This past September the Texas Fair Defense Project, the law firm of Susan Godfrey (Houston), and the Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group, Equal Justice Under Law, filed a class action civil rights lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Houston challenging…
Author: John Floyd
2016
Category: Criminal Justice Reform
Sandra Bland was arrested for a minor traffic violation by a Texas state trooper in Waller County in July 2015. She was placed in the county jail. Three days later she was found hanging in her jail cell. This past…
2016
Category: Election 2016 | Federal Criminal Law | Fraud
Had our country elected Hillary Clinton, it would have made history. She would have been the first female president ever in the United States.
However, by electing Donald Trump, the country faced another moment in history: the first president…
2016
Category: Criminal Law
During the recent presidential election, President-elect Donald Trump pledged to make African-American neighborhoods “safe.” As part of this campaign rhetoric, Trump promised to give the police more power to make these neighborhoods “safe.”
Abuse of Power, Stop and Frisk,…
2016
Category: Drug Trafficking | Federal Criminal Law
In 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court in Katz v. United States announced a series of exceptions to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement. One of those exceptions is the “plain view” evidence exception; i.e., the police may seize items of contraband…
2016
Category: Federal Criminal Law
All judges, especially those at the federal level, must be careful about what they say either in public or during official judicial forums. U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge John Primono forgot this rule of professional conduct on November 18, 2016…
2016
Category: Federal Criminal Law | federal Sentencing
Attorneys who regularly represent clients in federal court understand one disturbing trend—U.S. attorneys are doggedly trying to force criminal trials to a point of extinction. It can be said that many criminal defendants are, in fact, guilty and their admissions…
2016
Category: Appeals | Drug Trafficking | federal Sentencing
A federal plea agreement is a binding contract between the U.S. Government and a criminal defendant. It is sometimes proffered but more often than not is the result of negotiations between Assistant U.S. Attorneys and criminal defense attorneys.
97…
2016
Category: Appeals | Criminal Law
The laws that apply to guilt do not always apply to punishment—at least that is the position of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TexCrimApp). This can create a slippery slope in cases where new evidence tends to undermine both…
2016
Category: Prosecutorial Misconduct
As we have discussed before, the Harris County District Attorney’s Office has a long history of rogue prosecutors who engaged in all sorts of unethical and sometimes illegal conduct to advance their professional careers.
Take, for example, former, and…