Life at the Harris County Criminal Justice Center

As many of you know, I also do a little bit of blogging over at Mimesis Fault Lines .  Scott Greenfield and Lee Pacchia have a great line up of bloggers over there to write about the criminal justice system. I was honored to be invited to be a writer for them, and I get to write alongside some of the best bloggers in the country.  Not that I want to boost Scott's ego anymore, but having him as an editor has been a tremendous gift that I couldn't have gotten anywhere else. Scott and Lee are always looking for talented writers to join the ranks of Fault Lines, and they are looking for people who write from differing viewpoints.  We currently have a Federal judge, a card-carrying prosecutor, a former-police officer/defense attorney, along with some very prominent names from the defense blogging community.  Most recently, JoAnne Musick has joined the ranks as a regular contributing writer. We are currently looking for a blogger to write from a police officer's perspective

Truth be told, I've never been a real big fan of my name. Don't get me wrong, I like the legal one.  Louis is just fine by me. Unfortunately, I'm the fourth person to have the name Louis M. Newman in my family.  When I arrived on the scene, my three predecessors had already claimed "Louis," "Lou" and "Louie" and there apparently weren't any other natural derivatives of the name.  For some reason, my parents took my middle name which is Murat ( here's where that name came from ) and came up with "Murray" as my street name. It aggravates the hell out of my mom when I tell her I don't like my name.   I'm not alone in my dislike for it. As the Internet came to be, I, like everyone else, googled my own name and learned that there were at least two other Murray Newmans out there who were much more prominent than I ever thought of being. One was an Australian football player who seemed to get in trouble with the po

In case you missed it, there is a very nice article in the Houston Chronicle today on Anh Reiss, the wife of my friend and Harris County Assistant District Attorney Josh Reiss. It was a beautiful life and a beautiful ceremony to celebrate that life. You can read the article here .

Few cases in recent memory have taken as many bizarre twists as the case of Shannon Miles, who stands accused of the murder of Harris County Sheriff’s Deputy Darren Goforth on August 28, 2015.   Deputy Goforth was shot fifteen times as he was walking to his patrol car at a gas station, and there was no apparent motive for it.   Detectives with the Sheriff’s Office made a swift arrest within twenty four hours, and Sheriff Ron Hickman and District Attorney Devon Anderson gave press conferences about Police Lives Matter.   A huge funeral for Deputy Goforth was televised across Houston, and Governor Greg Abbott was in attendance.   Although D.A. Anderson did not declare it officially, seeking the death penalty on Miles seemed like an inevitable conclusion. The first twist came within a month, as Miles’ defense attorney, Anthony Osso, told announced to the media that the evidence indicated that Goforth may not have exactly been “on duty” at the time of his death.   There was inform