Former Gov. Rick Perry paid his lawyers upwards of $2 million to defend him against ultimately-dismissed non-capital felony charges, but the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals thinks a trial judge was reasonable in determining $48,000 was too much to pay the second chair in a capital-murder case resulting in a life-without-parole sentence.In yet another opinion "tinged with despair," Judge Elsa Alcala's dissent, joined by Judge Larry Meyers, aptly explains how ridiculous this stance really is, showing the lawyers performed their role at a relatively "bargain" price to the state. She suggested the court's decision should come with a sign reading, "Lawyers Look Out: Judge May Not Pay for Your Work." Indeed, that language is now formally implied in every contract an attorney signs to defend an indigent capital defendant in Texas. Because the state that once brought you a sleeping lawyer in a capital-murder trial needs more disincentives for…
Cheapskates: Defalcation of capital attorney fee sends message court devalues indigent defense
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The art and benefit for a criminal defense lawyer to listen and engage
The life of a criminal defense lawyer challenges the lawyer’s daily schedule, with daily court dates, court filing deadlines, motions practice, trial preparation, trials, client meetings and phone calls, handling emails and other correspondence, dealing with prosecutors, rectifying scheduling conflicts, staying on top of developments in the law and in forensic science, handling law practice administration and finances, and bringing in new clients. And I would have it no other way. The life of trial lawyering is never dull. Recently after finishing a court hearing, in the courthouse cafe I bumped into a lawyer I have known for many years, and he invited me to sit down. From that brief talk, I realized how little I had previously known about him, and recognized again how little I know about so many people I have known for years. Otherwise, wouldn’t I have known, at the very least, that he meditates daily for years, when meditation and…
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MASS CONFUSION
Hi, blog intern here. Well, not really a blog intern, more like an intern in the tech dept of the firm Rumpole skulks around from time to time. So I'm a nerd and don't follow sports. Game of Thrones, yes? Thrower for the Giants? No. Anyway, Mr. R is at a tech conference outside of Austin and some firm is unveiling something way cool and they killed the wi-fi and cellualar service and all he could do was call me on a land line. I'd rather be with him at the conference. Anyway, he gave me the nuclear codes to log on and was yelling about picks looking at emails for a survivor pool and a speadsheet and quite frankly I have no idea what to do. Survivor the show? Way yes. Survivor pool? No idea. So as a last resort I am posting this, and he should have service sometime this evening and will do whatever he needs to do. Sorry. He also said I should pick games. Fallout4, Call of Duty are the games I would pick, but I am thinking he meant I…
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"The Hazy Rollout of Ohio’s Medical Marijuana Control Program"
The title of this post is the title of this astute and useful review of early medicial marijuana regulatory developments in the great state of Ohio authored by two attorneys in the Benesch law firm’s Health Care & Life Sciences Practice Group. Here is how this "client bulletin" gets started:...<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MarijuanaLaw/~4/EmVZrYIGzF0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>
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TX: State is obligated to reraise its issues in CoA to not default; here, they defaulted
The state was obligated to argue its alternative theory to the court of appeals after winning in the trial court or it defaults the appellate argument. Here, it did just that. State v. Copeland, 2016 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 1195 … Continue reading →
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Stockton Record Gets It Right
Those of us who fight for justice in the worst murder cases have become accustomed to having the press almost entirely on the side of the murderers. I was pleasantly surprised this Sunday morning to read this in the Stockton Record:Our editorial board was divided on these death penalty propositions. Our consensus is a no vote on Proposition 62 and yes on 66. We do not feel the death penalty should be abolished with so many on death row (whose sentences would be converted to life in prison). We do, however, concur that the process for legal challenges should not be so drawn out.The Record also endorsed a "no" vote on Proposition 57, a trifecta of good sense in the criminal justice arena.
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Top-Ten Recent SSRN Downloads in Criminal Procedure eJournal
are here. The usual disclaimers apply. Rank Downloads Paper Title 1 582 Student Surveillance, Racial Inequalities, and Implicit Racial Bias Jason P. Nance University of Florida Levin College of Law Date posted to database: 29 Aug 2016 2 235 What...
