The United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments last week in a case in which Harris County is being sued for its bail bond procedures which, plaintiffs argue, result in widespread detention of individuals who cannot afford bail – even though they are presumed innocent. The case was first argued in front of U.S. Chief District Judge Lee Rosenthal, of the Southern District of Texas. Her 193-page scathing opinion of the pre-trial bond system in Texas was covered by the ABA Journal and the Houston Press, among others. Judge Rosenthal found that a bond system that allows those with financial means to be released while forcing those without financial means to remain incarcerated prior to a trial was a violation of due process and equal protection. She found that Harris County – which has an approach similar to almost every other county in Texas – has a consistent and systematic practice of imposing money bail on…
Texas Bail Bond Reform: Arguments Reach Fifth Circuit
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Open Container Laws in Texas | Where are Open Containers Allowed?
Have You Ever Wondered if the Following are Legal? Can you drink in a car if you are not driving? Can you take a recorked bottle of wine or a half-empty bottle of liquor home with you? Can you drink in a limo? Can you drink while you are walking around in public? Texas open container laws are strict and somewhat confusing. This article discusses open container laws in Texas – both in vehicles and in public places. What is an “Open Container?” Under Texas law, an “open container” means a bottle, can, or any other receptacle that contains any amount of alcoholic beverage and that is open, that has been opened, that has a broken seal, or the contents of which are partially removed. Based on this definition, open bottles of wine that are corked would be considered an open container, as would half-empty bottles of any liquor. Drinks in a cup or flask would be considered open containers, even if they have lids like Yeti cups. FAQs on Open Container…
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Are Brass Knuckles Legal in Texas?
Is it Legal to Own Brass Knuckles in Texas? It is illegal to buy or sell brass knuckles in Texas. In fact, Texas Penal Code Chapter 46 prohibits possession, manufacture, transportation, repair, or sale of knuckles. How are Illegal Knuckles Defined in Texas? Knuckles are defined as “any instrument that consists of finger rings or guards made of a hard substance and that is designed, made, or adapted for the purpose of inflicting serious bodily injury or death by striking a person with a fist enclosed in the knuckles.” Defenses for Brass Knuckles in Texas Despite the law prohibiting the possession of knuckles, knuckles are sometimes sold as novelty items or paperweights. If you are arrested for possession of brass knuckles or any other prohibited weapon, it will be important to hire an attorney who is experienced in handling weapons charges. With over 30 years of experience, the attorneys at Varghese Summersett PLLC have handled a wide range of weapons cases…
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DWI Jury Instructions Must Be Tailored to the Evidence | DWI Defense
Proper DWI Jury Instructions The Court of Criminal Appeals handed down its decision in Burnett v. State today holding that trial courts must tailor the definition of “intoxication” in DWI jury instructions to the facts raised in trial. Burnett v. State The intoxication facts in Burnett were as follows. The accused was involved in an accident, he had difficulty getting out of his car, and the officer claimed to have caught a “whiff” of alcohol. Two officers at the scene testified they believed Burnett was intoxicated and he failed three field sobriety tests. Burnett denied drinking. The officers also found hydrocodone pills in his jacket but there was no evidence as to its use or effects on Burnett. Burnett wasn’t even asked specifically if he knew what kind of pills they were although he was asked whether he had a prescription for “those” pills. Evidence of Drugs but no Evidence of Drug Use Prosecutors argued that Burnett’s…
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Is CBD Oil Legal in Texas? | CBD Oil Prescriptions in Texas
CBD Oil Prescriptions in Texas CBD Oil is legal by prescription in Texas to treat seizures caused by intractable epilepsy. CBD Oil is not legal recreationally, for pain relief, anxiety, depression or other any other purpose. Although CBD Oils can be legally prescribed in Texas for limited purposes, federal law does not allow doctors to prescribe any substance derived from the Cannabis Sativa L plant. While other states fill medical marijuana orders based on doctor “recommendations” instead of prescriptions, Texas law requires a prescription for CBD oil in order for it to be legal. Is CBD Oil Illegal in Texas? While this is seemingly the opposite of the last question, whether CBD oil is illegal in Texas is a complicated question that we will work through in this article. First, some background: What is CBD Oil? CBD is short for Cannabidiol. Like THC, it is one of 85 cannabinoids present in the cannabis plant. CBD Oil contains high levels of CBD and trace amounts of…
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"Rand Paul Worries Whether Surveillance Reform Will Even Be Debated in Senate"
From Reason.com: But if Paul doesn't get a lot of support from his fellow senators, he has bipartisan support from a significant number of representatives in the House. He says that only a handful of GOP senators support his push...
