Dennis Elias’s Latest Tweet :. Injustice News Twitter Feed :.Mark Bennett | February 24, 2010
No doubt about it: it’s hard out there for a new lawyer. There are vocal bloggers on the internet, failed wannabe attorneys who blame the game for their failings: L4L, BL1Y, Nando. It’s much easier to hang out on JD Underground blaming the profession for the fact that you are living in your parents’ basement, [...]
Mark Bennett | February 24, 2010
The Harris County District Attorney’s Office’s form charging instrument in “weenie waggling” indecent exposure cases has, for time immemorial, read: [Defendant], hereafter styled the Defendant, heretofore on or about [Date], did then and there unlawfully expose his GENITALS to [Cop] with intent to arouse and gratify the sexual desire of THE DEFENDANT, and the Defendant [...]
Mark Bennett | February 20, 2010
The industrial workplace can be a dangerous place. Accidents happen in work zones; people get hurt and killed. Isaac Sheridan knew this and Fernando Rodriguez knew this; they acknowledged it by strapping on hard hats and reflective vests at the beginning of every day’s work in a construction zone. On Thursday afternoon, when Sheridan was [...]
Mark Bennett | February 18, 2010
In the Houston Bar Association’s Judicial Qualification poll, our District Clerk, Loren Jackson was rated “well qualified” by 1,056 of the responding lawyers, and “not qualified” by only 60. By contrast, his two challengers were rated “well qualified” by 58 and 40 lawyers, and “not qualified” by 244 and 256, respectively. Nobody elseFew others in [...]
Mark Bennett | February 17, 2010
Houston criminal-defense lawyer Herman Martinez wrote (three weeks ago, but it hit my blog reader today): We enjoy reading emails from people, but lately we have received some that are way too long. to read. If you can not say what you want to say in one or two paragraphs please pick up the phone [...]
Mark Bennett | February 17, 2010
I may build up more interest in this year’s criminal court elections in Harris County, but for right now, this is what irks me: Sharolyn Wood, who claimed after the election in 2008 that an “unspoken agreement” that experienced judges not be challenged was “tossed out,” is now running for County Criminal Court At Law [...]
Mark Bennett | February 14, 2010
I first saw the idea raised by John Kindley in this comment at Simple Justice: free criminal-defense lawyers for everyone, not just the indigent. I replied there that society should be willing to bear the full cost of prosecuting accused law-breakers, including the cost of due process. Norm Pattis came up with the same idea: [...]
Mark Bennett | February 12, 2010
In Anthony Graves’s first trial, prosecutor Charles Sebesta had to cheat to win, hiding exculpatory evidence and eliciting perjured testimony (Graves v. Dretke, Fifth Circuit opinion, PDF on Scribd). Now, not only has the evidence that Sebesta suppressed in violation of Brady v. Maryland been revealed so that the next prosecutor trying the case can’t [...]
Mark Bennett | February 12, 2010
A Harris County felony prosecutor, in closing argument, says (PDF on Scribd): You-all heard some evidence, which I would have loved to brought you more people, but I couldn’t. This case is, does Harris County find what he did okay? And I still don’t know what he did, because he won’t even say it. We [...]
Mark Bennett | February 9, 2010
David DeCosta was set up, to begin with: set up by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office and the Phoenix Police Department, and almost certainly factually innocent. Yesterday the State of Arizona, represented by the Pinal County Attorney’s Office (to avoid the appearance of conflict of interest—are you listening, Pat Lykos?) moved to dismiss the case [...]
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