed work and someone has to pay the fines, court costs and attorney fees.

Is this really a good thing?

DA looking into traffic fatality prosecutions

The Harris County District Attorney's Office is in the middle of reviewing over 100 traffic fatality cases to determine if proper protocols were followed in bringing criminal charges against drivers deemed at fault.

The vehicular crimes section was started up under disgraced former District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal and was seen as former prosecutor Warren Diepraam's baby. Mr. Diepraam is now working for the Montgomery County District Attorney's Office

According to a statement released by the DA's office, prosecutors in the vehicular crimes section "deviated" from office policy in filing criminal charges in the cases that are under review.

"The Vehicular Crime Section had deviated from the long-standing practice of this office concerning what was necessary to raise a civil negligent traffic accident case to that of criminal negligence." -- Harris County DA's Office statement

In response to claims from law enforcement personnel that this case review would make Houston's roads more dangerous for motorists, the DA's office said, in a written statement, that streets would not be made less safe if the office followed the law when deciding when to bring criminal charges against a motorist.

The sad reality of living in a major metropolitan area is that with more cars on the roads, accidents are more likely to happen -- including fatality accidents. In Houston we like to drive fast, and that leads to accidents. But that's what they are, for the most part -- accidents. There is a difference between civil negligence and criminal negligence when it comes to accidents.

It's one thing to cause an accident because you're driving too fast, it's quite another to cause an accident because you're under the influence of drugs or alcohol or because you're involved in a high-speed race on the freeway.

Does it play both ways?

If the Harris County District Attorney thinks she's right in seeking a judge's recusal on 74 family violence cases because his "frivolous comments" indicate a "deep-seated bias," then is the defense bar entitled to seek the recusal of any judge who campaigned that he or she would be tough on crime?

Texas Senate holds hearings on state forensic commission

The Texas Senate Committee on Criminal Justice met this morning to question Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley who was recently appointed by Gov. Rick Perry to head the Texas Forensic Science Commission.

The meeting was broadcast live over the web and can be accessed here. One of the highlights was Houston's own state clown, er... senator, Dan Patrick, pooh-poohing the notion that the committee should look into whether or not junk science led to the execution of an innocent man.

(In order to view the file you must have the RealAudio player installed on your computer.)

And what do you think of the emperor's new clothes?

About once a week I get a phone call from someone with some firm that does search engine optimization -- whatever that is. Everyone of these folks tells me they can get my website to the top of Google or Yahoo! They all tell me they represent a handful of other attorneys in Houston that are already on top.

The fun comes when I ask them just how they plan on getting my website to the top of the search engine rankings. They can never answer the question. They give me some gobbledy-gook about optimizing this and leveraging that and that they will have me at the top within a week or two.

Then I ask them how their other clients (some of whom I always know) would feel about them promising to put someone else on top of the rankings. I mean, if you're telling me you can put my website on top, I'm sure you told the same thing to the attorneys you signed up. That doesn't sound too ethical to me.

As an attorney all you really have is your reputation -- harm that reputation and you harm your ability to stay in business. Do you really want firms that act in such an unethical manner representing you to all the world? Do you really want those firms to post content under your name?

You might hold off on going through the car wash

I was reading an offense report for a case down in South Texas the other day in which an ordinary traffic stop turned into an arrest for possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance. Among the "suspicious" behaviors that led the state trooper to believe the motorist was involved in some type of criminal activity was this gem:

"The vehicle appeared to be freshly cleaned and detailed."

So, if you're traveling down to the Valley, hold off on washing that car.

Death penalty found to have little deterrent effect

Over the weekend Houston Chronicle columnist Rick Casey wrote an interesting piece on whether or not the death penalty has any deterrent effect. Sociologist Thorsten Sellin found no deterrent effect when he studied the issue in 1967. One year later Gary Becker, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, determined the death penalty had a deterrent effect.

In 2005 two different studies reached bizarrely contradictory conclusions with one study suggesting that the death penalty might contribute to additional murders due to cultural brutalization while another study found that the death penalty saved about 150 lives a year.

Now the journal of the American Society of Criminology, Criminology, is about to release a study conducted by Duke sociologist Kenneth C. Land and Sam Houston State criminologist Raymond Teske, Jr. that concludes there is not enough data to make any definitive statement about the effect of the death penalty on national murder rates since the number of executions (outside the State of Texas) are too sporadic to draw any valid conclusions.

This new study focuses on the effect of executions in Texas since the death machine kicked into overdrive back in 1994. Their research seems to indicate that since 1994, the murder rate in Texas has declined between .5 and 2.5 homicides in the months after each execution. At the low end that would translate to 5 to 10 fewer murders a year.

