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The Eastland Court of Appeals examines the inventory search, noting how law enforcement’s failure to follow departmental policy can render the seizure of contraband unconstitutional.  The Waco Court of Appeals tackles the scientific technology of LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) and finds it to be novel, thus requiring that the State satisfy its reliability and validity via a Kelly hearing.  Helpful stuff for the everyday practitioner.  Go to Significant Decisions page.

I recall several years ago when I parked my car outside of a Toot ‘N Totem (a local chain of convenience stores here in Amarillo) late one night.  Just as I exited the car, I looked up and saw a creature - something - running straight for me.  It was dark, I didn’t know what it was and the sight of this low-slung, husky creature (I knew it wasn’t a dog or cat) scared the hell out of me, frankly.  Then, whatever it was crossed the narrow shaft of light thrown off by the entrance to the store and what did I behold?  A badger!  An honest-to-God badger.  There was no mistaking it with those distinctive stripes running from the side and back of its head down its sides.  From everything I have read about this guy, the badger is, pound-for-pound, probably the fiercest, most fearless fighting creature that walks on four legs in North America.  I remember just freezing as it approached, then suddenly veering off to the side.  It scampered into the dark and I never saw it again.  What the devil was it doing on the loose?  Who in Texas’s green earth would have this animal for a pet?  I hadn’t thought about this strange sighting until this past Friday.

Working a tad too late for a Friday, I was driving down Tyler and Sixth when I saw what I thought was a pretty large, sleek cat walk out right in front of me. I mean, for just a split-second, that’s what I thought it was until I focused on its large, bushy tail.  Not a cat but a coyote!  A coyote walking across Tyler Street just as calmly as you please.  He was a pretty good size specimen and when he spotted me in my car, now parked on the  west side of the street, he just stopped and stared at me.  He wasn’t spooked at all.  I decided to get out of the car to get a better look but by the time I had opened the door, he was gone, vanished. 

I’ve read that coyotes have even been seen in Chicago and NYC (whether that’s true about the Big Apple, I have my doubts) but still, it was a real surprise to see him right out there in the open.  I’m sure there have been lots of sightings on the edges of the city limits but maybe they’re getting bolder (and hungrier).  If I were the owner of small dogs or cats, I’d be keeping my eyes open and careful about leaving them exposed. 

Here are some stats to gnaw on, particularly if you ride a motorcycle without a helmet.

In 2007, motorcycle deaths accounted for one in eight motor vehicle deaths.

Deaths of people in cars and trucks, on bicycles or on foot dropped by nearly 2,000, a historic low.  Deaths of motorcyclists, on the other hand, rose 6.6 percent to 5,154.  2007 was the tenth straight year to witness this increase.

Deaths on motorcycles hit a low of 2,116 in 1997 but since then, they have risen 128 percent.  Share of crash fatalities jumped from 5 percent to 13 percent.

There are 75 percent more motorcycles registered today than ten years ago and a substantial increase in the number of new operators are middle-aged men who rode when they were young and have recently gone back to the bike.  They still think they have the same reflexes.

In 1975, 47 states had mandatory helmet laws.  Now, only 20 do.

According to the Motorcycle Safety Foundation, financed by manufacturers, a person killed on a motorcycle is 2.5 times more likely to be intoxicated than a person killed in a car crash and three times more likely not to have a valid operator’s license.

The United States is the only industrialized nation on the face of the planet where there is a heavily funded, intricately organized campaign to weaken, dilute or abolish mandatory helmet laws.

Let’s see, a huge increase in motorcyles deaths (not to mention serious head injuries), an increase in the number of intoxicated, poor operators and a 100 percent decrease in the enforcement of helmet laws.  Am I missing something here but isn’t this a huge national safety issue that no one seems to care about?  It’s little wonder that on my trip back from Albuquerque today, I observed scads of motorcyclists and nary a one with a helmet.  Not one.

