I went to my first DFW NORML meeting last night and came away very impressed. Really good speakers and a lot of very friendly and enthusiastic supporters. Over 120 people showed up on a holiday weekend, which is something I wouldn’t have thought possible 10 years ago. When I first…
A recent appeal from Kaufman County highlight the dangers of self representation in criminal cases. In misemeanor cases it’s alarmingly common for defendants to walk into court and sign away their right to counsel. These pro se defendants talk to the prosecutor and almost always end up accepting whatever plea…
Criminal defense clients come into consultations with a lot of anxiety about the process, and they want to know what they can to do to help their case. I get it, being arrested is a traumatic experience and you have a strong impulse to “do something” to make this better.…
Good question. One of the ways our criminal justice system extorts guilty pleas out of defendants is by wasting their time. The biggest time waste in the criminal justice system is requiring Defendants to show up at every court setting. It’s most ridiculous is misdemeanor cases and it’s a huge…
Mark Bennett runs my favorite Texas defense lawyer blogs, Defending People. Mark has been arguing that part of the Texas law regarding Online Solicitation of a Minor is unconstitutional since 2008. Today, the Court of Criminal Appeals agreed and ruled 9-0 that part of the statue, 33.021(b)(1) is a violation…
Corey Freeman had a bench trial and was convicted of online solicitation of a minor. Corey challenged the law as being unconstitutional for two reasons. One, was that he claimed the law was a strict liability offense in that there was no requirement that he actually believe he was talking…
It’s another No-Refusal weekend across the Metroplex. That means cops are going to seek blood warrant, and hold you down and take your blood vampire style. Murica! First, let’s remember how we got here. The legislator passed laws limiting the ability of officer’s to hold you down and steal your…
As part of the my ongoing open records work I requested the racial profiling data for our local DPS office. I received a breakdown of stops, citations, and searches by race/ethnicity for all stops in Kaufman county for the first 6 months of the year. Texas law requires the recording…
When you ask potential jurors how they feel about defense experts you will usually hear some voices of distrust. They will think that defense experts are “hired guns” and are approached with some degree of skepticism. I’ve found that many jurors are less cynical when it comes to Department of…
Clients of mine who have experienced the criminal justice system in multiple Texas counties are often surprised by how different the process is in each locality. The Penal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure are the same across the State. However, judges still have a lot of discretion in…