There’s a pretty terrific article in this week’s Economist about the American criminal justice system. It doesn’t say a whole lot that people who follow the problem closely don’t already know well, but I posted it to Facebook about fifteen minutes ago, and it’s already been re-posted by four of my friends, none of whom […]
Lots of other people are doing good writing and posting interesting things on the criminal law beat, which is fortunate – I’m out of the office this week, and I have more time to read than I do to write. Here’s some of the best of what I’ve found, though, for you to consider: Growing […]
I wrote a few weeks ago about the way defense attorneys are perceived, and how, when talking with friends who haven’t got any firsthand experience with the justice system, the argument has come up that a defense attorney shouldn’t try to “get his guy off”, but get him a light sentence, if he knows that […]
I’ve been meaning to write about no-knock warrants for a while now, but as a non-attorney blogger without firsthand knowledge of them, I’ve got a bit of research (read: Knocking on the attorneys’ office doors to ask them for stories and outrage) to do before I feel qualified. I mean, even in the instances where […]
Here’s something to take with you over the weekend – Houston criminal attorney Mark Bennett has thoughtfully posted a top-ten list of how to deal with people with borderline personality disorder, which can be relevant in this field for all sorts of reasons. I won’t steal the whole list – and every item on it […]
We got an email from a friend-of-the-blog yesterday asking about the legality of videotaping police officers, probably based on the case in Maryland where this video came from: If you’ve got 3:37 to spare, watch the whole video – it’s a thrilling opportunity to get a first-person view of what great fun it must be […]
I wrote about cop blogs last week, and how I enjoy the opportunity to look at the world through the lens of a police officer for a couple of minutes each morning. It’s productive and insightful and, at its best, reminds us that so many of our goals and objectives are the same, despite the […]
Google Maps offers reviews of local businesses, which is awesome for the most part, except when you end up with blatantly fake reviews written by disgruntled former employees posing as clients, claiming you sent mafia-style “social workers” ’round to collect extortion payments. (Which currently exist on our listing, so if you found us via Google […]
That subject line up there is cited as one of the new problems cited by the Texas Senate Criminal Justice Committee, regarding DWI in the state. Houston DWI attorney Paul Kennedy has a smart post about it on his blog, and it’s revealing to me something about “tough on crime” and unintended consequences. Basically, the […]
I just got around to the comments on the Popehat post, and there’s a great one that summarizes my opinion pretty well: […] This was compromise verdict, among jurors who believed the cop guilty of voluntary manslaughter or murder, and slave-mentality jurors who refuse to believe that a cop is ever wrong about anything.[…] The […]