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Woman Operating Unlicensed Daycare Charged with Child Abus
A mother with a 2-year-old child enrolled at a daycare operating out of a woman’s home in Charlotte, North Carolina, reported the caregiver to the authorities for alleged child abuse after finding a significant amount of bruising on her daughter. Stella Mack provides childcare out of her home-based business called “Mom’s Timeout.” The mother who filed the complaint, who requested to remain anonymous, stated that she thought Mack was a reputable person that she could trust. She discovered bruises on her daughter which worsened the next day, and that is when she notified law enforcement. The mother claimed, “This couldn’t have been something just like a small spanking because she was bruised for four days.” Mack allegedly sent text message communication to the mom stating that she had caused the bruising, and that she did not realize she had beaten the child that badly. Continue reading →
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"Talk show host Hugh Hewitt lobbies Jeff Sessions to pursue federal marijuana crackdown"
From The Cannabist: During the 14-minute interview, Hewitt asked Sessions pointed questions about marijuana enforcement, and probed him about specific methods to prosecute businesses in states that have legalized the sale of recreational marijuana. “Let me turn to marijuana,” said...
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How to Get Rid of a Domestic Abuse No Contact Order in Minnesota
In a criminal case with a “domestic relationship” element, it’s common for the court to issue a No Contact Order prohibiting the accused from having contact with the person claimed to be “the victim.” The person they’re calling their “victim” is not consulted; is not asked. In fact, the witness they’re casting in the “victim” role has no real voice in this – at least not in Minnesota in 2017. It’s been that way for decades. If you are the accused, forget it. The judge is not going to drop the no contact order for you. No, this is written for the witness – one forced into the role of victim of the prosecution. Ain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do If you are the witness in a misdemeanor domestic assault case, for example, chances are you want the no contact order dropped. But how? The information here should help get you started, regaining control…
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LuLaRoe Class Action Lawsuits
In the past couple of weeks, multi-level marketing company LuLaRoe (the seller of weirdly patterned leggings) has been hit with two class action lawsuits and a whole bunch of negative publicity. The first LuLaRoe class action lawsuit was filed on October 13 in federal court in California, and the lead plaintiffs are Stella Lemberg, Jeni Laurence, Amandra Bluder, and Carissa Stuckart. The complaint has all kinds of words I like: scheme, bait, lure, and cheating. The focus of this lawsuit is a promise LuLaRoe made in April 2017. The company said that consultants (who spend upwards of $5,000 to sign up and purchase an initial inventory package) could cancel their agreements and receive a 100% refund of the wholesale value of the inventory they purchased with no exceptions or conditions. Distributors would also get free shipping for the inventory they returned. The policy had no expiration date, but the lawsuit alleges that on September 13, 2017 the company changed the policy…
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Terrorism Or Impatience
Did this fail to make the radar because no one died (or was actually injured), or because it wasn’t conduct worthy of making the radar? It doesn’t appear that anybody died, so you probably haven’t seen this. But yesterday a man allegedly drove into a crowd of protestors… kind of like the Alt-Right has been suggesting people do for years. Kind of like one person actually did in the attack that killed Heather Heyer. Connecting unrelated events because of one common attribute creates a sense of parity, that they are the same thing. But “a sense” isn’t the same as a fact. And the facts simply don’t bear out the initial contention, that a man drove into a crowd of protesters. A KTLA reporter described it as a “vehicle slamming into crowds of protesters,” with the on-screen caption saying “car plows into protesters.” Or was the man, Daniel Wenzek, just a guy in a car trying to slowly pass through the protest,…
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Plato, The Oppressor
Long before the methods shifted from sad tears to protest signs and disruption, I called for professors to take back the classroom. They didn’t. They didn’t want to because they feared their students’ condemnation. They didn’t want to because they shared their students’ activist beliefs. They didn’t want to because they embraced the soft pedagogy of appeasement and acquiescence. Now, they’ve completely lost control. At Reed College in Oregon, where I work, a group of students began protesting the required first-year humanities course a year ago. Three times a week, students sat in the lecture space holding signs — many too obscene to be printed here — condemning the course and its faculty as white supremacists, as anti-black, as not open to dialogue and criticism, on the grounds that we continue to teach, among many other things, Aristotle and Plato. The writer is no white supremacist. Lucía Martínez…
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SOMOS UNA SOCIEDAD DE "SANOS" DEMASIADO ENFERMOS
http://larepublica.pe/politica/1137016-ver-el-hashtag-pero-no-el-bosque Números, estadísticas y análisis de la data nos permiten conocer la situación del problema en estudio que necesariamente debe completarse con las causas que originaron la información. El señor De la Puente propone empezar desde el colegio para cambiar, es un buen punto pero absolutamente insuficiente, primero porqué la educación es paupérrima y la desigualdad es el factor principal de esa situación, además critica la eliminación de la "igualdad de género" que como ya hemos comprobado a lo largo de un diálogo de sordos, finalmente el debate dejó clarito que la famosa igualdad de género contemplaba LA IGUALDAD DE CONDUCTAS y que el género se desarrolla a lo largo de vida como cereza de una barbaridad. Muy bien, estoy en contra de explicar la homosexualidad y promover la…
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Short Take: Return of the Slackoisie?