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New Equal Justice Initiative animated video explores explores America’s lynching history
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October 2016 Criminal Law Update
This morning a suspect in a New York City shooting was shot six times in the chest after the suspect was spotted leaving the erotica book launch party on West 22nd Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenue in midtown Manhattan. According to witness accounts, several individuals became involved in an oral argument and seemed to quash it and even hugged. Then one party started shooting. One of the gunman crashed his vehicle with a police vehicle after fleeing and during a police pursuit. The suspect will likely face charges of attempted murder, assault in the first degree, reckless driving and criminal possession of a handgun, among others. Our New York City criminal defense lawyers have defended these types of charges in the past. In Queens, a woman was arrested after shooting a New York City Detective with a pellet gun. Although the detective was not seriously injured, the woman, who is being arraigned in the Queens…
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NFL WEEK SIX
SURVIVOR POOLWeek Six by Rumpole21 on ScribdSorry for the delay dear readers. This has been an unusual weekend to say the least. Survivor pool-wise, David McGriff went down last week with the Broncos and Adam Goodman joined the losers list today with the Steelers being upset by our home-town Fins. See you in court.Site Feed
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Police Who Lie Are Subject to Civil Rights Damages
In 1997, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Ricciuti v. N.Y.C. Transit Authority held that law enforcement officers who fabricate evidence against a criminal suspect are liable for damages under the federal civil rights statute. The constitutional principle established by the Ricciuti court was this: “… no arrest, no matter how lawful or objectively reasonable, gives an arresting officer or his fellow officers license to deliberately manufacture false evidence against an arrestee. To hold that police officers, having lawfully arrested a suspect, are then free to fabricate false [information] at will, would make a mockery of the notion that Americans enjoy the protection of due process of the law and fundamental fairness.” License to Manufacture Evidence Please read that again… Hidden in the Constitutional principal is the reality that there are police across this country who still believe that if they make a lawful arrest, they…
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THE ROXBURY SHOOTING OF A CHILD BRINGS PRESSURES AND ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT HER “GANG-AFFILIATED” FATHER
There still remains a bit of confusion as to what law enforcement and others need in order to legitimately (under the law) jump to conclusions about…well…you. Folks seem to know that, in order to convict a criminal defendant, the government must prove that individual guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. We have discussed whether or not that is what really happens in the reality of the courts…but that is not the issue for today. Today, I think we need to address various matters in which proof beyond a reasonable doubt is not necessary to ruin your life. Sometimes mere suspicion is enough. For example, let’s turn to a very recent story in the news. The Boston Herald tells us that various black community leaders are calling on the father of a 2-year-old girl who was shot as she sat in the back seat of his car in Roxbury yesterday to cooperate with investigators who are trying to track down the shooter. These calls are predicated on the…
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A Definitive Primer and Prescription on Social Determinants of Health
Wendy K. Mariner, Beyond Lifestyle: Governing the Social Determinants of Health, 42 Am. J.L. & Med. 284 (2016). Elizabeth Weeks Leonard I recently received a call from my university’s general counsel’s office, looking for health law advice about patient no-shows at a campus community health clinic. We discussed tort theories, including establishment of the physician-patient relationship and patient abandonment, as well as privacy issues with respect to contacting patients via email, phone, or a friend or relative. I then offered that the clinic might consider looking more deeply at the reasons for the patients’ lack of follow-through with appointments and treatment, including various social, economic, transportation, childcare, and other lifestyle barriers. I roughly described the concept of “social determinants of health,” which captures the problems to which I was referring. I explained how our law students working with medical-legal…
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Blow Is Only A Figure Of Speech
A twit came across my timeline from a lovely woman who had a blue check next to her name and more than 100,000 followers, so she must be an important voice according the the twitter gods: If you vote Trump you are the scum of the earth, a colluder in racism and ‘deplorable’ is too good for you. This means everyone. I struggled to figure out what purpose was served by such a twit. Preaching to the choir? Rallying the troops? Virtue Signalling? The only thing that abundantly clear about the twit was that it would not cause any Trump supporters to change their positions. So why bother? Then Charles Blow did the same thing, except on the pages of the New York Times: Trump is in fact the logical extension of toxic masculinity and ambient misogyny. He is the logical extension of rampant racism. He is the logical extension of wealth worship. He is the logical extension of pervasive anti-intellectualism. Trump is the logical extension of the worst of America. Putting…
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How Do I Check to See if There is a Warrant Out for My Arrest in Utah?
