Under pressure to meet combat needs, the Army and Marine Corps brought in significantly more recruits with felony convictions last year than in 2006, including some with manslaughter and sex crime convictions.

Capital Defense Weekly reminds us about the importance of Client secrets & keeping your mouth shut.

Alton Logan’s family took up a collection in the lobby of the Cook County Criminal Courthouse and quickly came up with the $1,000 they needed to post bond.

At first, I loved that people at the courthouse contributed to help pay this man’s bond. (Do you get part of the bond back when you show up for the next hearing?) But then his family rode off in a black SUV to go get steak and lobster dinners?

The book that helped me TREMENDOUSLY in organizing and finishing my brief was
The Winning Brief: 100 Tips for Persuasive Briefing in Trial and Appellate Courts.

Tonight I finished reading The Best Defense, by Prof. Alan M. Dershowitz of Harvard Law School. In it, he wrote:

The public sometimes has difficulty distinguishing between the noble [defense attorneys] and the sleazy; the very fact that a defense lawyer represents a guilty client leads some to conclude that the lawyer must be sleazy. Being so regarded is an occupational hazard of all zealous defense attorneys.

The late Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter once commented that he knew of no title “more honorable than that of Professor of the Harvard Law School.” I know of none more honorable than defense attorney.

BUT, the Associated Press mis-reported the decision as “5 to 3″ when it was really 8 to 0: Five justices signed the majority opinion, and the other three concurred. (One justice didn’t participate.) Contrary to what the newspaper reports suggested, it wasn’t a close decision at all, and there wasn’t any dissent.

Sloppy reporting like this misleads the public and could hurt people for whom “Not Guilty By Reason of Insanity” would be the appropriate result.

Andrea Yates was found innocent by reason of insanity in July 2006 and sent to a state mental hospital.

P.S. Even though it must be awful for the homeowner, it’s hard not to smile as you watch the video.

Dozens of people descended on Robert Salisbury’s Oregon home after ads posted on Craigslist Saturday said his belongings — including his horse — were free for the taking. But the ads were a hoax. When Salisbury returned home, some people refused to stop taking his things.

Criticism that followed Sara Jane Olson’s release Monday spurred a thorough review of her sentence and the timing of her parole, Chief Deputy Secretary Scott Kernan said at a news conference.

That’s longer than he might have gotten usual for a rape conviction, and it’s because his attorney Ernest Staine told the court that Cardenas has HIV.