Defending People

[Edited to add: I have been asked whether this is fictional. The dialogue is not. The first judge’s comments can be found here and here. The interaction between the second judge and the mentally ill defendant is from this appellate opinion.] INT JUDGE’S CHAMBERS. We see a JUDGE, sitting comfortably behind his desk, talking to […]

I often say that free-speech law is the area in which lawyers’ perception of their expertise most outpaces their actual expertise. Nobody but probate lawyers thinks they know probate law. But everybody thinks they know free-speech law (fire in a crowded theater!) and few people actually do. This is no less true of judges than […]

The Fifth Circuit has ruled on the Harris County misdemeanor judges’ 5-million-dollar appeal of Judge Rosenthal’s injunction requiring them to stop using bail as an instrument of oppression by denying personal bonds to indigent people. The Fifth Circuit vacated the injunction, requiring two changes: To give the courts 48, rather than 24 hours to make […]

12/13/2017 in Hong Kong, I realize that what I thought was the PIN for debit card is not the PIN for the debit card. I call Chase to get the debit card PIN. I make the call from my hotel room. I give Chase debit-card services all identifying information for my debit card, including mother’s […]

Art. 11.12. WHO MAY PRESENT PETITION. Either the party for whose relief the writ is intended, or any person for him, may present a petition to the proper authority for the purpose of obtaining relief. Not only could a DA’s Office ask the court to appoint counsel under article 11.074 of the Texas Code of […]

Integrity (N) The quality of being honest and having strong moral principles. The state of being whole and undivided. In response to this letter, Dawn Boswell of the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office’s Conviction “Integrity” Unit (C”I”U) sent me this: [pdf-embedder url=”http://blog.bennettandbennett.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Tarrant-County-11074-writ-letter.pdf” title=”Tarrant County 11074 writ letter”] Article 11.074 of the Texas Code of Criminal […]

The term prior restraint is used to describe administrative and judicial orders forbidding certain communications when issued in advance of the time that such communications are to occur. Alexander v. United States. A criminal statute restricting speech based on its content also forbids certain communications in advance of the time that such communications are to occur. So […]

Failing to make the case that revenge porn falls into one of the categories of unprotected speech listed by the Supreme Court in its recent cases (notably Stevens and Alvarez), the State does some jailhouse lawyering. “Jailhouse lawyering” is bad legal analysis, usually involving taking some snippet of language out of context and loading it […]

Having failed to justify section 21.16(b) of the Texas Penal Code as an obscenity statute, the State seeks hope elsewhere in the Supreme Court’s enumeration of categories of historically unprotected speech. Aha! Speech incident to criminal conduct! Section 21.16(b) restricts only speech causing harm, and that’s criminal conduct, right? Well, no. To be speech integral […]

Failing to convince the court that section 21.16(b) of the Texas Penal Code does not restrict speech, and failing to convince the court that section 21.16(b) of the Texas Penal Code is not a content-based restriction, the State is in trouble. Recent Supreme Court authority—Stevens in 2010, Alvarez in 2012—has made clear that speech is […]