Police officers in Utah can make an arrest with or without a warrant if they have probable cause to believe that a person has committed a crime. However, if there is a warrant out for your arrest in Utah – or for the arrest of a family member – it is critical that you find out as soon as possible. If there is an outstanding warrant out for your arrest, you will need legal assistance from an experienced Salt Lake City assault defense lawyer, like Darwin Overson. In addition to assault charges, Darwin also handles sex crimes, weapons crimes, theft, and other types of criminal charges. What is the Difference Between Arrest Warrants, Search Warrants, and Bench Warrants? A warrant is a document issued by a court that allows the police to undertake certain actions against a criminal suspect. In order for the warrant to be valid, it must be signed by a judge or a magistrate. There are three types of warrants that can come into play in a criminal…
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The Commuter’s Dilemma
It was slow in starting, but picked up steam, and some applause, when President Obama used his constitutional authority to commute sentences. Not pardon, of course, as the president has been the most niggardly in using the pardon power of any president since Garfield, who was shot three months into office. But he’s got his commutation machine cranked up. President Obama granted clemency to a record 214 inmates on Wednesday, far surpassing his previous single-day record, as part of an ongoing effort to release federal inmates serving prison terms deemed to be unduly harsh. What’s not to like? And the president has kept it going, up to 775 commutations. Wait, make that 774. Arnold Ray Jones did what more than 29,000 federal inmates have done: He asked Obama for a presidential commutation. And then, after it arrived on Aug. 3, he refused to accept it. Jones’ turnabout highlights the strings that come attached to an increasing number of Obama’s…
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Forcese & Roach on National Security
Craig Forcese and Kent Roach (University of Ottawa - Common Law Section and University of Toronto - Faculty of Law) have posted Righting Security: A Contextual and Critical Analysis and Response to Canada's 2016 National Security Green Paper on SSRN....
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8 FAQs about Federal Criminal Appeals
A criminal trial is undertaken. Errors are made by the prosecution and the court. Objections are lodged by the defense attorney. Conviction is obtained and sentence imposed. The case is final. A federal appeal, however, is available. It must begin with the timely filing of a notice of appeal. Rule 4(b) of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure imposes a duty on the defendant to file his notice of appeal after “(i) the entry of either the judgment or the order being appealed, or (ii) the filing of the government’s notice of appeal.” According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the rate of federal criminal appeals reached their peak in 1993 when 23 appeals were filed for every 100 convictions. Since 1993, the rate had dramatically declined to 16 appeals per 100 convictions. 85% of the convictions were affirmed by the appellate courts. These disturbing figures notwithstanding, there are occasions when trial errors undermine the integrity…
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Thoughtful look into fairness/bias concerns with risk-assessment instruments like COMPAS
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Maryland Sporting Slowest Medical Marijuana Program In U.S.
Just shy of ten years ago the Maryland legislature voted to legalize statewide casino gambling. The governor signed the gambling bill into law shortly thereafter, and three years later the first casino opened its doors for business in Cecil County. The five operational casinos in Maryland have generated over a billion dollars in revenue since 2010, and come December this number will increase dramatically with the opening of the massive MGM National Harbor Casino in Prince George’s County. Most would consider the casino program a success as thousands of jobs have been created to go along with the millions in tax revenue. While it took decades to pass legalized gambling, the process of turning a signed bill into an open casino progressed relatively smoothly, and was night and day compared to the state medical marijuana program’s progression from bill to pot shop. The Blog has been extremely critical of the state medical marijuana commission moving at a snail’s…
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