Life at the Harris County Criminal Justice Center

As my son and I get ready to our final home Texans game of the season (mercifully), I noticed on the ticket that today is "Fan Appreciation Day" at Reliant Stadium.  Every year for the last game, they call out a few rows around the stadium at random and those folks win a prize. So, it got me to thinking about what exactly the Texans will need to do to show enough fan appreciation for people to want to buy tickets for next year.  So, I came up with this: Top 10 Tips for the Texans to Boost Attendance Next Season 10.  New head coach:  Ryan Secrest 9.  Player of the Game gets the Game Ball.  Worst player of the game must enter Thunderdome. 8.  Two Words:  Open Bar 7.  J.J. Watt continues his involvement with schools by doing every kid in H.I.S.D.'s homework all year. 6.  Team members valet park all season ticket holders' cars. 5.  Every halftime show involves a member of the coaching staff being voted off the island. 4.  Show newly releas

As I mentioned a while back in this post, the Harris County Commissioners' Court unanimously voted to name the Drug Court's courtroom after late District Attorney Mike Anderson. Today (December 17th) at 2 p.m., the official celebration of the dedication of the Mike Anderson Memorial Courtroom will be held in Room 14144 on the 14th Floor of the Harris County Criminal Justice Center. Mike Anderson devoted a lot of heart and soul into the STAR Court program and I'm so glad to see that the Commissioners are honoring and recognizing all that he did. Please come by for the ceremony if you can.

The formal investiture of Judge Catherine Evans will be held on Monday, December 16th. The ceremony begins at 2:00 p.m. in the 180th District Court on the 18th floor of the CJC.  Everyone is invited to attend.

I was very sorry to hear of the passing of defense attorney Victor Blaine today. He was an extremely distinguished lawyer that I had the honor of knowing since I was a baby prosecutor in 1999.  He had been around just a little  longer than I had.  According to the State Bar website, he graduated from the University of Mississippi in 1952 and had been practicing in Texas since 1955. I don't have any specific war stories about the man that I always called "Mr. Blaine."  He was a constant presence around the CJC and was always the model of a true Southern Gentleman. He embodied all that was honorable about the legal profession.  He was polite, knowledgeable, and professional at all times.  There was nothing flashy about him, yet his presence conveyed a formidable opponent through the entirety of his career.  When I was a prosecutor, setting a case for trial against Mr. Blaine was not something I took lightly. Up until a few weeks ago, Mr. Blaine was still a regular a

NOTE:  I believe this is a complete listing of the candidates on the Republican side.  I'm not 100% positive that the Democratic website is fully up-to-date at this writing.  I have linked those websites that are readily available on the Republican Party website.  Unfortunately, the Dems didn't link to anyone.  I will add links if you send them in. Yesterday, December 9th, at 6:00 p.m. was the filing deadline for all candidates wanting to be on the ballot in 2014.  There were a couple of minor surprises here and there, but for the most part  it looks like primary season will be relatively quiet in 2014. Here is what we've got: Harris County District Attorney Republican  Devon Anderson - for the first time since 2004, the Republican nomination for District Attorney is uncontested. Democrat  Attorney Kim Ogg will be facing semi-lovable goofball Lloyd Oliver in the battle to be on November's ballot. NOTE:   Nobody should be surprised by Lloyd running again for

So, tomorrow (Monday, December 9th) is the filing deadline for the 2014 elections, and I imagine that things are about to get hopping around the blog again with the different candidates.  Before we get into the grind of that, I thought I would do a quick update on why things have been so quiet here for the past couple of months. Although I've posted very brief posts here and there on a couple of occasions, I've been pretty neglectful over here.  I've had several outstanding reasons, I promise! As I posted here back in September, I had a brief and successful battle with leukemia over the summer.  I was officially declared to be in remission when I wrote that post.  However, as part of the complete treatment, I had to do eight follow up weeks of treatment with a drug called Rituxan to help ensure that the leukemia didn't come back. The follow up treatment was no big deal, whatsoever.  I had about a three hour IV drip that I did on eight consecutive Mondays.  Since