Revenge-Porn Briefs in Ellis
We lost in the trial court, so we got to go first in the Waco Court of Appeals: Ellis 10th Court Brief Final The State filed a nothing brief: Ellis State's Brief Mr. Ellis replied: Ellis Reply Brief At...
View ArticleRevenge-Porn Briefs in Jones
The third pending revenge-porn-unconstitutionality appeal in Texas is Ex parte Jones, in the Twelfth Court of Appeals in lovely Tyler, Texas. Again, we lost in the trial court and so got to go first in...
View ArticleThe State’s Arguments for Revenge-Porn Criminalization
Revenge porn is not speech. Revenge porn criminalization is not a content-based restriction. “Essentially intolerable invasions of privacy” are a recognized category of historically unprotected...
View ArticleThe State’s Revenge-Porn Arguments, Part 1: Is it Speech?
Here is section 21.16(b) of the Texas Penal Code: A person commits an offense if: (1) without the effective consent of the depicted person, the person intentionally discloses visual material depicting...
View ArticleThe State’s Revenge-Porn Arguments, Part 2: Is it Content Based?
(Nobody ever taught me this in school, and perhaps nobody ever told you either: When a compound adjective follows the noun (“the statute is content based”) it is not hyphenated; when it precedes the...
View ArticleDefection Time
The Hearing Officers’ testimony that they do not “know” whether imposing secured money bail will have the effect of detention in any given case, e.g., Hearing Tr. 4-1:141, 4-2:16, and their testimony...
View ArticleTrial Lawyer Lesson: The Risk of “So You’re Saying”
Scott Greenfield has a post this morning that highlights a journalist’s paraphrase, in an interview, of her subject’s words. This has become a ubiquitous problem, in media, on social media, everywhere...
View ArticleWord of the Year, 2018
Every year1 instead of making resolutions I choose a word of the year. The word of the year is a guiding principle, something to focus on to make my world better. Last year’s word was “Attention.” It...
View ArticleThe Defections Begin
I have butted heads with Mike Fields, judge of Harris County Criminal Court at Law Number 14, more than once, and found him a worthy adversary. He is a big guy, imposing both physically and in...
View ArticleAll But Their Four Fastest.
Our Mission: To receive, analyze and preserve physical and digital evidence while adhering to the highest standards of quality, objectivity and ethics. (Houston Forensic Science Center.) HFSC will redo...
View ArticleThe State’s Revenge-Porn Arguments 3: Obscenity
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...
View ArticleThe State’s Revenge-Porn Arguments 4: Speech Integral to Criminal Conduct
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...
View ArticleThe State’s Revenge Porn Arguments 5: “Essentially Intolerable Invasions of...
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...
View ArticleHow is a Criminal Law not a Prior Restraint?
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....
View ArticleDishonest but Undivided
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...
View ArticleOne More Thing
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....
View ArticleThe Chase Bank Whodunnit
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...
View ArticleDeclare Victory and Go Home
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...
View ArticleSometimes an Argument is Really an Argument
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...
View ArticleContempt for the System? I Can’t Imagine Why!
[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...
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