Life at the Harris County Criminal Justice Center

Please join me and host Todd Dupont on Thursday, March 29, 2012 for Reasonable Doubt, where our guest will be Democratic candidate for District Attorney, Lloyd Oliver.  Yes, Lloyd Oliver.  Lloyd is currently challenging Zack Fertitta for the Democratic nomination. Not many folks know about Lloyd's platform, policies or ideas, and all polite questions will be welcome. As always, you can tune in to watch it live streaming at 8:00 p.m. by clicking here .

I'm being lazy today and outsourcing my blogging duties to Mark Bennett's Defending People . He's got a really good article on the D.A.'s Office today.  Check it out by clicking here .

For those of you who missed Joe's appearance last Thursday on Reasonable Doubt, he did a great job.  Here's the instant replay.  Look for a special guest appearance in the first half hour, by the way. Reasonable Doubt, March 22, 2012, Joe Vinas from HCCLA on Vimeo .

For those who have been rumbling that the disconnect between the police agencies of Harris County and Pat Lykos' District Attorney's Office is strictly political, perhaps this story being aired by Channel 11 and other news agencies might give you an alternative perspective. It seems that every summer we hear of at least one tragic case of a child dying because he or she was left alone in a hot car.  For every one of those cases, there are numerous other ones where fortunately the child wasn't permanently harmed. Some of those cases should most definitely NOT be filed.  Although leaving a child in the car unattended for any  amount of time is never  a good idea, a five minute lapse in judgment while Mom runs into the cleaners doesn't necessarily warrant a felony charge of Abandoning a Child.  Somewhere along the slippery slope that runs between that scenario and a man who leaves two infants in a car while shopping for a firearm, one could argue that charges should b

There was not a tremendous amount of news coming out of the CJC this week other than today's revelation that Lykos political hire and judicial candidate hopeful Lana Shadwick is moving to the Grand Jury Division (upon her request). Now, as much as I love the fact that those political hires made by the Pat Lykos Administration pretty much get to dictate where they want to serve within the Office, I feel it is worthwhile to point out that this is the fourth slot that Lana has served in since arriving at the Office in 2009 (with little to no experience as a prosecutor).  Ms. Shadwick has already bounced from Child Abuse, Family Violence, and Appellate during her brief tenure at the District Attorney's Office. Please keep in mind that although 99.9% of all prosecutors at one point or another spend at least some  time in the trial bureau, Shadwick drew a special exception from Pat Lykos.  Perhaps Lykos thought that having the ex -wife of a prominent former Judge would provide s

Join us tonight at 8 p.m. for Reasonable Doubt  with me and Todd Dupont.  Our scheduled guest in Republican candidate for the 174th District Court Joe Vinas .  Note, I say "scheduled" because he still had a  potential scheduling conflict that he had to resolve.  Hopefully he will be able to work it out and be on the show. Over the next coming weeks, we hope to have all the candidates in contested primaries on the show.  We've extended invitations to Pat Lykos and, yes, even Lloyd Oliver to be on the show for the D.A. race.  All episodes with candidates will get posted on the blog. So, join us tonight at 8 p.m.  You can watch it live streaming online by clicking here .

This speaks for itself. Pat Lykos' answer seems to be in direct contrast to Sec. 481.115 under the Controlled Substances Act.

It was recently brought to my attention that I failed to put Democratic Candidate for Harris County District Attorney Zack Fertitta's episode of Reasonable Doubt on the blog after his appearance last month.  That was an oversight and I apologize to Zack for the tardiness of this video.  I hope to put all the candidates we interview on the blog.   Reasonable Doubt, February 9, 2012, Zack Fertitta from HCCLA on Vimeo . Now, we are just waiting for Pat Lykos and Lloyd Oliver's appearances. ***NOTE:  Dupont's beard is not getting shorter.  The videos are just getting out of order.

Several of you have written in asking if there is a way to see Judge Anderson's appearance on Reasonable Doubt from last Thursday.  Now, thanks to the technological work of Franklin Bynum, there is.  See below. Reasonable Doubt, March 8, 2012, Judge Mike Anderson from HCCLA on Vimeo .

As I pointed out a few posts ago, the primary for Texas is Tuesday, May 29th.  When the powers that be set that date, it temporarily re-opened the field for any aspiring candidates that wanted to run for public office.  That temporary re-opening ended yesterday at 6 p.m. with only one addition to the races involving the CJC.  Someone named Antonio Benavides added his name as a Republican candidate for the 177th District Court, facing off against Assistant District Attorney Ryan Patrick . Given the fact that Ryan has been running a polished campaign from the very beginning and nobody seems to know who the late-arriving Mr. Benavides is, I don't know that this race will be too hotly contested. None of the other judicial fields landed any additional candidates, which I'm sure leaves that lovable lunatic and grammar rock star, Don Hooper , furious.  He's been waging a private war against his ever-growing list of enemies that pretty much consists of him generating on-line di

Please join us on Thursday, March 8 at 8 p.m. for another Reasonable Doubt  with host Todd Dupont and me.  Our special guest will be Judge Mike Anderson , who is running for Harris County District Attorney.  Judge Anderson is the second of three candidates (four, if you count Lloyd Oliver) to appear on the show, and we are excited to have him on. As always, you can tune in to watch it live streaming by clicking here . And speaking of Judge Anderson, he's got a new commercial out with a familiar face on it.

We learned the sad news yesterday that longtime former-Assistant District Attorney and Division Chief Andy Tobias passed away. For most people who worked at the District Attorney's Office within the past ten to twenty years, we all knew Andy as the head of the Grand Jury Division.  However, Andy's career with the Harris County District Attorney's Office spanned over thirty years and there was nobody in that Office that I can remember (before or since) that better exemplified the love of the job. Andy bridged the gap between the "Old Dog" prosecutors (and their stories of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s) and those of us who were fascinated by the legends that came before us.  He never seemed to tire of walking around the Grand Jury afternoon telling us war stories about things that happened both in and out of the courtroom.  He loved talking about prosecuting the Max Soffar case back in the 1980s.  He truly was a walking history book when it came to the Office.

The Houston Chronicle is reporting that we finally have an official date of May 29th for the primary election in Texas .  I can't say that I've been following the debacle over re-districting all that closely over the past couple of months, but I do feel that I can speak authority in saying that it was all jacked up. Additionally, the filing deadline for elected positions has been extended from now until March 9th. I'm not a politician, but I've heard varying opinions over whether a late primary helps or hurts incumbents.  I have no idea what the correct theory is, but I do know that now more than ever, it is time to get out the word on who to vote for. As a side note:  when we reach May, I will become even more insufferably persistent in making sure that you all got out there and voted for Mike Anderson , Kristin Guiney , Joe Vinas , and Renee Magee in their contested races. Mark your calendars.

A friend of mine recommended this story from the past that has a lot of ties to the present situation at the Harris County District Attorney's Office.  It makes for some interesting reading for a variety of reasons. You can check it out by clicking here .  (NOTE:  It took a while to load on my computer which may be because of the age of the article.  Have patience.)

Happy March to everyone.  Please join us for tonight's Reasonable Doubt with hosts me and Franklin Bynum.  Our special guest will be Todd Dupont (even though he has yet to acknowledge it).  We're on at 8 p.m., and you can watch it live streaming by clicking here .