Jordan Furlong is a smart guy, even though he occasionally dabbles in Millennal pandering at the Puddle. So is he just trolling now? Let’s start with a reality check. It’s kind of silly to talk about “the millennial generation” as if it’s some monolithic hive mind. If you’re setting out to describe the attributes of a demographic wave several hundred million people wide, then you’re going to over-generalize to the point of absurdity. So the first thing I want to acknowledge is that there are myriad exceptions to the broad strokes painted below. It’s “silly,” so he’s going to do it anyway. Thanks, Gertrude. The fundamental problem is that baby boomer lawyers (and to a lesser extent, gen-x lawyers like myself) keep trying to interpret the behavior of millennials through the lens of their own cultural assumptions and practices. The fundamental problem with this sentence is that it’s nonsensical. Are older…
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Marshall project
I cannot recommend strongly enough a video montage created by the Marshall Project and the New Yorker…an intimate and different perspective of the many sides of our criminal justice system https://www.themarshallproject.org/witnesses?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sprout&utm_source=facebook&page=ayana
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The Perils of Mapplethorpe’s “Rosie” in Texas
Robert Mapplethorpe was a well-known, albeit controversial, American photographer who is renowned for his ”stylized black and white photography,” including celebrity portraits, male and female nudes and a controversial series documenting the underground BDSM scene in New York City. One of Mapplethorpe’s partially nude portraits was titled “Rosie.” The portrait, an actual photograph, depicts a young girl of about three years of age sitting on a concrete bench. The Texas Thirteenth District Court of Appeals, sitting in Corpus Christi, described the photograph this way: “[Rosie] sits with her left leg drawn inwards towards her body while her right leg is vertical and bent at the knee. She touches the side of the bench with her right arm while her left arm reaches down in the direction of her left foot. She wears a dress but no underwear. As a result, her vagina is visible in a small part of the extreme lower portion of the…
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White House: All Women Who Accused Trump Were Lying
From Friday's White House Press Conference: Sara Huckabee Sanders responding to a question from CBS News reporter: All of the 16 women who accused Donald Trump of sexual harassment were lying: Question from CBS News reporter Jacqueline... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
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D.N.M.: Def doesn’t make a sufficient showing of some discriminatory effect to get further discovery of selective enforcement
Defendant doesn’t make a sufficient showing of some discriminatory effect to get further discovery of selective enforcement against African-Americans. United States v. Laneham, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 176486 (D. N.M. Oct. 25, 2017): The Court concludes that there are several … Continue reading →
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"The Right Way: More Republican lawmakers championing death penalty repeal"
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Teenage Girl Accuses Foster Youth Case Manager of Rape
A former case manager that worked with foster youths who had been neglected or abused was accused of raping a 16-year-old girl in June. Morris Leroi Brinker was working as a case manager with the Children’s Law Center of California who regularly represent abused, neglected or abandoned children in Los Angeles and Sacramento counties. He was in charge of the victim’s case at the time during which the alleged crime took place. Part of Brinker’s job description involved driving children various places in his personal vehicle. Authorities reported that the teenage girl claimed on June 29, Brinker had sex with her in a parking lot in his car. Continue reading →
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