Mr. Casey points out that the study found no correlation between the amount of publicity for each execution and any subsequent drop in the homicide rate. The study also shows that this "deterrent" effect is stronger on murders for which the death penalty is not an option.

As long as people drink and argue about girls and money there are going to be murders and no number of executions is going to stop it.

Forgive and forget

Deer Park native Andy Pettite was one of the heroes of the Yankees' world series winning team. Pettite, as many of y'all remember was implicated in the Mitchell Report as using illegal performance enhancing drugs. Pettite promptly owned up to cheating.

Alex Rodriguez was another of the Yankees' heroes in their championship run. Over the off-season A-Rod confessed that he used steroids during a three-year stint with the Texas Rangers. He was torn apart by the press for his admissions.

One must wonder if Roger Clemens had been honest and upfront when the accusations began flying whether he would have taken part in the Yankees' 27th World Series championship. While Pettite and Rodriguez are placed on pedestals by Yankee fans, Roger Clemens is scorned.

Clemens misread the public and played the wrong card when he was revealed as a steroid user. History is replete with American icons who messed up, 'fessed up and went back to being adored. The American public is quick to forgive and forget the transgressions of celebrities.

Had Roger the Dodger not been so arrogant and had he thought about his course of action for half-a-minute, he would have realized his aggressive denial was a mistake. I wonder how he felt watching his former teammates win the series.

My daughter and I

Last night my oldest daughter got sick. To be on the safe side, my wife and I decided not to send her to school today. That left us in a quandary because my wife teaches at the local community college on Tuesday and Thursday mornings and I had to be in court this morning.

So I made the executive decision to take my daughter to work with me. After we dropped off my youngest at school we headed out to the west side to the Justice of the Peace court on Clay Road for a traffic ticket case. This particular court is one of the busiest in the state -- and one of the slowest.

My daughter brought her Leapster and sat in a chair at the front of the courtroom that a very kind woman gave up for her (I didn't catch her name, but, if you're reading this, thank you) while I "worked" the case.

My client's case was dismissed a short time later because the officer forgot to appear (the ticket had been written 2 1/2 years before) and my daughter and I were on our way home after less than an hour.

Along the way she met some of my colleagues and got a little taste of what her daddy does for a living and I got to show off my daughter. I think I might start bringing her to court more often...

Why doesn't this surprise me?

According to the General Accounting Office the federal government is unlikely to recoup our full investment in either General Motors or Chrysler. In order to make a full recovery, both companies would have to attain market capitalizations (number of shares X price per share) neither had achieved before their bankruptcies.

Surely someone in the Treasury Department was aware of this at the time the bailouts were being rushed through Congress. The money the government cannot recoup now becomes a taxpayer subsidy of the shareholders of the born-again companies.

In order to recover taxpayer funds handed over to GM , the new company would need a market capitalization of $66.9 billion. The highest capitalization GM had achieved prior to the bailout was $57 billion back in 2000. Chrysler would have to achieve a market capitalization of $54.8 billion for taxpayers to get their money back. Prior to its acquisition by Daimler in 1998, Chrysler was capitalized at $37 billion.

There was a reason the two car makers couldn't round up enough private investment to survive -- investors knew GM and Chrysler were dogs and they weren't willing to put up their cash. Cue los federales.

We can't afford to put more money into health care for the poor, the old, the infirm and children, but we can afford to hand money over to investors. Some things never change.

Being first has its advantages

A special shout-out is warranted for David DiSalvo, the author of the very interesting blog Neuronarrative for the material used in this post...

Is there a psychological advantage to be first? According to Psychological Science, there is.

Using wine as the test medium, researchers asked hard-core wine drinkers (as in, people who are serious about their wines, not serious about drinking) and ordinary

wine drinkers which in a series of wines they preferred. Participants were given between two and five glasses of wine to taste. At the end of the tasting, drinkers were asked to identify their favorite glass. The participants weren't told that all of the wines they tasted were from the same bottle.

In the end, most participants favored the first wine they tasted (primacy) - regardless of their knowledge of wines. Interestingly enough, high-knowledge drinkers also seemed to prefer the last glass of wine they tasted (recency).

Researchers noted that high-knowledge drinkers would rate the most recent glass to the last one tasted -- putting an emphasis on the last glass.

In trial preparation, always go with your strongest argument first. It is through this argument that you are asking the jurors to filter the evidence they received during trial. Whatever you do, don't end with a weak argument. If you think the argument's weak -- leave it out. That last argument is the last thing the jurors will hear from you and you don't want it to compare unfavorably with what came before.

Zen and the art of lawnmower repair

This weekend I set out to mow the yard at our new house for the first time. Since I've lived in apartments and townhouses for the past 18+ years, I've never owned a mower. My parents graciously donated their old mower to our cause after we bought our house. They parted with it because they've used a lawn service for the past five or six years and the mower has just sat parked in the garage for that time.

