Defending People

the tao of criminal-defense trial lawyering

The Tip of the Iceberg

I’ve now heard about two Repub­li­can crim­i­nal court judges telling other judges that they will not give court appoint­ments to criminal-defense lawyers who are run­ning for other Repub­li­can crim­i­nal court judges’ benches. It’s unat­trib­ut­able at this point, but my sources are cred­i­ble and have pro­vided infor­ma­tion in the past that has turned out to be cor­rect. I’ll keep ask­ing them to allow me to name names before Novem­ber, but meanwhile…

Judges, what the hell are you think­ing?

Do you think that with­hold­ing pay­ing work from polit­i­cal oppo­nents isn’t cor­rup­tion? (It is; it may even be prosecutable.)

Do you trust the peo­ple you make these offers to not to rat you out? (You can’t. Obviously.)

Are you just try­ing to prove to the world that you can get reelected in Har­ris County no mat­ter how bla­tantly cor­rupt you are?

(I’m sure that more than two judges have adopted this par­tic­u­lar cor­rupt prac­tice, but they don’t know which two I know about.)

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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.

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2 Responses to “The Tip of the Iceberg”

  1. Rickey Moore says:

    That’s the Great Debate at hand. Elect Judges, who reflect the will of their con­stituents (and con­trib­u­tors) or appoint them, and have them reflect the will of the appoint­ers and their contributors??

    I think I have an answer. Like Dr. Strangelove, we cre­ate a “giant bank of com­put­ers” to select and draft an ordi­nary cit­i­zen to pre­side as a Judge for a short period of time. Lawyers would have to dumb down a bit and use com­mon sense in pre­sent­ing a case. Would that be so bad?? Ric

  2. Mickey Fox says:

    I might add that such actions would run seri­ously afoul the con­sti­tu­tion (I think I would start with the high­est of the high: First Amend­ment speech).

    But then again, my sig­nif­i­cant other con­tin­u­ally calls me a “commiecrat.”

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