Defending People

the tao of criminal-defense trial lawyering

May Be Liveblogging Jury Trial

Jury selec­tion is about to begin in Har­ris County Crim­i­nal Court at Law Num­ber 14. Pro se defen­dant is charged with crim­i­nal tres­pass at Planned Par­ent­hood. He allegedly entered the build­ing with­out per­mis­sion, remained after being told to leave, and blew a shofar.

Defen­dant, who is not Jew­ish, is wear­ing a tal­lit. A Jew­ish lawyer—not one of the lawyers on the case—objected, and Judge Fields ruled that Defen­dant has a First Amend­ment right to wear the Tal­lit. Take that, Pat Lykos!

The pros­e­cu­tor didn’t tell his wife he’s pros­e­cut­ing this case, so I won’t men­tion his name.

Stu­pid Har­ris County net­work won’t let me con­nect to Twit­ter, so I can’t live tweet it, so I may blog a cou­ple of times about it. I’ll at least sit through jury selection.

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About The Author

Mark Bennett got his letter of marque from the Supreme Court of Texas in May 1995. He is famous for having no sense of humor when it comes to totalitarianism.

Comments

2 Responses to “May Be Liveblogging Jury Trial”

  1. mirriam says:

    cool! Now you can ignore my prior com­ment on your last post.

  2. Sunshine says:

    Please do if you can, though I am afraid to hear what the pan­elists say in voir dire. I love my job and I don’t know what this says about me, but I don’t think I could defend this man had he tried to hire me. Obvi­ously, I believe whole­heart­edly that he is enti­tled to a good defense, but I couldn’t do it.

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