On Saturday I tried to start it up but could never get the motor to turn over after yanking on the cord. There was gas in the tank and there was a spark plug in the cylinder and nothing was binding the blade. I gave up for the day and prepared for battle the next morning.

After a brisk 13-mile run on Sunday I stopped at the gas station and filled my bucket with gas. I then headed home and filled the tank of the mower. Still I couldn't get the blasted thing to turn over. I pulled the hose leading to the carburetor and made sure the gas was flowing through -- it was. Then I pulled the spark plug. It was oily so I cleaned it up. Then I aimed the brake cleaner spray into the cylinder and fired. I put the plug back in and popped on the wire. Still nothing. Next I changed the dirty air filter. Still it wouldn't turn over. Next up was the exhaust chamber. I pulled it, blew it out and rebolted it.

I pulled the cord and, finally, the engine turned over and the mower was up and running for the first time in over five years.

Now I know y'all must be asking what on earth does that story have to do with criminal defense practice. I'm glad you asked.

Whenever an engine isn't starting it's either because it's not getting fuel or it's not getting a spark. To find out which you have to test each part of the system until you've made your determination. And that's true whether it's a car's engine or the engine on a lawnmower.

In preparing to defend a case you have to run through the same checklists over and over again. On a DWI case you first look to determine whether the officer had a valid and legal reason to stop your client. Next you watch the video and look for errors the officer made on the field sobriety tests and for things your client did that demonstrate he wasn't intoxicated. If there's a breath test you go through a checklist to determine if there are grounds to suppress the test result. Same thing for a blood test.

To be successful you must be methodical during the preparation of your case. What a jury sees is the end result of countless hours of case preparation.

A dose of reality

A lot of times on this blog I talk about preparing and trying cases in the abstract. Thanks to Anne Reed (author of the terrific jury-ology blog, Deliberations), we have a blog that "keeps it real."

Steven Hirsch's blog Courthouse Confessions is at once entertaining and disturbing. Mr. Hirsch interviewed people who were released from custody and his blog documents their comments about what put them behind bars and the effect of incarceration.

It's a good reminder of how individuals are affected by our criminal justice system.

State trooper, under investigation for use of excessive force, resigns

The Texas Department of Public Safety today announced that State Trooper Arturo Perez received a preliminary notice of discharge for an incident that occurred on the Dallas North Tollway on October 10 of this year.

According to the department's press release, Trooper Perez' in-car video shows that he used excessive force during an arrest on the tollway. Texas Rangers will present the results of their investigation to the Dallas County District Attorney's Office.

The use of excessive force could result in a criminal charge of official oppression.

Trooper Perez resigned before the termination could be completed.

Do as I say, not as I do

Hmmm.

It appears that the City of Houston is using a defense to toll tickets issued by the Harris County Toll Road Authority that doesn't fly for drivers who receive red light camera tickets.

Apparently the city owes the toll road authority $13,851 in unpaid tolls, fines and collection fees for 552 citations issued to 122 different city-owned vehicles. No wonder the county put the kibosh on the city's request to withhold automobile registrations for red light camera scofflaws.

Both the county and the city issue citations to the registered owner of the vehicle in question; for this reason the matters are strictly civil and are not included on a person's driving record. An employee of the city's finance department sent an e-mail to the Harris County Attorney's Office stating that the citations did not include photographs of the drivers of the city-owned cars and that the citations are the responsibility of the individual drivers and not the city.

Oops.

Giving credit where credit is due

Yesterday's post on the New York attorney free speech case neglected one important detail. Mr. Bluestone's attorney was none other than the author of Simple Justice, Scott Greenfield.

Said Mr. Greenfield in an e-mail from earlier today:

What a great victory for attorney free speech. I wonder who the hard-working, yet handsome and urbane, attorney who represented Bluestone might be? We owe him a deep debt of gratitude.

We all hear it when we lose a case -- here's some credit for a great win, Scott.

A change in my comment policy

Up until a couple of days ago I permitted any and all comments on my blog -- I believe that the free exchange of information and opinion benefits everyone. However, due to the increase in spam comments and criticism from anonymous posters, I have (regretfully) made the decision to moderate the comments.

My rules are quite simple: all comments will be approved unless they are spam or anonymous criticism. Y'all know who I am. I don't hide behind a mask of anonymity. I criticize, challenge and call others out for their comments or behavior -- and I don't mind being on the other end of it, either. But, I firmly believe that if you're going to criticize someone else -- you should at least be intellectually honest enough to do it under your own name.

I understand there are reasons some people won't post a comment under their real name -- but if you want to be critical of the content on this blog, that's what you're going to have to do.

