John T. Floyd Law Firm
Board Certified Houston Criminal Lawyer
“Serious Criminal Defense Throughout Texas”
Board Certified Criminal Law Specialist
Experienced Criminal Trial Lawyer
Federal And State Criminal Defense
Phone # (713) 224-0101
Toll Free 1-866-374-1327
E-mail jfloyd@JohnTFloyd.com
Top Lawyers: Criminal Defense - 2008, 2009, 2010 HTexas
CRIMINAL JUSTICE ISSUES
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April 8, 2012
TRAYVON MARTIN: ANOTHER VICTIM OF WILLIE HORTON POLITICS
Tragedy Stirs debate on Stand Your Ground Laws and Racial Stereotypes
By: Houston Criminal Lawyer John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
In February, 2012, we posted a piece about Texas’ version of the “stand your ground” law which was passed by the Legislature in 2007. Our piece examined a November 2011 decision by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, Morales v. State—the court’s first real opportunity to interpret the “stand your ground” self-defense which was inspired by the Florida “stand your ground” law and which has been the focus of bitter controversy surrounding the February 26, 2012 shooting death of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman. more...
April 6, 2012
THE SCARY WORLD IN WHICH WE LIVE
Warrants for Government Eavesdropping, Targeted Killings and Torture
By: Houston Criminal Lawyer John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
We live in a scary world! No doubt about that. We have street crime, gang crimes, hate crimes and terrorist violence, military violence, insurgent violence, police violence, and, less we forget, domestic violence. Clearly, there is more than enough crime and violence to go around in the world—violence that protects government-sponsored famine, political oppression, military suppression, and government spying.. more...
March 28, 2012
OUR SURVEILLANCE STATE
Technology allows Government to Cheat Constitutional Protections
By: Houston Criminal Lawyer John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in U.S. v. Jones, finding that the attachment of a GPS device to a suspect’s car is a search triggering Constitutional protections,has caused some interesting discussion regarding technology and law enforcement and doubts about what the Founding Fathers intended when drafting our Country’s greatest document. What is not in doubt is that technology will surely continue to press the capability and intent behind the Constitution of the United States. more...
November 8, 2011
MORE SHENANIGANS IN WILLIAMSON COUNTY DA’S OFFICE
DA Announces Policy of Hiding Brady, Potentially Exculpatory Evidence
By: Houston Criminal Lawyer John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
We have become convinced that the only way the Williamson County District Attorney’s office will operate in a lawful and ethical manner is for the State Bar to assign an ombudsman to oversee its day-to-day handling of criminal prosecutions. The behavior of this office in the Michael Morton case has already triggered four investigations, including one by the State Bar (here and here). Grits For Breakfast recently carried yet another report, which was first reported by Wilco Watchdog, concerning allegations of prosecutorial misconduct. This time the misconduct charges involve Assistant District Attorney Tommy Coleman who withheld exculpatory evidence in a 2010 theft case. more...
November 6, 2011
POLICE POWERS PUT IN CHECK
Recording Police Misconduct Protected by First Amendment
By: Houston Criminal Lawyer John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
Simon Glik was, and remains, a good citizen. He understands right from wrong no matter who the author of the wrongful action may be. So what he did on the evening of October 1, 2007 was a natural response of a good citizen. As he was walking past the Boston Common, he saw three of Boston’s finest arresting a young man. Moments later he heard a bystander exclaim, “you are hurting him, stop!” Glik, who was only ten feet away from the arresting officers, was concerned enough that the police were using “excessive force,” he began filming the incident on his cell phone. more...
October 25, 2011
WHAT’S THAT: A “RUNAWAY” GRAND JURY!
Harris County Grand Jury Probe focuses on HPD’s Breath-Testing Vans
By: Houston Criminal Lawyer John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
This is our fourth post this year concerning out of control law enforcement “no refusal” DWI policies (here, here, and here). We don’t like them. They are at best, we believe, an unconstitutional invasion of individual privacy. Worse yet, they smack of the kind of things done in a police state—individual rights eliminated to protect the so-called “good of the majority.” The Harris County District Attorney’s Office is high on these no-refusal policies and the so called “no refusal holidays,” which were the obsession of former Assistant District Attorney Warren Diepraam. The DWI enthusiast has since taken his skills and DWI attitudes to the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office where he occupies the position of “chief” of the Vehicular Crimes Section. more...
August 23, 2011
IMMUNITY DENIED FOR ROGUE PROSECUTOR
Reasonable Prosecutors Should Know Constitution is Implicated When Person is Deprived of Liberty by State Sponsored Seizure and Detention
By: Houston Criminal Lawyer John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
We have posted up several posts this year about prosecutorial misconduct and the tendency by the courts to tolerate, if not bless, this increasing phenomenon which is a disgrace to our criminal justice system. Well, we’re pleased to report that last month the U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit, in Schneyder v. Smith, held a rogue prosecutor accountable for her misconduct. more...
