Life at the Harris County Criminal Justice Center

UPDATE:  I have heard that Lloyd Oliver's suit has been sent back to State Court. While Big Jolly and I are still in post-Primary counseling after the D.A. election, he has written a very interesting (and alarming) take on what is going on with the battle between would-be HCDA Democratic Candidate Lloyd Oliver and the Democratic Party.  He also talks about the possible ramifications of what could happen in November. Check it out by clicking here .

I did a blog post on the Chronicle blog about the Community Supervision debacle being looked at in the 208th this week.  You can read it by clicking here .

After last Friday's graceful dismount from the boat dock at my parent's lake house, I stayed in the water for several minutes trying to figure out how badly I had hurt myself.  In an attempt to test the range of motion on my left arm, I tried moving it slowly, backward and then forward.  I immediately felt such excruciating pain that I thought I was going to pass out. Afterward, I remarked to Emily and Luke that it had been a long time since I had cried due to physical  pain, but the pain I had just experienced moving my arm after the fall was about the closest I had gotten in a couple of decades. I had an MRI on Wednesday afternoon, and the doctor called with the results yesterday.  Emily took the phone call and explained the results to me and my mom when she got off the phone. EMILY:  It's not good, babe.  Apparently, when your shoulder hit the edge of the dock, it dislocated and broke off between 1/3 and 1/2 of your shoulder socket. MURRAY:  Ugh. EMILY:  You a

Please join me and Todd Dupont for tonight's Reasonable Doubt at 8:00 p.m. where our special guest will be our friend, Jen Gaut.  We invited Jen earlier this week to talk about Asset Forfeiture, but I'm sure we'll be talking about much much more given this week's events. As always, you can tune in to watch it live streaming by clicking here .

Since the primary elections wrapped up at the end of May, I've been getting complaints about the blog being boring.  I kind of anticipated that happening, and quite frankly, was looking forward to a little peace and quiet for a bit.  It freed me up to spend more time gravely injuring myself fighting insects. As I've mentioned before, however, when it rains, it pours when it comes to subject matter for this blog.  Rarely has that been better exhibited than this week at the CJC. Yesterday morning, around 9:15, word quickly circulated through the courthouse that 177th District Court Judge Kevin Fine was resigning his bench effective immediately.  As noted in Brian Rogers' article, Judge Fine had a controversial tour of duty on the bench, and had chosen not to run for re-election.  The timing of his departure was a surprise. I plan on writing a little more about Judge Fine in the future (when it stops raining topics),  but for now, I'll just say this -- good for him

Brian Rogers published a story this afternoon that I had been hearing rumblings about ever since Lloyd Oliver won the Democratic nomination for Harris County District Attorney.  I n this story, Brian points out that former Democratic Party Leader for Harris County Gerry Birnberg has filed a complaint to have Leapin' Lloyd removed from the ballot as the Democratic candidate. Per Brian's article, the reasoning that Birnberg cites is that Oliver stated publicly that outgoing District Attorney Pat Lykos "was such a good candidate that she 'would have gotten my vote.'" Now that's interesting.  There are about two million reasons to not want Lloyd Oliver to be the Democratic face of the District Attorney's race.  Half of them can be found in this video .  His vocal support for Lykos, although odd, seems like the least  of the reasons the Dems would want Lloyd off of the ballot. The reality is that Lloyd Oliver is an embarrassment to whichever party he

As anyone who knows me or reads this blog knows, one of my favorite hobbies is harassing my friends.  Whether it be mocking their "Hollywood career," their sweater vests, their hair, their unnatural back hair, or their lack of holiday cheer, I like picking on my friends in what I hope is taken as a good-natured manner. In doing so, I would be very remiss if I did not have a sense of humor about my own embarrassments.  I've heard every bald joke, divorce joke, paleness joke, and pudgy joke that I can think of. So, this past Friday, I inadvertently decided to give you some new material. Emily and I took the Boy up to Camp Creek, which is my favorite place on Earth.  It is a tranquil lake north of Bryan where my parents have a lake house.  It redefines rustic.  There is no marina.  The ski area is tiny.  It is very quiet and peaceful there. But no place is perfect. There are plenty of critters running around there -- deer, possums, snakes, raccoons, and almost ever

A few weeks ago, Harris County District Clerk Chris Daniel wrote an extremely informative and interesting article on the make up of Harris County juries.  I meant to do a post on it when it first came out, but I got a little side-tracked, unfortunately. Mr. Daniel has clearly done his homework and pointed out a good starting place to help Harris County to build more diverse juries in the days to come. You can read the article by clicking here .

The Bryan/College Station Eagle is reporting the following remarks from Brazos County Justice of the Peace Michael P. McCleary , regarding the disposition of the body of Thomas "Tres" Caffall : McCleary said on the Caffall's [sic]  autopsy report, he wrote that only the family could pick up the body of the gunman.  Typically, he said, he'll list a local funeral home, as well as the family, so the body can be brought back to the area. "In his case, I just put 'family.' I'm not going to let the county be out the expense of going and picking up his nasty-ass body.  If it cost us $200 to go pick him up, I'm not going to pay for it. The family can take care of that.  I have no sympathy for him or the family." Wow.  I understand having no sympathy for a man who killed a Peace Officer.  I truly do. But his family? "Nasty-ass?" Really?

I'm sure by now you have read about the tragic murders that happened in College Station today.  Highly respected and well-liked Constable Brian Bachmann was shot and killed while serving an eviction notice.  Another innocent bystander, Chris Northcliff, was killed and several others were shot by a 35-year-old mentally disturbed man named Thomas Caffall. Most of you know that I grew up in Bryan/College Station, and I love that town and the people of it very dearly.  Although this type of violence is horrifying regardless of where it happens, reading about it happening in the town where I grew up makes the tragedy more intense in my mind. In my mind, Bryan/College Station will always be the small town where I grew up.  It was where my grandparents lived.  It was where I went to church.  It was where I learned to drive.  It was where I went to high school. All of the small and simple things that I don't think about on a daily basis happened there, and they remain intrinsical

Please join me and Todd Dupont tonight for Reasonable Doubt , where our guest will be our good friend and excellent Criminal Defense Attorney, Tucker Graves.  Tucker has been known to have an opinion or two and we look forward to taking your calls.  Listen as Tucker explains the Aggies' dominance of the SEC in the 2012 football season. As always, you can tune in live tonight at 8:00 p.m. and watch it live streaming by clicking here .

ME:  You know, I saw [Justice] Elsa [Alcala] try a Death Capital with Chuck. EX-PROSECUTOR:  Chuck Rosenthal? ME:  No, Chuck Barris of The Gong Show. EX-PROSECUTOR:  Don't be an ass.

Although I try not to post stuff on this blog that doesn't deal with the Criminal Justice World, sometimes there are causes that come up that remind us that there are many more important things out there.  This week I was notified by regular reader Sue about a fundraiser this weekend for a young girl named Madison Gamble, who is suffering from a rare malignant form of cancer known as Epithelioid Sarcoma. This weekend, Applied Safety Products, Inc. will be hosting a BBQ fundraiser for Maddy and her family to help offset the costs associated with her treatment. If you can't attend, I hope that you will contact one of the names above.  Hopefully someone with a little more information about the fundraiser will post a mailing address where we can send a check. Please give generously to this great cause.