Lance Stott | March 30, 2010
So this doesn’t really have anything to do with the law, but Jesus, what a bunch of goobers: Don’t get me wrong: the last thing anyone wants, I think, is a bunch of Jesus-freaks playing dress-up games with live ammo. But it’s also sad, in a funny way. I mean, how did these people think [...]
Lance Stott | March 23, 2010
A federal court last week said a teenage girl couldn’t be prosecuted on child pornography charges, after naked pictures of her turned up on the cell phones of her classmates. According to the ABA Journal, the appellate court said there was “no evidence the girl had been involved in the distribution of the photo.” “As [...]
Lance Stott | March 2, 2010
Lance Stott | January 31, 2010
Judge Berchelmann issued his findings the other day in the ethics complaint against Judge Keller. (This is the case where Keller stopped Michael Richard’s lawyers from filing a last-minute appeal to stop his execution: “We close at 5:00,” she said.) He says Judge Keller is mostly blameless. Instead, he finds fault with Richard’s lawyers. “TDS [...]
Lance Stott | January 27, 2010
I’m not sure Citizens United is the disaster some have it out to be. I don’t think we’re about to experience the end of democracy, or see Ronald McDonald in the White House. I’m also not sure it’s wrong – in fact, I think it’s correct. Descriptions of Citizens United in the media have been [...]
Lance Stott | January 4, 2010
Grits is always interesting. I thought this bit was especially noteworthy: According to the Office of Court Administration, the Court of Criminal Appeals is less than indiscriminate when it comes to overturning decisions of the lower courts. Austin decisions came in for special attention 35.5% of the time. By way of comparison, Dallas decisions merited [...]
Lance Stott | October 19, 2009
Theft of Service, Texas Penal Code 31.04, is a messy statute. What it seems to say is that failing to pay your bills is the same as theft. § 31.04. THEFT OF SERVICE. (a) A person commits theft of service if, with intent to avoid payment for service that he knows is provided only for [...]
Lance Stott | October 5, 2009
What’s worse than watching your children die in a fire? How about being falsely accused, convicted, and executed for killing them? According to the New Yorker, that’s what happened to Cameron Todd Willingham. In 1991 his three girls were killed in a pre-Christmas fire. In 1992 he was convicted of killing them, and in 2004 [...]
Lance Stott | September 28, 2009
A Dallas lawyer wrote to ask what I thought about this New York Times article, which talked about cases where lawyers have gotten in trouble for blogging or using other “social media” to criticize judges. “Lawyers, whose freedom to criticize courts is limited by conduct codes, face special risks when using social media.” Basically, what [...]
Lance Stott | September 22, 2009
In March 2005, Nick Karenev sent a series of emails to his soon-to-be ex-wife, Elena. These messages predicted, among other things, that she would be sent to a mental hospital, or to prison, and that her mother would be paralyzed. (At trial, he would testify he’d consulted a fortune teller, and was merely relaying the [...]
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