July 30, 2011
IT’S TIME TO OVERHAUL “NO REFUSAL” DWI WEEKENDS
HPD, Harris County District Attorney’s Office Present Flawed Evidence in DWI Cases
By: Houston Criminal Lawyer John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
We have thus far this year posted three articles reflecting our disdain, and distrust, of the Houston Police Department’s crime lab and the department’s “no refusal” DWI weekends (here, here, and here). The Houston Chronicle carried a recent article that not only vindicates our criticisms but raised red flags about how the crime lab operates its six “mobile breath-testing vans” used in its “no refusal” DWI weekend campaigns. The newspaper reported that a crime lab supervisor and two other scientists quit their jobs because they did not “trust the integrity” of the vans’ breath-testing results. more...
June 5, 2011
SUPREME COURT BLESSES LAW ENFORCEMENT MISCONDUCT
Lack of Criminal and Civil Accountability Points to Need for Criminal Justice Reform Commissions
By: Houston Criminal Lawyer John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
This session of the U.S. Supreme Court should be noted for its zealous protection of official misconduct by prosecutors and law enforcement officials. In two decisions, Connick v. Thompson and Ashcroft v. Al-Kidd, the nation’s highest court extended a constitutional license to prosecutors and police to violate the law. We have detailed the background facts of both these cases in previous posts (here and here). In the Thompson case, the Court ruled that several New Orleans assistant district attorneys, who were responsible for railroading an innocent man to Louisiana’s death row for 14 years, and the City of New Orleans were not liable for damages under the federal civil rights statute, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983. In the al-Kidd case, former U.S. Attorney John Ashcroft was insulated from civil damages under the same statute for permitting al-Kidd and other terrorists suspects to be held indefinitely, without any meaningful evidence of either personal wrongdoing or knowledge about wrongdoing, under the federal material witness statute, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 3144, in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. more...
May 28, 2011
TRANSGENDER RIGHTS: A DEVELOPING LEGAL FRONT
Transgendered Issues Confound Courts and Prison Officials
By: Houston Criminal Lawyer John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
The case of Justin Purdue has captured the interest and emotions of residents of Wharton County, as well as Harris County, for much of the past year. Purdue was born anatomically a man on June 4, 1975 in Camel, California but at some point in his life he believed he was more suited as a woman. He went through several medical procedures to change his appearance so as to be better able to live socially as a woman, although he continued to maintain male genitalia. In 1996 Pardue filed a pro se petition for a name change in Harris County changing his male name from “Justin” to “Nikki Paige Purdue.” Between 1999 and 2007 she used the name of Nikki Purdue-Mata because of a marriage to a man named Emilo Mata. The couple divorced in 2007. more...
April 17, 2011
UNDER SIEGE: A SOCIETY CONSUMED BY FEAR
Guilt by Association: Politically Inspired Fear of Muslims Continues to Infect Politics, Law Enforcement Investigations and Potential Jurors
By: Houston Criminal Lawyer John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
The month of March was saturated with state and national news events which seem to underscore an unfortunate point about Texas and America: we are a society under siege from fear of those we do not understand and, therefore, do not trust. The Ides of March began when New York’s Republican Congressman Rep. Peter King decided to conduct hearings on the threat of “radical Islam” in America. The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee defended his congressional inquiry into the “role” the “American Muslim community” has played in what’s become known as “homegrown terrorism.” more...
March 30, 2011
HARRIS COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY USES LINGUISTICS TO TRANSFORM OLD CASES INTO “COLD CASES”
Decades old cases are prosecuted without any new evidence and with critical fact witnesses missing or dead, increasing likelihood of wrongful convictions
By: Houston Criminal Lawyer John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
Roy McCaleb was murdered in Harris County on September 22, 1985. The Houston Chronicle reported that McCaleb’s wife, Carolyn Sue Krizan-Wilson, told the police that a gloved man entered their Galena Park home, raped her, and then shot her husband as he lay sleeping. She said the intruder was the same man who had raped her ten days earlier and he had somehow tracked her down in order to do it again. According to the newspaper, Krizan-Wilson did not report the earlier sexual assault to the police although her son at the time was in the Houston Police Department’s Training Academy. Krizan-Wilson, however, did make an “outcry” to a fellow employee shortly after the first rape occurred. She would later say she was too “embarrassed” to report the first rape. more...
February 24, 2011
POLICE MISCONDUCT: A GROWING EPIDEMIC?
Houston Police Department, Harris County Law Enforcement Gaining National Reputation for Police Abuse and Misconduct
By: Houston Criminal Lawyer John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
We have blogged in the past about the travesty of police misconduct, especially the kind where brutality is inflicted upon criminal suspects for no reason. The Houston Police Department (HPD) has now been shown in a couple recent disclosures of videos stomping, kicking, and beating defenseless, even handcuffed, suspects and these lawless acts of brutality have roiled this community with outrage, anger, and frustration (here and here). more...
