Category Archives: Search and Seizures

Open Carry of Handguns in Texas: Get Ready

You may assume that it’s not allowed anywhere in the United States for an ordinary citizen to carry their gun openly in public display, but you’re wrong if you do. It’s not. In fact, it’s strange but true that until this month Texas (that’s right, Texas!) was one of only a few states (the others…


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…


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…