This weekend witnesses the demise of three commercial concerns.  Two are victims of land speculation, the third fell prey to the vagaries of the Internet and the digital revolution.  I’ll explain that in a minute but first, look at what has happened to two racing institutions.  Read the rest of this entry »

Remember Judge Charlie Baird of the Court of Criminal Appeals who got tossed when the ‘Pubs took over the works back in 1994, wasn’t it?  The years all seem to run together as I get older.  And who did we get?  How  about Steve Mansfield, who, upon taking the oath of office, simultaneously agreed to a public reprimand issued by the Commission For Lawyer Discipline for misrepresenting his qualifications and experience.  Those were the days.  Well, Mansfield was eventually eased out, probably persuaded by his fellow jurists not to run for reelection (his ticket scalping plea didn’t help his case) and Judge Baird?  Well, he’s busy riding herd down in Travis County as a district judge.  And he’s doing something a little out of the ordinary. Read the rest of this entry »

The State of Texas recently appealed a trial court’s denial of its plea to the jurisdiction of an ex-TDC inmate’s suit who sued for monetary damages for wrongful imprisonment.  He was originally indicted for delivery of controlled substances, tried and sentenced to the penitentiary.  However, on appeal, he secured a reversal and acquittal based on legal insufficiency of evidence.  In its appeal, the State argued that the wrongful imprisonment statute was originally enacted to address only those claimants who have obtained habeas corpus relief based on “actual innocence” as opposed to a reversal based on lack of sufficient evidence.  The Austin Court of Appeals agreed.  Claimant’s case was dismissed for lack of jurisidiction.  The waiver of sovereign immunity found in chapter 103 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code is limited solely to those persons found innocent via an art. 11.07 or 11.071writ of habeas corpus. see State v. Young, slip opinion no. 03-07-00572-CV, Austin Court of Appeals, July 31, 2008.  And it’s too bad since, being an appellate lawyer, talk about great incentive to strive for a reversal based on insufficiency of evidence.  Can you say contingent fee agreement dependent on the outcome of the direct appeal?

Don Helms, the last surviving member of Hank Williams’ band, The Drifting Cowboys, died Monday in Nashville at the age of 81.  Helms played for a decade with Williams, from 1943 up until his premature death on New Year’s Day, 1953 while on the way to a performance in Canton, Ohio.  His steel guitar provided an aching, visceral tone of grief to Williams’ music and hence, its very identity.  On so many of those recordings, the mourning steel guitar is the first thing the listener hears rather than Williams’ voice.

The key element to Helms’ style was the high-pitched, piercing notes he favored on his old-style non-pedal steel guitar.  He kept the same instrument, a 1949 Gibson model that he took on the road with him while touring with the Drifting Cowboys, under his bed during his retirement years.  He would take it out on special occasions. 

The high-pitched notes were suggested to Helms by Fred Rose, a famous Nashville songwriter and producer who helped shape Williams’ career as well as his songs.  It was Rose’s belief that a high, whining sound would cut through the noise of a typical roadhouse or bar where people would be talking, dancing, arguing, drinking and just carrying on.  That belief turned out to be right.

Helms was born on a farm in New Brockton, Alabama.  As a boy, he fell in love with the music of our own Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys and in particular, with the steel guitar music of Leon McAuliffe.  He got his first steel guitar from his grandmother when he was 15 and at the tender age of 18, began to play with Williams around the joints in Alabama.  After Williams’ death, Helms joined the Ray Price band and was a key part of that singer’s success in the 1950s. 

Helms’ contributions can be heard in Patsy Cline’s “Walking After Midnight” and in Ernest Tubbs’ “Letters Have No Arms.”  He recorded literally hundreds of songs by Loretta Lynn, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Ferlin Husky, Chet Atkins and ”Gentleman” Jim Reeves to name but a fraction of artists.  And his work was recognized not only by Nashville stalwarts but by musicians from diverse backgrounds, such as Bon Jovi and Kid Rock who invited Helms into recording sessions.

Helms was once asked at a question and answer panel about the last time he ever saw Hank Williams.  He said they were recording and Williams, who called Helms “Shag” because of his curly hair, said “Shag, I got a new song I just come up with.  I want you to give me a pretty good kickoff for it.  It goes something like this.”  Helms described how he and the band recorded the newly written song by Williams in just one take.  Then Williams said that he was tired and left the studio.  It was the last time that Helms ever saw Williams.  The date was September, 1952 and the song was “Your Cheatin Heart.”  It was Williams’ biggest hit, released posthumously. 