January 3, 2010
“NO REFUSAL’ BLOOD DRAWS SPREAD
Harris County Goose-Stepping to the Beat of a MADD Drum
By: Houston Criminal Lawyer John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
Law enforcement authorities in Texas, and at least six other states, this past New Year weekend engaged in an aggressive anti-DWI campaign. It’s called “no refusal” weekends. In most states, including Harris County, Texas, a judge is on standby at these coordinated DWI traffic stops prepared to sign a warrant permitting the police to take a blood sample if a suspected DWI driver refuses to take the standard breathalyzer. Texas’ “no refusal” programs take it a step further: law enforcement officers can forcibly take a blood sample when a suspected DWI driver refuses to give what is called a voluntary “blood draw.” more...
December 1, 2010
REFORM CAN SOMETIMES BE BAD MEDICINE
Anonymous Inside Sources Criticize Harris County District Attorney
By: Houston Criminal Lawyer John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
Like all cold and flu medicine, “reform” at the governmental level sometimes gags those resistant to changing practices and policies away from the bad toward the good. Harris County District Attorney Pat Lykos was elected on the theme that she would introduce “reform” to the district attorney’s office and put an end to the often illegal and unethical practices of the “convict at any cost” which hallmarked the former administrations of Charles “Chuck” Rosenthal and his predecessor Johnny Holmes. The trial of a criminal case is controlled by three entities: the judge, the prosecutor, and the defense counsel. To be effective and responsible, each entity must do their job in an honest, decent, and fair way. That was seldom the case under Rosenthal and Holmes. more...
August 13, 2010
NO EXCUSE FOR POLICE BRUTALITY
Misdemeanor Charges for Beating of Handcuffed 15-Year Old Lead to Community Outrage
By: Houston Criminal Attorney John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
Four Houston police officers were indicted on June 23, 2010 on misdemeanor charges of “official oppression” in connection with the beating of a handcuffed 15-year-old black burglary suspect—an incident “caught on tape” by a private business surveillance camera. The officers were immediately terminated from duty by Houston Police Chief Charles McClelland after the complaints were announced. Three others involved in varying degrees in the beating and its aftermath were also fired. Five other officers were given two-day suspensions for “policy violations unrelated to the arrest” of the burglary suspect, although Chief McClelland did not disclose the roles of these five officers in the wake of the beating incident. more...
August 10, 2010
FEDERAL INMATE SAMUEL KENT DESERVES FAIR TREATMENT
Unpopular Judge Deserves Humane and Fair Treatment While in Federal Custody
By: Houston Criminal Attorney John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
Last year former U.S. District Court Judge Samuel Kent pleaded guilty to an obstruction of justice charge and received a 33-month sentence. He was committed to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons. Kent’s attorneys, Dick DeGuerin and Sean Buckley, recently filed a comprehensive motion in the U.S. District Court for the Houston Division to vacate and correct his prison sentence because of the physical and psychological abuse he has endured at the hands of federal prison officials. The abuse includes being mislabeled a “sex offender”—a status which precludes him from participating in certain substance abuse counseling programs—and being held in harsh solitary confinement while being transferred from one federal or state penal facility to another. more...
August 3, 2010
HOUSTON, HARRIS COUNTY NEEDS AN EMERGENCY DNA LAB
Independent DNA Lab Necessary to Successfully Prosecute Dangerous Criminals and Prevent Wrongful Convictions
By: Houston Criminal Attorney John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
Last month we posted a blog about the ever increasing need for an independent crime lab in Harris County. The Houston Chronicle reported recently about Harris County District Attorney Pat Lykos’ call for an “emergency DNA lab.” The newspaper reported that the Houston Police Department’s (HPD) DNA lab, which has been plagued with mismanagement and scandals over the past several years, has 4,076 rape kits dating back to 1996 which have not been DNA tested and another 969 criminal cases scheduled for DNA testing. more...
June 30, 2010
THE TIME HAS COME FOR AN INDEPENDENT REGIONAL CRIME LAB
Continued Scandals in Houston, Harris County Criminal Justice System Beg for Independent Regional Crime Lab
By: Houston Criminal Attorney John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
The “crime lab” for the Houston Police Department (HPD) has become a hotbed of flawed forensic evidence. Earlier this year we blogged about a Houston Chronicle report that taxpayers would have to pick up an $80,000 bill to a Science Laboratory and Training Centre contracted by the city to clear up a backlog of 300 firearms forensic cases in the HPD crime lab. Just weeks earlier we had blogged about yet another Chronicle report that found taxpayers would have to foot a $3 million bill to Ron Smith & Associates, a Mississippi-based consultant firm, for its consultants re-examine some 4,300 fingerprint cases processed by the HPD crime lab between 2004 and 2009, including significant number of violent cases, because the crime lab’s initial examinations were flawed. More recently the Chronicle reported that while the costly re-examination of the fingerprint cases for that five-year period did not reveal any wrongly identified suspects, Ron Smith consultants did find that HPD crime lab analysts had made “technical errors” in 62 percent of the cases it had examined. And the price tag to Ron Smith may now even go higher. The City Council is debating whether to give HPD an additional $2.3 million to keep the outside consultants operating in the crime lab’s troubled fingerprint unit during the next fiscal year. more...
