Mark Bennett | March 3, 2011
University of Houston law professor Jordan Paust, who reviewed the bilateral treaty between the U.S. and Nigeria this week, said it includes a long list of offenses for which a suspect is subject to extradition, including manslaughter. But the treaty does not specifically include the offense of reckless injury to a child or child endangerment, […]
Mark Bennett | December 22, 2010
Here are three briefs filed today in State ex rel Lykos v. Fine, the mandamus proceeding in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals arising out of the defense’s efforts to show that there is an unreasonable risk that a factually innocent person will be executed, in violation of the Eighth Amendment. First is the defense’s […]
Mark Bennett | December 22, 2010
[M]andamus relief is available only when the relator can establish two things: first, that no other adequate remedy at law is available; and second, that the act he seeks to compel is ministerial. An act is ministerial “when the law clearly spells out the duty to be performed … with such certainty that nothing is […]
Mark Bennett | October 7, 2010
The Houston Chronicle went out of its way to praise Pat Lykos for “promising to investigate the suicide of a young boy whose parents claim he was the victim of intense bullying at his school”; the newspaper ignores the opportunity cost of fulfilling this publicity-happy promise. Huh, what? asks the Chronicle’s editorial board. Opportunity cost? This […]
Mark Bennett | December 17, 2009
Nobody could possibly have predicted way back in August that Pat Lykos’s failure to seek outside counsel to prosecute Don Jackson, a misdemeanor judge before whom she had appeared (through her assistants) every court day since January, and before whom she may have to appear again every court day until one of them leaves office, […]
Mark Bennett | December 10, 2009
In response to the Houston Police Department’s concerns that the DA’s new policy of not charging <10mg controlled substance cases as felonies, but rather as Class C misdemeanor paraphernalia cases, will result in their not being able to pad their statistics with felonies that require little work result in a rise in the sort of […]
Mark Bennett | November 4, 2009
As I understand it, the Harris County Commissioners Court has started approving all DA Office hires by name. So if Pat Lykos wants to hire Joan Schmo to be a Misdemeanor 4, she has to get Joan’s hiring on the Commissioners Court agenda and get the court to vote on it at a monthly meeting. […]
Mark Bennett | June 4, 2009
In Harris County, Texas, between January 1, 2009 and May 31, 2009: 3,166 DWI defendants pled guilty or no contest. 1 defendant pled not guilty to the judge and was convicted. 38 people pled not guilty to juries and were convicted. 22 people pled not guilty to juries and were acquitted by jury verdict. 6 […]
Mark Bennett | May 7, 2009
From UH Law professor David Dow: In December 2008, Mariano Rosales obtained federal habeas relief on a Batson claim. The district court found that race had improperly influenced the prosecution’s decision to strike at least three jurors. The attorney general elected not to appeal. Rosales was convicted in connection with a tragic shooting in 1985. […]
Mark Bennett | March 27, 2009
From Houston’s Fox 26 News: Pat Lykos regrets using the word “incompetent.”
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