Thoughtful, Experienced Criminal Defense
An anonymous Travis county assistant DA has a blog called "DA Confidential " that commonly has insightful commentary from a prosecutor's perspective. The latest posting is a hilarious video made with "Xtranormal" , a tool that creates animated web videos with...
The CCA today handed down its opinion on a capital murder punishment retrial that Alex Calhoun and I tried 2 years ago in Waco in the Billy Wayne Coble case. After reading the opinion I must point out the success of Walter Reaves on appeal and co- counsel Alex...
In 2009, TCDLA published an article of mine dealing with inventory searches that I wrote after the Supreme Court's decision in Arizona v. Gant , 129 S.Ct. 1710 (2009) . In Gant , the Supreme Court said that police could no longer automatically search a vehicle...
This week I had a close brush with the Anders standard . An Anders brief is a "no-merit" brief in which the appellate lawyer informs the court of appeals that he cannot find any meritorious issue in the case to support an appeal. My friend Jamie Spencer recently...
Earlier this month I wrote about the United States Sentencing Commission taking "emergency" action to translate the new "Fair Sentencing Act" into workable sentencing rules for folks charged with federal crack cocaine offenses. So now we have the United States'...
I got call today on a very mundane subject which led me to do some creative thinking about a possible workaround for unaffordable probation and/or fine payments. The caller was very upset–he had been on probation for some time but had lost his job and couldn't afford...
The Williamson county attorney's office has started providing discovery of offense reports by pdf email delivery. This feature is very useful as it enables faster receipt of the information necessary to evaluate and prepare a defense for our clients. Another very...
Here's a new ploy from law enforcement–do you think this passes the smell test? Use confidential informants to "recruit" prospective robbers of drug dealers This keeps the undercover informants' handlers hands clean Once "recruited" by the CI, the undercover agent...
I wanted to share with you something I learned at a CLE in Austin today. The Travis County Attorney's office has initiated a "veteran's court" designed to deal with veterans suffering from PTSD and/or Traumatic brain injuries who also get into non-violent criminal...
Good News on the Federal Crack Cocaine Sentencing Disparity Front –relief from Draconian Sentencing Guidelines may come earlier than expected! Congress enacted The Fair Setencing Act of 2010 last month, which substantially lessened the 100:1 crack/powder cocaine...