June 12, 2010
TEXAS MAKING FUTURE CRIMINALS
Children in Foster Care Residential Treatment Centers at High Risk of Neglect, Mistreatment and Abuse
By: By Houston Criminal Attorney John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
In a 2002 article for Child Trends, Dr. Richard Werthheimer, Ph.d, said there were more than 556,000 children in foster care in this country—many of whom suffered from serious emotional, behavioral, developmental, and other health problems. That figure represented an increase from 302,000 in 1980. While black children at the time accounted for 15 percent of the nation’s children, they represented 30 percent of those entering foster care and 42 percent of those living in foster care. Hispanic children, who represented 16 of the nation’s children, represented just 18 percent entering and living in foster care. more...
June 9,2010
HOUSTON LAW ENFORCEMENT FACES TOUGH TIMES
Decreased Police Budget: Increased Unsolved Crime, Botched Investigations, Wrongful Arrests and Convictions
By: Houston Criminal Attorney John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
Thomas Hargrove, Scripps Howard News Service, reported last month that 6,000 homicides go unsolved in this country each year. Hargrove said the number of “unsolved homicides” has risen at an alarming rate even though the nation’s homicide rate has decreased to levels last seen in the 1960s. Most of these unsolved homicides occur in dozens of the nation’s largest cities. more...
May 7, 2010
POLICE BRUTALITY: A GROWING PANDEMIC
Houston Police Department Embroiled in Allegations of Brutality Again
By Houston Criminal Attorney John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
In a 2007 blog, Paul Craig Roberts wrote that “ … Americans are in a far greater danger from their own police force than they are from foreign terrorists … The only terrorists most Americans will ever encounter is a policeman with a badge, nightstick, mace and Taser. A Google search for ‘police brutality videos’ turns up 2,210,000 entries. Some entries are foreign and some are probably duplications, but the number is so large that a person could do nothing but watch police brutality videos for the rest of his life. A search on ‘You Tube’ alone turned up 2,280 police brutality videos.” more...
April 21, 2010
THE POLITICS OF SUPREME COURT NOMINATIONS
Obama Must Expose Judicial Activism of Right Wing and Nominate Justice with Abundance of Empathy for the Rights of the Individual and Protection of the Social Good
By: Houston Criminal Attorney John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
The recent retirement of Associate Justice John Paul Stevens has created the second opportunity for President Barak Obama to appoint a justice to the U.S. Supreme Court. The appointment of Supreme Court justices have always been roiled in political posturing by both Democrats and Republicans in Congress. In point of fact, Republicans have already laid out the gauntlet, warning the president that they are prepared fight the nomination of a “judicial activist.” more...
January 29, 2010
MORE EVIDENCE OF BAD EVIDENCE, AGAIN
Criminal Defense Attorneys Must Question Findings, Conclusions of Forensic Experts
By: Houston Criminal Attorney John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
We have posted a number of blogs about the “junk science” associated with forensic evidence—a science popularized by network television with drams like “CSI” and its spin-offs. It would indeed by an ideal world if all the evidence-gathering and analysis reflected in these TV programs reflected the real world of crime and criminal prosecutions. The reality is that while these shows may entertain their legion of loyal viewers, they do a tremendous disservice to our criminal justice system. http://www.newscientist.com They contribute to the popular acceptance among most jurors that “forensic evidence” is infallible when, in truth, the evidence analysis methodologies used in most of this science have never been validated and the end results have been tragic. According to the New York-based Innocence Project, nearly half of all the DNA exonerations in this country involved “false forensics,” not to mention the horrific way this flawed process undermines the integrity of our truth-seeking, albeit adversarial justice system. more...
January 24, 2010
VIOLENCE IS A NATURAL GROWTH INDUSTRY
Prison Systems Breed Future Violence
By: Houston Criminal Attorney John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
The Wall Street Journal (Jan. 8, 2010) carried a report about the decreasing violent crime rate across the country. The report, based on FBI statistics, said all major violent crimes—homicide, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault—have been decreasing since 2007. Homicides decreased by 4.4 percent between 2007 and 2008, and by 10 percent during the first six months of 2009. Major cities like Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and Los Angeles recorded decreases in homicides levels not seen since the 1960s. more...
January 5, 2010
A CALL FOR ACTION: A NEED FOR REAL CHANGE
To Regain Public Confidence Houston Police and Crime Labs Must Adhere to the Highest Standards of Competence, Independence and Integrity
By: Houston Criminal Attorney John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
Houston’s Mayor Annise Parker announced recently that she will replace the city’s outgoing police chief, Harold Hurtt, with someone from within the command rank of the Houston Police Department (HPD). We do not view this as a compelling promise of change. The HPD under Hurtt’s leadership was rocked by one “evidence gathering” scandal after another. It would be foolish to assume all these scandals were attributable to Hurtt’s management style alone. The scandals actually revealed a systemic problem within the HPD from its top command echelon down to the rank and file patrol officers. Thus, tapping someone within this problematic agency does not invite encouragement that integrity and professionalism in the department will improve immediately after Hurtt’s welcomed departure. more...
