criminal defense lawyers

I’ll be following up fellow Austin lawyer Todd Smith’s latest Blawg Review with one of my own over at my DWI blog, so please… all you criminal defense lawyers out there in the blogosphere write up a little something something about DWI and make sure to email it to me or submit it here.

So Western Justice’s quote of the week – or is that quote of the month? – is currently:

“In my courtroom, day after day, I have seen the dregs of the community—and some of their clients, too."

I’ll admit it’s a bit amusing.

 Everyone loves a good lawyer joke. Seems to be coming out of the mouth of a black robe, so I tried to do a little investigating and figure out where the quote came from.

It’s the question criminal defense lawyers get asked regularly, by friends, family members, strangers on the train, etc.

The Houston Chronicle – or should I say reporter Mary Flood?

– asked Mark Bennett “The Question” in this morning’s paper:

Q: What do you tell folks who ask how you can defend people accused of crimes?

Let’s say you want to print out Subsection (i) of Section 13 ‘DWI Community Supervision’ of Texas’ probation statute (Code of Criminal Procedure 42.12) that deals with when you do and don’t have to install an ignition interlock on your vehicle.

Here’s a money saving tip:

Make sure when you highlight the relevant section that you change the page range from ‘All’ to ‘Selection’ before you click ‘print’. Otherwise you may print out all of 42.12.

Make no mistake: I’m not asking for kudos on this subject. I’ve long since passed the age of ‘grown man’ and probably should have been more vocal about it in the past. And I’ve too often let it go. But I’ve taken recently to openly confronting friends and casual acquaintances when they express themselves in ways that are ‘anti-gay’.

Doug Weathers asks criminal defense lawyers, “Would you rather have Good Facts or Good Law?”:

Every time I am preparing for a trial I deal with the question of do I have good facts or good law.

Rarely do you have both because those cases are usually dismissed or never go to trial. Sometimes you have neither good facts or good law and those cases usually plead.

In most of the trial cases you will have either good facts or good law.

A (former) CNCN producer gets fired for expressing his own opinions on his own blog, and the blogosphere lights up about it. Any relevance of this story to blogging lawyers out there? Probably for big firm bloggers; not so much I imagine for criminal defense attorneys.

From Wednesday’s Austin American Statesman, Sheriff defends allowing immigration officials to have office at jail:

Travis County Sheriff Greg Hamilton encountered sharp criticism and a smattering of support Tuesday for his decision to allow federal immigration agents to establish an office at the Travis County Jail.

(…well, some of them may be celebrating more than others, depending on how close they practice to New York, but I digress…)

The New York Football Giants beat the (previously) unbeaten Patriots tonight in Super Bowl 42. Great game especially measured by Super Bowl standards – they’re usually blowouts.

In the context of criminal plea negotiations, one of the defense lawyer’s jobs is to tell the client’s story to the prosecutor in way that distinguishes him from everyone else that comes through that courtroom charged with [assault, theft, possession, etc.]

In the context of jury trial, the defense lawyer’s job is to tell the client’s story to the jury in a way that leaves room for reasonable doubt, or even provokes belief in actual innocence. Or maybe it’s somewhere in between.