On February 17, 2007, paramedics in Harlingen, Texas, responded to a call at an apartment shared by Melissa Lucio and her husband, Robert Alvarez. The EMTs found the couple’s two-year-old daughter, Mariah, unresponsive and, according to police reports, covered with…
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION
Criminal Jurisdiction:
A Criminal Law Blog from a Defense Perspective
2022
Category: Illegal Pornography | Sex Crimes
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) maintains a staff of 50 people in its headquarters in Washington, D.C., and in offices in four states (Texas, Florida, California, and New York) that receive tips and collect images provided…
2022
Category: Criminal Justice Reform | Police Misconduct | Prosecutorial Misconduct
As of April 1, 2022, the National Registry of Exonerations (NRE) reported 3,050 exonerations in the U.S. since 1989. These cases represent 26,700 lost years in prison because of wrongful convictions, many of which were obtained through intentional prosecutorial and…
2022
Lynching has both a tragic and sordid place in American history. After a century of failed efforts, lynching is now considered a “hate crime” under federal law. Those failed efforts, and the fact that some would oppose lynching as a…
2022
Category: Federal Criminal Law | Obstruction of Justice
Obstruction of justice may appear in dramatic movie courtroom scenes, but it can, and sometimes is, charged as a real criminal offense—one that carries significant consequences – especially when charged at the federal level.
What sort of actions constitute “obstruction…
2022
Category: Drug Crime | Drug Distribution | Drug Manufacturing | Drug Trafficking
The federal government takes drug crimes very seriously. Federal prosecutors go to great lengths to make sure that possession, manufacture, and trafficking of drugs offenses receive the most severe sentence allowable under the law and the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines.
…
2022
Category: Child Abuse | Illegal Pornography | Sex Crimes Against Children
Child pornography is a serious criminal offense that causes immediate and profound revulsion. Make no mistake about that.
The recent U.S. Senate confirmation hearings relating to Judge Kenji Brown Jackson’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court created the impression…
2022
The Preamble of the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct for a lawyer’s responsibility for their “client’s position under the rules of the adversary system.”
That responsibility has no gray area. In the criminal arena, a lawyer must represent each…
2022
Category: Corruption | Hate Crime
Hate and the crimes it produces do incredible damage to the social fabric—what author and “values education” expert Nigel Cohen calls our shared values of “respect, kindness, compassion, trust and joy” that make society safe humane. For example, a community…
2022
Category: Federal Criminal Law | Weapon Crimes
Weapons charges in Texas generally trigger images of large numbers of guns and/or knives. However, when it comes to weapons charges under the law, it doesn’t end with guns or knives. There are many things that are considered weapons.
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