Welcome to HackLawyer.net

Leg ulcers are extremely difficult to treat in those cases where the patient has poor circulation.  Sometimes, knocking out the infection can take months, even a couple of years.  It is entirely understandable that the sufferer will get pretty desperate for a method that works.  The standard treatment is hydrogel, a chemical dressing that rids the wound of dead tissue.  But it’s not always effective.  So, desperate patients with desperate infections call for desperate alternatives.  And British researchers may have found one which, at first blush, repels if not boggles.  A new study suggests that using live maggots may actually work to bring this stubborn infection under control.

These British researchers randomly assigned 267 patients to have their leg wounds treated either with the standard hydrogel dressing or the larvae of green bottle flies.  The results, published in the British Medical Journal on March 19, found no difference between the two treatments in the time it took to bring the infections under control.  The larval treatment was a tad more expensive and involved more pain.  But by and large, the study concluded that there was minimal difference between the two and the choice, as in any consumer-driven society, should be left up to the patient.  The researchers also noted that aside from the shock of having live insects placed in one’s body, the subjects were “really eager to try this method.”  I’ll leave it at that.

I have to say that it was great fun watching it all from the cozy confines of my office last Friday as the late March winter storm pummeled the Panhandle.  With winds up to 50 mph and all that heavy, heavy snow whipping between the buildings, it was both menacing and breathtaking.  The drive into downtown really wasn’t that bad.  I have driven through all kinds of bad, bad weather over the years (remember I pushed a rig for 2 1/2 years as a young turk, fresh out of college, hauling chemicals and steel); the ice which was quickly accumulating surely made it dangerous but with respect and maintaining a deliberate, safe speed, it was all quite manageable.  This city has been through a hell of a lot worse.  I think back on the storms that hit us in 1983 and wince.  And no, I wasn’t around the big one in 1957 but surely those don’t hit but once in a hundred years or so.  Still, we’re a hardy breed out here and used to coping with the elements.  So what to make out of what can only be called panic when word came out late Wednesday that a storm was on the way? (more…)

I really don’t know how to categorize this post.  Is it one of general interest, morbid interest, scientific interest, what?  Let’s just cut to the chase and state that a Japanese man has become the first person certified as a survivor of both atomic bombings dating back to 1945 when the U.S. dropped the big ones on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  The man, Tsutomyu Yamaguchi, had already been certified as a survivor of the August 9th bombing of Nagasaki.  However, upon further investigation, it has now been confirmed that he also survived the attack on Hiroshima three days earlier where he suffered serious burns to his upper body.  For the record, certification by the Japanese government means that the person qualifies for survivor compensation, monthly allowances, free medical check-ups and, leave it to the inscrutable Japanese mind, free funeral costs.

Yamaguchi was in Hiroshima on that fateful day back on August 6, 1945 when the first atomic bomb exploded over that city.  Although injured, he managed to get out of the city and return to his hometown, that unfortunately being Nagasaki.  It was bombed three days later.  Incredibly, the man survived both attacks, although the extent of his double radiaton exposure, and the corresponding health impairment, is unknown.  But what are the odds of one, being in the two cities at just the wrong times and two, living through the hellish ordeal?  Oh, by the way, he is 93.  Is it luck or maybe the answer to his long life is embedded somewhere in those designer genes.

I don’t want to tread too heavily here but there’s something I’ve noticed over the past several months with Vicki Wilmarth’s “Employer Advocate” column which runs, I think, once a month or perhaps every two weeks in the business section of the Sunday AG.  Not to put it too lightly, the “Employer Advocate” has become a sort of bully pulpit for Christianity.  Ms. Wilmarth makes no bones about her belief that the Bible (King James or Contemporary?) provides the ultimate in management solutions in employer-employee relations and she has put that in print on several occasions.  She is certainly entitled to all this and other religious opinions, insofar as they color and impact her advice to employers.  But should this column be continued in the business section? (more…)

I took a few days off last week and flew down to New Orleans for good reason.  It was the Fair Ground’s biggest race day of the year on Saturday; the day of the Louisiana Derby, a premier prep race for this year’s upcoming Kentucky Derby.  Besides, the Fair Grounds racetrack, now owned and operated by Churchill Downs, put together a splendid card, chocked full of good stakes races on the dirt and turf.  It would be a nice diversion for me and a chance to visit a good friend down in Baton Rouge who has himself been recently bitten by the bug, meaning he’s discovered that horse racing is the greatest game on the face of the earth, bar none. 

The flight down was tolerable which is saying a lot these days, given the galactic display of humanity you usually find on a Southwest airlines flight.  After I retrieved my luggage and hopped on the Hertz shuttle, I noticed a couple dogging it to the bus.  They just managed to make it before it pulled out for the lot.  I got just a glance at the man’s profile as he sat down with his wife a few feet from me and I realized, I recognize this guy.  It had to be him because of the good interviews I had seen him give on TV. (more…)

There were two deaths over the weekend that deserve note. 