November 13, 2009
NO ACCOUNTABILITY FOR PROSECUTORS GONE ROGUE
Absolute Immunity from Civil Liability, Accountability for Prosecutors
By: Houston Criminal Attorney John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
The primary ethical and legal duty of a criminal prosecutor is to serve the interests of justice—not their personal interests of winning at any costs as is too often the case with a many prosecutors. This was made clear in October 2008 in the federal prosecution of then-Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) for high-profile corruption charges. The federal prosecutors in the case were determined to bring down one of the most powerful lawmakers in this country—at any costs. D.C. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan lambasted those prosecutors at the time saying that in his 25 years on the bench he had “never seen mishandling and misconduct like what I have seen” more...
October 30, 2009
TEXAS ATTORNEY DISCREDITS SPIRIT OF LEGAL PROFESSION
Flagrant Exhibit of Unprofessionalism, Disloyalty to Executed Client Adds to Nationwide Scrutiny of Willingham Execution
By Houston Criminal Attorney John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
We’re not in the habit of criticizing fellow criminal defense attorneys, but, and unfortunately, we feel compelled to discuss the antics of Mr. David Martin, of Corsicana, Texas, recently displayed on nationwide television. Martin was Cameron Todd Willingham’s defense attorney during Willingham’s August 1992 capital murder trial. Willingham had been charged with intentionally setting fire to his Corsicana, Texas house in December 1991 which killed his three small children. Martin was appointed to defend Willingham who maintained from the outset that he was innocent of starting the fire that killed the three children. more...
October24, 2009
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: A SENSITIVE SUBJECT TO APPROACH
October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month: Friends and Family Need to Get Involved to Stop the Cycle of Abuse, Save a Life
By: Houston Criminal Attorney John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
This past August Christiana “Tina” Guerra Lewis became another statistic; a victim of a social epidemic far more deadly than the HINI virus. The night before her death, according to the Houston Chronicle, Lewis asked her mother to go with her the next day to get a restraining order against R.P., a man with a lengthy criminal record with at least two dozen arrests including an assault on a family member and injuring a child. more...
August 29, 2009
REFORM OR INCOMPETENCE: THE PAT LYKOS ERA OFF TO UNCERTAIN START
Harris County District Attorney’s Office Administration Begins to Define Itself
By: Houston Criminal Defense Attorney John Floyd and paralegal Billy Sinclair
The Houston Chronicle reported recently in yet another article that a number of veteran prosecutors have departed from the Harris County District Attorney’s Office. Throughout DA Pat Lykos’ 2008 campaign to replace the former district attorney, Charles “Chuck” Rosenthal who was forced to resign in disgrace, rumors dogged the “reform” candidate that, as a criminal district court judge, Lykos had a reputation for being intemperate, rude, and pronged to stirring unrest in both her courtroom and chambers. more...
August 25, 2009
ASKING HARD QUESTIONS TO ARRIVE AT THE APPROPRIATE PUNISHMENT
Judges Should Question Victims, Witnesses, About Offense Before Imposing Punishment
By: Houston Criminal Defense Lawyer John Floyd and Billy Sinclair
Under Texas law, a criminal defendant has the option of allowing either the jury that convicted him or the judge presiding over the trial to assess punishment. more...
August 18, 2009
HOUSTON ATTORNEY ANDY NOLEN: A DISHONEST LAWYER?
False, Anonymous Web Attacks on Fellow Members of the Harris County Bar; Unethical and Pathetic
By Houston Criminal Defense Lawyer John Floyd
This is a difficult and unfortunate article to post. It is about a fellow attorney: Andy Nolen, or someone associated with the law firm that carries his name. This Houston “criminal defense attorney,” as he calls himself, has been responsible for posting negative “comments” on the Yahoo Local websites about various Harris County criminal defense attorneys, including myself. more...
August 3, 2009
SENTENCING ENTRAPMENT: A FALLOUT OF REFORM
Prosecutors and Law Enforcement Officials Manipulate Investigations, Defendants Receive Greater Sentences
By: Houston Criminal Attorney John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
What is sentencing entrapment?
In a syndicated column that appeared in the Houston Chronicle (July 23, 2009), Larry Frankel, the legislative counsel for the ACLU in Washington, D.C., called sentencing entrapment “a little-known phenomenon in our criminal justice system” and it occurs “when the government through its agents or informants makes a person, who may have a predisposition to engage in one sort of criminal activity, to engage in more serious criminal activity that exposes that person to harsher punishment.” more...
July 21, 2009
MENTALLY RETARDED TEEN GETS 100 YEARS
Mentally Disabled Youth with IQ Of 47, Allowed to Plead Guilty to Sexual Assault of a Child, Judge Orders Sentences to be Served Consecutively
By: Houston Criminal Defense Attorney John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
The jury said it did not like the sentencing options made available to it. The judge said he was not pleased that he had to sentence an 18-year-old Paris, Texas teenager to 100 years in prison. The district attorney said he “sympathized” with teenager’s situation but it had to be remembered that he “committed a violent sexual crime against a little boy.” more...
