Category: Criminal Defense
Plots about wealthy people planning the deaths of love rivals feature heavily in TV crime shows but are rare in real life. Many homicides involve people who know each other and many are spontaneous rather than meticulously planned. However a case in Lubbock, Texas in which a plastic surgeon is accused of paying an alleged…
An intoxicated manslaughter case has been making headlines in Texas because of its tragic nature. Five family members in one car died when their father crashed the vehicle into a bulldozer as he drove home from a Father’s Day party at Medina Lake in San Antonio. The fifth victim died on June 21. Eight-year-old Abram Demers was…
The case of Clint Broden’s client Michael Arena, who walked out of prison on June 1, 2012, almost 13 years into a 20-year prison sentence, was a high profile example in Texas of a wrongful conviction. But according to a new registry of wrongful convictions compiled by the University of Michigan Law School in a…
On Wednesday, June 13, 2012, Raul Rodriguez, a retired firefighter was found guilty of murder for the shooting and killing of Kelly Danaher in 2010. The trials sentencing phase is to begin on Thursday, June 14. The facts, as best as I have been able to ascertain, are that Mr. Rodriguez confronted his neighbors who…
Charles Manson committed his crimes in the late 1960s but he remains one of America’s most infamous killers. Now police in Los Angeles, where he committed his crimes, believe recordings of conversations between his associate and a late Texas attorney, could shed light on the infamous killings or implicate Manson in other killings. Los Angeles…
Drunk driving arrests don’t normally receive much media coverage. When the person who has been pulled over and arrested is well known Dallas TV anchor Jane McGarry, it’s a different story. McGarry is an NBC anchor for Dallas. She was arrested after she reportedly failed to signal a lane change.mcgarry A Department of Public Safety…
Many offenders in Texas end up at the Dallas County Jail after they have been dealt with by the criminal justice system in Texas. Jail by its very nature is a place of last resort. It should be tough. But it should not be dangerous. However, a series of deaths at the jail is undermining…
Police powers of “stop and frisk” have proved controversial with landmark legal cases in Texas and elsewhere. New York is the current focus of the dispute due to a rigorous implementation of the power by the city’s police department. The New York Police Department recently lost an attempt to prevent an expert witness testifying about…
While there is a wide body of research linking poor reading skills at school with later offending, new research suggests language problems at an early age lead to later juvenile delinquency and crime. More than half of adolescents in the Australian justice system have language impairments, a study by the Australian Institute of Criminology found….
Though TV shows depict prosecutors as the link in the criminal justice system that is responsible for restraining the others, always talking sense to overzealous cops, what happens in real life when the prosecutors are the ones that need to be controlled? Prosecutorial misconduct is a big problem in Texas and one that’s incredibly hard…