A panel of the American Psychological Association has reported after two years of study that women who choose to abort an unwanted pregnancy may experience feelings of grief and loss but here is no evidence that a single abortion causes significant mental health problems.  These findings trumpet identical conclusions reached by a similar review conducted back in 1990.  In a statement released on Tuesday, the chairwoman of the panel, Brenda Major, said that “the best scientific evidence published indicates that among adult women who have an unplanned pregnancy, the relative risk of mental health problems is no greater if they have a single elective, first-trimester abortion or deliver that pregnancy.”  To be fair, the report also pointed out that among the more than 150 reports and studies that it reviewed, many had major flaws.  The panel called for further, better-designed studies which might “help to disentangle confounding factors” like income and medical history.  As they say in the old newsroom, to the pro-lifers - back to you.

Did you know that “Hawaii Five-O”, which made its debut in 1968 and, incredibly, ran up to 1980, was the longest-running crime drama on television until the insipid “Law & Order” surpassed it five years ago?  For the historical record, the program routinely ranked in the Nielson’s Top 20 from 1969 up to 1975.   Man, remember Steve McGarrett (played by Jack Lord), the leader of the state police, running - and I mean literally running - everywhere he went, whether it was getting into a car, entering his office, going to the bathroom.  It didn’t matter.  He was one driven po-lice officer.  And don’t talk to him about the Fourth Amendment; he never heard of the need for a search warrant. 

Well, get ready because CBS, which produced the original, is busy working on developing a new version of the classic series.  The son of Steve McGarrett will be the chief in the 2.0 version.  Who will star as McGarrett, Jr. is not known at this time but I can tell you one thing: if this thing takes flight and makes it back on CBS, there’s only two questions that need be answered on the opener - will the son of James MacArthur’s character be back to play second fiddle to McGarrett and will we hear one of the best lines in television history when the heavy is brought to justice, right before the end of the hour and an upcoming commercial?  You know what I’m talking about.  “Book ‘em Danno (Jr.?) - murder one.” 

Let’s see if I can digest this.  Scientists at UC Berkeley have found new ways where they can actually bend light backwards, something that never occurs in the natural world.  And just how does this lead to the better mousetrap?  Well, some researchers are saying that with refracted light beams that can be angled at such sharp degrees, they might be able to peer more deeply and clearly into living cells.  Some say that this step might lead to a Harry Potter-like invisibility cloak.  I don’t read the books so I suppose I can’t grasp the significance of such a prediction but it sounds pretty fantastic.  But so did smokeless hotels just a mere thirty years ago.

This phenomenon is made possible by a property known as negative refraction.  When a ray of light crosses from air to water or some other transparent material, it bends and the degree of bending is determined by a property known as the index of refraction.  Transparent materials, like glass, water and diamonds have an index of 1 or greater for visible light.  This means that when visible light hits the surface, the path of the light bends toward an imaginary line perpendicular to the surface. 

But now, scientists have come up with what are called metamaterials which create refraction indexes of less than 1 or even a negative number.  This means that when light enters a material with a negative refraction index, it takes a really sharp turn.  To give an example of how this might look, negative refraction could produce seemingly magical illusions, such as looking down at a fish in a pool of negative refractive liquid, only to see the fish swimming in the air above. 

So how can we really use this stuff?  By constructing an array of materials which will act as a negative refractive field, scientists can bend not only visible light but a wavelength known as “visible red light.”  Normal light is usually thought to be made up of waves which literally “ripple.”  But upon closer inspection, light is really just a jumble of mixed-up waves.  Some of these intermingled waves are called “evanescent waves.”  These dissipate quickly as they travel from the point of origin and thus, are usually not seen.  However, a negative refraction lens could amplify these evanescent waves and preserve details lost in ordinary optics.  Thus, with negative refraction, researchers could build super-lens, capable of peering into cells and other tiny biological structures so that individual viruses and the like could be studied, something never before accomplished.  Amazing.