News
Dean Strang and Social Media
At yesterday’s GACDL Winter Seminar, Dean Strang spoke, not so much on Making a Murderer but on systemic failures of the criminal justice system that are on display in the documentary series. Those issues include poverty, the fact that the treatment of juveniles has not caught up with the research on brain development, and issue…
Read MoreWhen The Lawyer Works Too Hard and is Penalized
The New York Times ran an article this week about a lawyer in Galveston, Texas, who was penalized by a judge for working took hard on his cases. The matter is the subject of a Federal lawsuit. The lawyer was appointed by the judge to represent a man charged with breaking into a car. The…
Read MoreNew Podcast from GACDL
The Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers has a new podcast up. In episode 1, I interview criminal defense attorney and author Jason Sheffield about his new novel. But we get into some other topics such as attorney-client relationships, law practice management, and the good and bad of law school education in America. This was…
Read MoreBeyond A Reasonable Doubt is Only a Criminal Law Concept
In the wake of recent stories in the Washington Post where women have accused Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore of inappropriate sexual contact with them when they were teens and when Mr. Moore was in his 30s, there has been much discussion of the legal concepts of “innocent until proven guilty” and “proof beyond a…
Read MoreDefending the Worth County Sheriff
I make no judgment here about whether the Worth County Sheriff is a good man, a good sheriff, or whether it was a good idea to lock down a high school and conduct a massive drug search of the student body without probable cause (he sounds like he has poor judgment). I write about whether…
Read MoreIs Court Canceled or Not? There is no System to Know
Irma has been an adventure. It was an adventure that started last Friday when I drove down to Mitchell County, Georgia (about as far Southwest as you can go in the state and not be in Florida or Alabama). I drove down to see a habeas client for final preparations for what would have been…
Read MoreAdding the Appellate Guy
Robert Mueller recently made a serious move. He brought in an appellate guy. Michael Dreeben has argued 100 cases in the United States Supreme Court and has been with the Solicitor General’s office since 1988. The move indicated, even to the people at Fox News, that things are about to get serious. This investigation now…
Read MoreIs This the Hill You Want to Die Defending?
There has been much ado about a controversy at Duke Divinity School. I will leave aside, for purposes of this blog the elements of race, gender and politics. Those articles and blog posts are being written. For a few paragraphs here, I want to discuss this controversy as an opportunity for a practice pointer when…
Read MoreThe Lawyer Award Industrial Complex
Awards are catnip for lawyers. We like praise. And unless you’re a prosecutor or civil defense attorney, you do not often get it from judges or appellate courts. And, even when you win the case, you can be hard pressed to receive it from clients. And yet we lawyers hold ourselves in very high regard.…
Read MoreArtificial Intelligence is a Net Positive for Lawyers
A recent New York Times article explores whether artificial intelligence is replacing lawyers or whether it will in the future. The basic conclusion is that humans are necessary for legal work for the time being. As an attorney who does litigation, with an emphasis on appeals, habeas, sentencing, motions practice, and some limited trial work, I…
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