Category Archives: Search and Seizures

When The Police Stop You: the Law and Your Need for a Zealous Defense Lawyer

The death of Freddie Gray while in the custody of the Baltimore Police Department continues to be big news here in Dallas and the rest of the country: this week, the six police officers who were arrested in connection with what the medical examiner ruled a homicide of Freddie Gray are quickly beginning their defense….


Can You Trust the Police? Police Excessive Force and the Dallas D.A. List of Names

Much of the news this week revolves around aspects of the rioting in Baltimore, Maryland, which began on the afternoon of Freddie Gray’s funeral, a man who died while in police custody and whom many believe was another victim of police excessive force. The death of Freddie Gray comes not so long after the Ferguson…


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…


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…


Child Porn Charges: Busted By FBI Computer Surveillance and Now, Private Web Hackers on Social Media

Federal authorities in North Texas and the Dallas – Fort Worth metro area are working very hard it seems at investigating and charging people with child pornography sex crime charges. .   Recent Computer-Related Federal Child Porn Charges Consider the following five examples of news releases from the local FBI (Dallas) office and the U.S….


Holder’s New Limits on Asset Forfeiture: Big Deal.

Last Friday, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder revealed new federal limits on asset forfeiture, possibly due to the growing public awareness and criminal defense outcry concerning the shocking ways in which local police departments and various state agencies have been profiting through the seizure of private property without bothering to arrest the property owner.  Literally…


Heroin Arrests in Dallas and North Texas: Billboards, Big Brother, and Civil Rights in Heroin Cases

In George Orwell’s classic novel 1984, Oceania was ruled by a character called “Big Brother,” who oversaw the ruling government that held total control over the citizens “for its own sake.” (If you read this back in high school, this is where you probably learned about the “totalitarian” form of government.) Orwell wrote of every…


Texas Police Excessive Force: Concern Isn’t Just the Police Officer, It’s the Entire Police Department

For the past two nights, there has been rioting in Ferguson, Missouri, in the aftermath of the grand jury determination not to bring charges against a police officer who used lethal force. That’s Missouri; what about police and lethal force here in Dallas and North Texas? Good question. 1. Dallas Web Site: Police Department’s Lethal…


Dallas County Opens Digital Crime Lab: DA Snoops Your Cell Phone

There was an important news update out of Craig Watkins’ office that may have been overshadowed yesterday, what with all the November 2014 Election coverage and the scoop that Watkins lost his job to Republican challenger Susan Hawk. After all, there’s lots to ponder in Dallas criminal justice circles about what Hawk’s transition into the…


Will Media Coverage Finally Stop Government From Grabbing Your Property in Forfeiture?

 Finally, the public is waking up to the wrong that is civil forfeiture laws – something that we’ve been monitoring here since April 2010. There’s still lots to be done, but there is reason to be optimistic that the government’s ability to grab your property without any criminal wrongdoing even being alleged on your part…