May 12, 2009
JUDGE SAMUEL KENT: SHOULD HE BE IMPEACHED?
SHOULD HE CONTINUE TO RECEIVE HIS PENSION?
By: Houston Criminal Defense Attorney John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
These two questions have stirred considerable debate in both the legal community and general public in south Texas. Normally it is not a subject that would provoke a response by us. But the tenor of those demanding the impeachment of Judge Kent and those who have said he should not receive his pension have caused us some concern. Now that the federal judge has sentenced to 33 months in prison, we decided to weigh in on these two important questions. more...
March 9, 2009
THE PERILS OF POWER
Power Corrupted and the Struggle for the Rule of Law
By: Houston Criminal Attorney John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
Harris County District Attorney Pat Lykos recently announced that local defense attorneys will be provided with copies “offense report(s)’ prepared by police in criminal cases. This new policy in Harris County, which should have been standard practice for years, is slowing making its way to the court rooms. Of course, the policy comes with caveats such as confidentiality agreements, redactions etc. This disclosure policy removes another corrupt vestige from the era of former District Attorney Charles “Chuck” Rosenthal—an era when suppression of favorable evidence, perjured testimony, manufactured evidence, and corruption of forensic evidence passed for the “rule of law” as his assistant district attorneys competed in a “conviction at any cost” prosecutorial environment. more...
February 25, 2009
“BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK” FOR JUDGES IN SOUTH TEXAS
Judges Reap What They Sowed
By Houston Criminal Defense Attorney John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
There may be no Hero to the rescue in this dark drama hanging over the state and federal judiciaries in South Texas. The clouds in the horizon are as ominous as those that preceded Hurricane Ike last September. A sitting federal judge, the Honorable Samuel Kent who formerly oversaw maritime law cases for the past seventeen years in Galveston, was facing trial in a Houston federal district court on federal sex crime charges. The local media was reporting that attorneys who regularly practiced before Judge Kent were following the case with utter amazement and, we suspect, a near morbid fascination. more...
February 14, 2009
OBJECTIONS, BOLSTERING, AND APPELLATE REVIEW
Objections to Bolstering Testimony Should Communicate Evidentiary Basis
By: Houston Criminal Defense Attorney John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
The Texas Rules of Evidence, Article 103, requires that a timely objection be based on a specific ground in order to preserve for appellate review an alleged trial error concerning the admissibility of evidence. more...
February 3, 2009
IS LARRY RAY SWEARINGEN GUILTY OF CAPITAL MURDER?
Actual Innocence Not Recognized Ground for Relief in Federal Habeas Corpus Jurisprudence
By: Houston Criminal Defense Attorney John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
Is Larry Ray Swearingen guilty of capital murder? The State of Texas, through Montgomery County Assistant District Attorney Marc Brumberger, believes that he is. The parents of Melissa Trotter, Charles and Sandra Trotter, believe that he is. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals believes that he is. more...
December 17, 2008
A DISTRICT ATTORNEY’S OFFICE IN NEED OF REFORM
By Houston Criminal Defense Lawyer John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
In October 2002 two young boys were playing together in downtown Houston when they were approached by a stranger who offered them money in exchange for removing some trash. One of the boys, who was eight years of age at the time, was lured into a nearby vacant house and sexually molested by the stranger. more...
December 14, 2008
THE CONFLICTING FACES OF CRIME
By: Houston Criminal Defense Attorney John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
The front page of the December 13, 2008 Houston Chronicle, in bold headlines, presented a stunning paradox: two tragic, conflicting faces of crime in Harris County. The first face was captured in the headline “A Touching Tribute to Slain Policeman.” The second face was captured by the headline “Freed by DNA to Life as an Innocent Man.” The two faces inevitably evoked a torrent of conflicting emotions in the average reader. more...
November 13, 2008
YES WE CAN
By Houston Criminal Defense Attorney John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
The “election” is over. Former Illinois Senator Barack Obama is now President-elect Obama. While it was a tremendous victory for the “Audacity of Hope” movement, it was an even greater victory for those who believe that social justice, racial tolerance, political unity, and strong presidential leadership are needed for this nation to heal its daunting economic woes and restore its proper role as moral leader in the world community. more...
November 3, 2008
PROSECUTORIAL OVERCHARGING
By Houston Criminal Attorney John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
One of the quiet abuses in the nation’s criminal justice system is prosecutors overcharging criminal defendants. In their zeal to prosecute and convict, prosecutors file multiple counts against a defendant in a single indictment involving the same criminal conduct knowing – or least possessing the duty to know – that two convictions based on the same conduct will almost always be reversed on appeal. Criminal defense lawyers argue that many prosecutors charge multiple counts against a defendant in an attempt to prejudice a defendant, insinuating that the defendant must have done something to justify the multiple counts. There were two recent examples of this prosecutorial abuse – one involving a Texas case and the other involving a federal case in California. more...