Alan W. Livingston, 91, the man who signed up the Beatles for Capitol Records - In 1963, Livingston, while president of Capitol Records, received a call from Brian Epstein, the manager for the Beatles.  The group’s singles had already been declined by Capitol three times and after the fourth rejection, Epstein called Livingston to inquire why.  When Epstein got through to Livingston and asked him why his band kept getting declined, Livingston simply responded that he had not heard of the Beatles and hadn’t listened to any of their music.  Epstein implored Livingston to listen to some of their cuts.  He did and within weeks, Capitol released the single “I Want To Hold Your Hand.”  That and their appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in February of 1964 unleashed a tsunami of mania the world had never seen before or since.  And I include the excitement that surrounded Sinatra and Presley.  But that was hardly the first time that Alan Livingston had discovered talent that had a way of imbedding itself into American popular culture. (more…)

If you don’t know by now,  then you should know that jurors, when they receive specific instructions from the judge about their duties and responsibilities while serving on the jury, go right out and do the exact opposite.  I don’t say this lightly.  Again, I repeat, they go right out and do the opposite of whatever they have been instructed not to do.  Don’t read newspapers or watch the electronic media about the case.  Fine, read everything you can about the trial and if necessary, do a Google search and try to find out even more.  Don’t go to the scene of the accident or crime and do your own investigation.  Fine, then turn right around, perform a Google search of the exact intersection where the collision took place and measure off your own dimensions or better yet, use the Net to determine driving times.  Only base your decision on the evidence at trial and be guided by the instructions provided by the court.  Fine, but if you have a question, well, just let me zip out my trusty cell phone and let me call my personal lawyer to get a few questions answered. (more…)

The Court of Criminal Appeals remanded a death penalty subsequent writ to the convicting trial court this morning in Ex parte Jack Harry Smith, No. WR-8,315-07.  What makes the remand a little out of the ordinary is that Mr. Smith has been residing on death row since October of 1978.  He committed the capital murder in January of the same year.  Of course, his case has been in appellate orbit since 1984 when the Court issued its first affirmance of his conviction and it’s been bouncing between the state and federal courts ever since.  His subsequent writ was filed on January 16 of this year.  It raised two grounds: his death sentence and execution violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments because he is mentally retarded and that he was denied his Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights to reliable sentencing because he was  not afforded a Penry instruction through which the jury could have expressed its reasoned moral response to the circumstances of the offense and Smith’s character, background and moral culpability.  So, this means at least another three to four years on collateral review, regardless who prevails at the trial court stage.  If my estimate is correct, he will be 75 years of age by that time.  Think about it - 75 years of age.   

You see, Smith was 40 years of age when he committed the offense of murder committed during an aggravated robbery.  That’s fairly old for starters.  But what really must drive the law-and-order crowd nuts is this guy’s criminal history.  His life in crime dates back to May of 1955 when, at the age of 18, he was assessed a seven-year sentence out of Houston for robbery by assault.  He was paroled in 1958 but two years later, was convicted of yet another robbery and this time, given a life sentence.  After serving seventeen years on that sentence, he paroled to Houston again where exactly one year later, he shot and killed Roy Deputter in a robbery-gone-bad at a convenience store in Houston.  

You see what I’ve been talking about for the last two years?  Smith isn’t worth all this time, money, toil and trouble.  No one is worth it.  Well, ok, maybe McVeigh, Manson if you could prosecute him again for capital, someone like Robert James Anderson or Hitler for that matter.  But I can’t think of many more.  Make it life and be done with it.  And this time, for someone like Smith, who clearly is a dangerous individual, make it life and see that it sticks.  He is yet one more crystal-clear example that the death penalty as we know it in Texas does not work.  

This morning, the Court of Criminal Appeals granted relief to an inmate who complained that his retained counsel rendered ineffective assistance of counsel because

“when applicant was not able to pay the fee he had recently learned would increase if he demanded a trial, counsel told applicant that he would be ‘distracted’ while trying the case due to applicant’s non-payment of the fee.  One of trial counsel’s former assistants testified that counsel ‘used the language about being distracted at trial in the absence of an additional fee on many occasions, not only with [applicant], but with other clients.”

After an evidentiary hearing, the trial court concluded that trial counsel was ineffective in that the lawyer’s increased, fevered demands for more money “greatly affected” the client’s decision to plead guilty and accept a 25-year sentence for felony DWI and further, that such ineffective representation prejudiced the client.  The Court of Criminal Appeals adopted the trial court’s findings and conclusions and granted the relief sought.  So, the judgment of conviction was set aside and the inmate given a whole new trial. 

We’re all guilty of having at least thought about the same thing in the face of a client’s non-payment but when it came time to try the case, most of us put forth our best foot and use our best efforts.  But actually saying it to the client and persisting in such is another matter.  I think any lawyer had better be pretty circumspect about what he or she says from now on, particularly if that client proceeds to plea and later on, gets buyer’s remorse and decides to file the old 11.07 writ.  So, what’s the moral here?  If you get stiffed on the eve of trial, just clinch your teeth and keep the irritation to yourself.  Hell, the scofflaw client’s going to know already how you feel about the whole thing anyway.  Why give him ammunition to use against you on a collateral attack?  See Ex parte Jeffrey Pompa, No. AP-76,106, Court of Criminal Appeals, March 11, 2009. 

At last month’s bar luncheon where I went to listen to Austin lawyer Broadus Spivey give an address to a collection of Amarillo lawyers with 50 years of service under their belt, I ran into Wayne Bagley, the venerable ex-prosecutor.  I hadn’t seen him for several years.  They just don’t make ‘em anymore like Wayne.  Anyone who ever negotiated or tried a case with the man got a taste of how collegial things used to be, at least as I remember them when I was a young lawyer.  I miss him.  But the point I want to make is this.  When he saw me, had broke a big smile and remarked “Man, you’ve gotten gray!”  And that coming from a 50-year lawyer.  But there’s no doubt about it; it’s plenty gray and unfortunately, really thinning on the crown.  What to do?  Nothing.  But just what makes all of this go gray? 

Many like to believe that stress - coming from trying to operate in the circus known as the administration of criminal justice or from something as pedestrian as trying to raise children - is the root cause of this conversion.  That link is esssentially folk wisdom.  It’s all in those designer genes which inhabit our cells.  It’s now accepted knowledge that graying hair results from an absence of pigment.  But what causes this absence?  (more…)