The “Troublemaker”? May 5, 2007
Posted by Idta in : Criminal Law , trackback
  The prosecutor asked the judge to hold status hearings at a prison unit instead of in the court. I think that violates the U.S. and Texas Constitutional guarantees to a public trial, among other things.
On Wednesday, I asked the court’s coordinator if I could schedule a meeting with the judge and the prosecutor to discuss my objections to this.
Later that day, I returned a call from someone at the prosecutor’s office. When he answered the phone, he asked, “Is this the troublemaker?”
I took it as a compliment. 
P.S. When I switched from civil to criminal law, I certainly didn’t expect to encounter so many Constitutional issues before my first criminal docket call. (There’s case law which suggests conducting hearings in a prison violates the First, Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, and maybe a couple provisions of the Texas Constitution, too.)
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[…] by a lawyer who became a criminal defense attorney and a public defender in 2006. Here’s a recent post: The prosecutor asked the judge to hold status hearings at a prison unit instead of in the court. I […]
We hold our arraignments “under” the jail as well. Glad to see we are not the only ones “flirting” around the Constitution.