Life at the Harris County Criminal Justice Center

It's not easy being Dan Rizzo these days. After retiring from the Harris County District Attorney's Office some time during the Pat Lykos Administration, he probably thought that he put all of the uncertainty and acrimony of being a prosecutor behind him.  While most prosecutors who leave the Office make some effort to keep in touch with one another, he kind of faded into oblivion. He hadn't been gone all too long before he found himself in the crosshairs of the Houston Chronicle 's Lisa Falkenberg, who was working on a story about the potential abuses of the Grand Jury system.  Initially, the story Falkenberg was working on dealt with how Rizzo and a member of the Grand Jury had used the Grand Jury's power to intimidate a potential alibi witness on a capital murder case. It just so happened that the case where that occurred was the State of Texas vs. Alfred Dewayne Brown , which Rizzo not only presented to the Grand Jury, but also prosecuted at trial. T

The other day I was browsing the internet and checking out some different blogs when I noticed that Scott Greenfield was celebrating his 11th year of legal blogging at Simple Justice .  First off, congratulations to Scott for writing the best legal blog on the web for 11 years.  He publishes several well-written, scholarly and insightful posts a day .  I am in no way, shape, or form comparing my blog to his here, but it did make me realize that I just passed my 10 year blogging anniversary and had failed to notice it. My first blog post on this site was January 8, 2008.  Since then, I've written over 1200 posts, had almost 19,000 comments, and 3.5 million page hits.  Although the posts are all mine, some of those comments and page hits actually came from other people!  Looking back at some of my posts, a lot of the topics and a lot of the writing are cringeworthy.  Others are not so bad.  Every once in a while, I find one that I'm actually proud of. I started the blog when

I was very saddened yesterday to learn of the passing of Judge Mary Bacon, retired judge of the 338th District Court. Judge Bacon retired from her bench just before I became a prosecutor, but I got the opportunity to know her during her occasional stints as a visiting judge.  She was one of my favorites and I hope that you will take the time to read Brian Rogers' excellent write up about her in the Chronicle .  She was a trailblazer of a lawyer and a judge, but you would never have known it to talk to her. I got to know Judge Bacon while trying the first in a series of co-defendants who had murdered a 15-year-old boy.  She was the visiting for Judge Caprice Cosper and I was trying the case against Mack Arnold.  I didn't really know her before then, except in passing, but I during breaks and during deliberations, Mack and I would just go sit in chambers with her and swap stories.  She loved to laugh and she had this twinkle in her eye when she would talk about old storie