September 19, 2008
PAST WRONGS BEYOND THE REACH OF PROSECUTION
By: Houston Criminal Defense Attorney John T. Floyd and Senior Paralegal Billy Sinclair
Several years ago the Federal Bureau of Investigation created a Cold Case Initiative designed to bring to justice persons who committed horrific racially motivated crimes during the 1950s and 1960s civil rights era. One of those cases involved James Ford Seale, a former Mississippi deputy sheriff, who was convicted in June 2007 of kidnapping and conspiracy to commit kidnapping in the disappearances of Charles Eddie Moore and Henry Hezekiah Dee. more...
August 19, 2008
THE GALVESTON BABY KILLERS
By: Criminal Houston Criminal Defense Attorney John T. Floyd and Senior Paralegal Billy Sinclair
The District Attorney’s Office in Galveston, Texas, has in recent months confronted death penalty decisions in two high profile cases involving parents brutally murdering their children. Both cases allegedly involved parents killing their children in a calculated, premeditated manner. In April 2008 the District Attorney elected not to seek the death penalty in one case but in August 2008 decided to seek the death penalty in the other. Why?
August 13, 2008
ANOTHER HORRIFIC BUS CRASH ON A TEXAS HIGHWAY
By: Criminal Houston Criminal Defense Attorney John T. Floyd and Senior Paralegal Billy Sinclair
Most people automatically assume that when they board a commercial or chartered bus, they will safely reach their destination. Greyhound and Trailways over a four decade period from the 1940s through the 1970s ingrained that assumption in the American psyche. Before the explosion of air travel in this country in the 1980s, bus travel was considered an economically efficient and fairly comfortable way of traveling across a nation that spans four time zones. more...
July 30, 2008
JUSTICE DENIED TO RAMOS AND COMPEAN BY A FIFTH CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS RULING
By: Criminal Houston Criminal Defense Attorney John T. Floyd and Senior Paralegal Billy Sinclair
Fabens, Texas is located thirty miles southeast of El Paso just across the Rio Grande from Mexico. 95 percent of the people living in the town of 8,000 are poor and Hispanic. It’s a young town – the median age is 24 years compared to the median Texas age of 32. The average household income is $18,000 annually compared to $43,000 for the rest of Texas. In a nutshell, it’s a “dusty, little Border town” that stands as open invitation for major Mexican drug traffickers like Oswaldo Aldrete-Davila. more...
June 12, 2008
BARRY BONDS: HOME RUN KING OR STEROID USER?
By: Criminal Houston Criminal Defense Attorney John T. Floyd and Senior Paralegal Billy Sinclair
Barry Bonds was 21 years of age when he joined the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1986. He was lean, mean, and fast – and certainly not considered a fearsome home run slugger. During his first seven years in the majors, he averaged 25 home runs a year. Then in 1998 St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Mark McGuire eclipsed Roger Maris’ record of 61 home runs in a season by pumping out 70 home runs. The following year Bonds showed up for spring training with the San Francisco Giants with a “bulked up” upper body. In 102 games that year, he still managed to hit 39 home runs. In 2000, Bonds appeared in 143 games and the new “Giant slugger” hammered out 49 home runs. The following year Bonds’ “ballooned up” upper body looked awkward in what appeared to be match-stick legs but it was enough for him to easily breezed by McGuire’s record with 73 home runs. During his last seven full playing seasons (not including 2005 in which he played only 14 games and hit a meager 5 home runs), Bonds averaged 44 home runs. More...
May 11, 2008
SERIOUS OVERCROWDING IN THE HARRIS COUNTY JAIL
By: Criminal Houston Criminal Defense Attorney John T. Floyd and Senior Paralegal Billy Sinclair
The Houston Chronicle recently reported that the Harris County Sheriff’s Department requested, and received, permission to transfer an additional 1,130 inmates to the West Carroll Detention Center in Epps, Louisiana. The private Louisiana-based detention center is already the home to 600 Harris County inmates at an annual cost of $6 million to local taxpayers. The additional 1130 inmates will cost taxpayers another $15.5 million annually. More...
May 3, 2008
“ICE” FLEXES DEPORTATION MUSCLE
By: Criminal Houston Criminal Defense Attorney John T. Floyd and Senior Paralegal Billy Sinclair
The United States Homeland Security unit known as ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) announced a recent $3 billion effort to deport approximately 450,000 illegal immigrants who are locked up each year in the nation’s jails and prisons. More...
April 10, 2008
PROSECUTORS, MISCONDUCT, AND RACE
By: Criminal Houston Criminal Defense Attorney John T. Floyd and Senior Paralegal Billy Sinclair
The Harris County District Attorney’s office has found itself embroiled in political controversy over the last six months: racially charged and sexually explicit e-mails, the resignation of Chuck Rosenthal, a feud with a grand jury, involvement in a civil rights lawsuit that will cost the county several million dollars, and media criticism of prosecutorial tactics utilized to secure criminal convictions at any cost. More...