State bar advertising rules may not apply to blogs

In November 2003, New York malpractice attorney Andrew Bluestone began faxing out copies of his one-page Attorney Malpractice Report. The faxes contained contact information for Mr. Bluestone as well as an essay dealing with some facet of attorney malpractice litigation.

New York solo practitioner Marc Stern received 14 of these faxes between November 2003 and March 2005. He eventually filed suit, alleging that Mr. Bluestone's faxes violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 as well as the Junk Fax Prevention Act of 2005.

In his defense, Mr. Bluestone argued that the faxes were not legal advertisements because the newsletter was an informational message and the contact information was merely an "incidental advertisement."

The trial court disagreed and ruled that the faxes were legal advertisements for Mr. Bluestone's services and awarded Mr. Stern $1,500 for each of the faxes he received.

In June of this year the New York Court of Appeals reversed that ruling, holding that the faxes were informational messages per the FCC and not unsolicited advertisements.

According to Matthew Goldberg of the American Bar Association's Litigation Division, this decision is important to legal bloggers (or blawgers) because it could affect state bar association's attempts to regulate attorney speech on the internet. In fact the Florida Bar has said that websites "cannot be easily categorized as either information at the request of a prospective client...or as advertising in a medium that is totally unsolicited and broadly disseminated to the public."

So, is this blog advertising? Or is it informational? In fact, are all legal blogs advertising or are they a source of information? Should state bar associations be able to regulate the content that appears on a legal blog? More importantly, should state bars be able to regulate the content of any blog that is authored by an attorney - regardless of the blog's subject matter?

Austin city council says no to vampire cops

The Austin city council passed a resolution this past week stating that it is the council's "clear will" that Austin police officers not personally take blood specimens from motorists arrested for driving while intoxicated. Council members originally sought a vote on a proposal that would have directed the city manager to block officers from collecting such samples from drivers.

After being told by the Austin City Attorney's Office that such a proposal would conflict with provisions in the criminal code authorizing officers to use all lawful means to enforce the law, the council decided to vote on the non-binding resolution.

Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo told the city council that the department had abandoned plans to train officers to become licensed phlebotomists.

The new resolution directs the City Manager to develop clear guidelines by February 2010 for the collection of blood specimens by Austin police. Meanwhile, the Austin Police Department is in talks with the Travis County Sheriff's Office about training personnel at the county jail to draw blood from DWI suspects.

Powerlessness

As attorneys we are given a certain degree of control over other people's lives. This is true if you're a criminal defense attorney, an assistant district attorney, a personal injury attorney, a divorce attorney or a property attorney. Someone comes into your office, sits down across a table from you and grants you the power to make certain decisions on their behalf.

One of the hardest things for an attorney is to accept that there are some situations over which we have no control. Monday night was such an occasion for me.

We were in the process of moving and our garage was full of stuff that had not yet found its way inside our house. My oldest daughter had a shoe rack hung over the back of the door leading from the house to the garage and was putting her shoes in it.

I was in the other end of the house getting our internet connection up and running when I heard a shattering sound and the screams of my daughter. My wife couldn't see what happened because she couldn't open the door to the garage. When I ran into the garage I saw my daughter standing in a pile of broken glass from the table upon which she had been standing. I could also see the blood on the floor.

My wife and I cleaned her feet, wrapped them and drove off to the emergency room. By the time we got there my daughter had calmed down and I carried her inside in my arms. Everything was fine as the doctor examined her feet until she had to probe inside the cuts in search of glass shards. She told us she had to inject a local anesthetic into our daughter's feet.

I have never felt so powerless as I did that night holding my little girl tight while she screamed in pain as the doctor injected the anesthesia. There is nothing worse than looking into your child's eyes and telling them there is nothing you can do to stop the pain.

It's a very humbling experience and it reminds us of how little about our world we actually have control over.

No such thing as a free stadium

The Houston Sports Authority, after telling voters that their taxes would not be affected by the new wave of stadium-building, is now having to go back on its word as balloon payments have come due on $117 million in bonds.

The bonds for these playpens for the rich owners of Houston's sports franchises were insured by MBIA - a firm that was downgraded by analysts. The downgrading causes investors to turn around and run away. The bonds were subsequently bought up by JP Morgan Chase and converted into a loan. Now the piper is calling.

The only options seem to be acquiring a line of credit either through JP Morgan Chase or UBS -- but either option would cost the sports authority $7 million a year.

So now Harris County taxpayers are going to be asked to pony up to pay down the debt on stadiums that were paid for with public funds yet handed over to private interests. It's called reverse welfare and the only beneficiaries are Drayton McLane, Leslie Alexander and Bob McNair.