Category Archives: DA Watch
Year in Review: Things for Dallas to Consider From a Criminal Defense Perspective
How Dangerous is It to Live or Work in Dallas County? Here we are at the end of another year. Let’s take a minute and consider where things stand as we enter 2016, from a North Texas Criminal Defense perspective: 1. Dallas County Is Really, Really Dangerous As reported by Grits for Breakfast this week,…
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Sexual Assault Arrests for 10 Year Old Crimes: Cold Case Rape Kit Backlog Prosecutions in Dallas and North Texas
This summer, Dallas County District Attorney Susan Hawk announced that she had hired a new prosecutor and an investigator for her Sexual Assault Unit especially to try rape cases based on all the rape kits that are finally being tested here. Dallas and North Texas should expect to see arrests being made in cold case…
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Waco Justice? 100 Days After Twin Peaks Biker Arrests, Things Look Fishy to Criminal Defense
Today, the Dallas Morning News published an editorial calling for the end of the gag order down in Waco which prevents law enforcement and state authorities — much less anyone else — from revealing information about the May 17, 2015 shootout involving lots of bikers and motorcycle club members at the Twin Peaks restaurant in…
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District Attorneys Keep Doing Bad Things: More Texas Prosecutorial Misconduct Stories
The problem of prosecutors doing bad things like hiding evidence and introducing unreliable (or false) testimony isn’t getting better. Recently, the Daily Beast published an expose on prosecutorial misconduct in the United States, labeling the problem a national epidemic. You can read their take on things in the article written by Jay Michaelson and published…
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Police That Lie: More on the Secret Texas District Attorney Lists of Police Officers Not Trustworthy to Take the Witness Stand
Prosecutors have lists of the names of police officers and deputy sheriffs that they don’t trust to take the witness stand — did you know these lists existed? Do you think that every police officer is honest and trustworthy to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth on the stand? Brady…
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Fighting the Prosecutor on Just Punishment: Evidence on Sentencing and Probation After a Conviction in Texas
For many people, maybe because it seems like it in so many TV shows, criminal trials are one big event. It’s exciting and fast-paced, where the attorneys roam the courtrooms, there’s very little paperwork, and there are lots of people going up to the witness stand for short stints. In reality, things are different. Two…
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Update on Law of Asset Forfeitures: Federal and Texas – Are You Any Safer?
As the general public becomes more and more aware, and more and more shocked, over police forfeiture actions – where private property is taken by law enforcement regardless of whether or not the owner has been involved in a crime, much less convicted, there’s been talk about changing forfeiture laws at both the federal and…
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FBI Scandal: Forensic FBI Experts Give False and Flawed DNA Evidence To Get Convictions
This is very bad and it’s going to get worse. Yesterday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Department of Justice finally came forward and admitted that the FBI forensic evidence provided in countless criminal trials over the past two decades has in almost every single case been flawed and unreliable if not downright…
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Dallas D.A. Forfeiture Funds: The Temptation of All That Stuff and the Craig Watkins Scandal
Here in Dallas, more and more people are aware of how government authorities have been seizing property from people without sufficient judicial process and keeping those assets for their own uses. This is good because forfeiture is a big problem that not enough folk realize exists. We’ve been discussing this problem — the problem of…
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Stingray Use by Feds and Local Police is Growing: Are You Being Monitored?
Police officers and law enforcement agencies are limited by the federal constitution as well as federal and state laws in what they can do. They are not supposed to snoop on citizens or eavesdrop on people unless they’ve got specific legal authorization to do so. . . The problem is — as any experienced criminal…
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10 Questions to Ask Before you Hire a Dallas Criminal Defense Lawyer
Top 5 Mistakes in Defending a Texas Criminal Case
