Thursday, July 5, 2012

Matlock for the defense

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When I was in middle school I got hooked on Erle Stanley Gardner's Perry Mason  series of novels. Then I found reruns on Ted Turner'...

Plead guilty and pass the Bible

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We've had our share of judges in Harris County who didn't someone understand the reason the Founding Fathers wanted a separation bet...
Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Happy Fourth!

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Here are some scenes from this year's reading of the Declaration of Independence outside the Harris County Criminal (In)justice Center. ...
Tuesday, July 3, 2012

A breath tester in every car

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It's one thing to punish motorists for exercising their Constitutional right to give up evidence that could be used against them. The co...
1 comment:
Monday, July 2, 2012

Celebrating the Fourth

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Y'all are invited to come and see members of the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association read the Declaration of Independence outs...

Blawg Review #324 (mas o menos)

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My fella 'mericans... Fifty-eight years ago today, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law. The Voting Ri...
Saturday, June 30, 2012

Lynne Stewart: Warrior

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Judges don't necessarily like us. We get in the way. We're the ones who force the state to do things like actually producing evidenc...
2 comments:
Friday, June 29, 2012

Supreme Court upholds insurance industry bailout

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Okay, people, it would appear that the world survived yesterday's Supreme Court decision on the Affordable Care Act. Of course you coul...
Thursday, June 28, 2012

Book review - Economics unmasked

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Sometime late in the 19th century, someone decided that the fuzzy academic discipline of economics needed a little more oomph behind it. Up ...
Wednesday, June 27, 2012

The half-full (or half-empty) glass

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On Monday the Supreme Court, in Miller v. Alabama  (combined with Jackson v. Hobbs ) put the kibosh on mandatory life in prison without paro...
Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Court strikes down provisions of anti-immigrant statute

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On Monday the US Supreme Court struck down three provisions of Arizona's anti-immigrant statute but left stand the ability of law enfor...
Monday, June 25, 2012

Another victim of prosecutorial misconduct

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Over at Grits for Breakfast  we have yet another tale of a man who has sat in prison for more than a decade due to prosecutorial misconduct ...
Saturday, June 23, 2012

Just whose interest do you represent?

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Joe Amendola said he would "die of a heart attack" if Jerry Sandusky, 68, was found not guilty of 48 counts of abusing 10 boys ov...
2 comments:
Friday, June 22, 2012

Congress mulling bill to extend warrantless wiretapping

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The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was signed by President Jimmy Carter in 1978 and it laid out the rules by which the govern...
Thursday, June 21, 2012

A win for the 99%

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HOUSTON DISMISSES CHARGES STEMMING FROM OCCUPY HOUSTON DOWNTOWN PARK ARRESTS   MAYOR PARKER ISSUES VOLUNTEER AWARD TO OCCUPY HOUSTON ...

Caged up like animals

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Never underestimate the ability of a politician to take an idea and run it so far into the ground that the end result isn't even recogni...
Wednesday, June 20, 2012

An economy of words

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"No one on this planet, much less in Harris County, should be convicted of a felony, with as weak as the evidence is in this case. ...
Tuesday, June 19, 2012

High and tight

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Ten weeks. Millions of dollars. That's the price we paid for the abortive prosecution of Roger Clemens. And why? What was the purpose?...
Monday, June 18, 2012

Bring the children to me

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Children have little or no say in what their parents do. That goes for children in the United States as well as for children in other parts ...
Saturday, June 16, 2012

In Greece it's a choice between people or banks

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Tomorrow the Greek people will go to the polls to determine what is more important: the needs of the people or the greed of the banks. Si...
Friday, June 15, 2012

Making an example

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"We were hoping for the maximum," he said, "to make an example." Yesterday R. Allen Stanford was sentenced to 110 yea...
1 comment:
Thursday, June 14, 2012

A tale of two courtrooms

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There she stood, in a line with the other jailed defendants pleading out their cases. She had just plead guilty to prostitution. The judge s...
Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Undermining the rule of law

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The United States Constitution makes very little mention of citizens. It mandates that our elected representatives be citizens and that the ...
Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Texas courthouses placed on endangered list

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Anyone who is a regular reader of this blog knows that I love old courthouses. Whenever I go out of town, either on business or pleasure, if...
Monday, June 11, 2012

Book review: Private Empire - ExxonMobil and American Power

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Some folks refer to giant corporations such as ExxonMobil, Apple, Wal-Mart and Ford as multi-national corporations. Nothing could be farther...