March 20 2008
PROSTITUTION, POLITICIANS AND PUNISHMENT
By: Criminal Houston Criminal Defense Attorney John T. Floyd and Senior Paralegal Billy Sinclair
New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer recently became the 22nd governor in the history of the United States to leave office under a cloud of scandal before their term ended. He is the 12th governor to resign because of political or legal problems. The other ten governors were either legally removed from office or impeached. Spitzer was forced to resign after it was revealed that he was “Client 9” who paid as much as $80,000 to a $1,000-an-hour call girl under federal indictment in an Internet prostitution ring. Interestingly, six other governors in modern times have survived “sex scandals” while in office and managed to complete their terms. More...
February 3, 2007
PROSTITUTION: “THE WORLD’S OLDEST PROFESSION” AND NOW A VERY SERIOUS CRIME
By: Criminal Houston Criminal Defense Attorney John T. Floyd and Senior Paralegal Billy Sinclair
Eric Hayes and Terrence Williams were “pimps” in a nationwide prostitution ring until they were convicted last October in a Toledo, Ohio federal court. In fact, they referred to themselves as “pimp partners.” Their prostitution ring used both juvenile and adult women who were trained and disciplined to live off the earnings from their “johns.” The pimp partners ran a lucrative criminal enterprise that set a fee schedule for particular sexual services, controlled certain areas where only their prostitutes could work, and shared information with other pimps about the activities of the police in their area.
Their immense area of operation spanned 12 states, including Texas, and the District of Columbia. More...
January 20, 2007
ATHELETES, STEROIDS, FALSE STATEMENTS AND PERJURY: THE NEED FOR COUNSEL
By: Criminal Houston Criminal Defense Attorney John T. Floyd and Senior Paralegal Billy Sinclair
Marion Jones was an astounding Olympian sprinter who captured five Gold medals. She was the darling of not only the international sports world but of the American people as well. Then the world collapsed around this charming sports figure. In 2003 a federal criminal investigation was initiated in Northern California concerning the distribution of anabolic steroids, other illegal performance-enhancing drugs, and related money-laundering activities. The investigation centered on Balco Laboratories, a corporation that performed blood-tests for athletes. More...
January 13, 2008
WHEN WILD ANIMALS ATTACK
By: Criminal Houston Criminal Defense Attorney John T. Floyd and Senior Paralegal Billy Sinclair
It was last Christmas evening. Most of the visitors at the San Francisco Zoo had given way to the approaching chill of evening and left for a dinner meal with family and friends. Rather than spending the evening with his family as they wanted, 17-year-old Carlos Sousa joined two brothers, 23-year-old Kulbir Dhaliwal and 19-year-old Paul Dhaliwal, for a trip to the zoo. More...
December 31, 2007
THE AGE OF STEROIDS OR STEROID RAGE?
By: Criminal Houston Criminal Defense Attorney John T. Floyd and Senior Paralegal Billy Sinclair
On December 13, 2007 former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell submitted to Major League Baseball what has become known as “the Mitchell Report.” The “report” is the culmination of a 20-month investigation into the illegal use of steroids by major league baseball players. The Mitchell Report named 86 current and former players from all 30 major league teams as having used steroids during their playing careers. Two of the most prominent players named in the report are seven-time Cy Young Award winner Roger Clemens and current Yankee and former Astros pitcher Andy Pettitte. More...
November 7, 2007
HUMAN TRAFFICKING
By: Criminal Houston Criminal Defense Attorney John T. Floyd and Senior Paralegal Billy Sinclair
The Houston CHRONICLE, in a front-page October 28, 2007 article entitled “Houston a Major Hub for Human Trafficking,” reported that the U.S. State Department estimates that approximately 17,500 people are trafficked into the United States each year. More...
November 2, 2007
POLICE CUSTODY DEATHS
By: Criminal Houston Criminal Defense Attorney John T. Floyd and Senior Paralegal Billy Sinclair
This past summer Houston police were summoned to a “disturbance call” at a home in the 9200 block of Denton. The call had been placed by the mother of 35-year-old Johnell Patrick, a thrice-convicted drug offender. More...
August 28, 2007
THE MICHAEL VICK SAGA
By: Criminal Houston Criminal Defense Attorney John T. Floyd and Senior Paralegal Billy Sinclair
Michael Vick and Don Imus. What do they have in common. Well, to begin with, soup for the goose, soup for the gander.
Both became well known public figures, celebrities of sorts – one as a highly proficient NFL quarterback and the other as a quasi shock-jock. Both used their special talents to become icons in their individual professions; both shocking and astonishing people inside and outside their respective media- driven careers with individual bad choices.
Then they both suffered an ignominious fall from public grace because of incredibly stupid personal behavior. Imus chose to refer on-the-air to the ladies of the Rutgers University basketball team as “nappy-headed ‘hoes” and Vick chose to fight dogs (pit bulls, mostly; some of whom were killed) and operate a gambling enterprise around this criminal enterprise.
But beyond these stupid personal choices, the two men enjoyed yet another bond – both were victims of orchestrated public outrage. More...
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