33rd & 424th District Courts

The following example will be used as reference for future discovery disputes. :-)

It is with pleasure that I appoint Stephanie Larsen as Poet Laureate of the 33rd Judicial District. The final decision is based on the following poem written by her on the spur of the moment with what some may consider to be divine inspiration:

So I got it for them. This jury is the most animated I've encountered. As is my custom, I'll tease with them some to loosen them up from the arduous task they face, but perhaps I've overdone it with this bunch. At about 2pm the following notes were handed to the bailiff, and thence to me, each from a different juror:

Golf Tournament Raises $24,000 for California Drug Court | Demand Treatment! | JoinTogether.org

Golf Tournament Raises $24,000 for California Drug Court.

TOUGH LOVE vs. SPANKING

Most of America's populace thinks it very improper to spank children, so some experts have tried other methods to control my kids when they have one of "those moments".

One that they found very effective is to just take the child for a car ride and talk.

They usually calm down and stop misbehaving after the little car ride together.

(Updated 4/1/05)

I can't believe I've not been keeping track of these, but better late than never. This item will be updated from time to time.

Set for oral argument on 2/16/05 in the Texas Supreme Court is the following case from the 33rd. Because of the interest in this area generally of equine activities, it may be of fairly broad interest. I granted summary judgment for the camp and was reversed by the 3rd Court ( 124 S.W.3d 633) which held that the immunity was only for factors beyond the control of the camp. (update: the review in the Sup. Ct. was withdrawn).

Lifted from the Newsweek Technology & Science page is the following list of excellent tips for preventing identity theft. Click on the link to read the entire article, then do your clients a favor and pass these tips along in a newsletter:

Before I discuss this topic, I want to make it clear that while I would personally appreciate a raise, the issue is much larger than just any one judge. The bottom line on judicial compensation is that the Texas judiciary will steadily decline in the quality of its judges if the pay continues its downward spiral -- downward in comparison not only to other large and progressive states, but also in comparison even to the average salary of a 10-year lawyer.

The following is taken from the online Sup. Ct. emails of synopses of cases and is of broad enough interest to replicate here.

03-0448

Texas A&M University v. Paul A. Bishop

from Galveston County and the 14th District Court of Appeals, Houston

Justices Brister and Green did not participate

REVERSED AND DISMISSED, opinion by Justice O’Neill:

The principal issues in this
personal-injury suit arising from an accidental stabbing during a
student play are (1) whether the play’s director was an independent
contractor or university employee and (2) whether, if the directors
were independent contractors, the Texas Tort Claims Act’s exception for
the use of tangible personal property is triggered when a student actor
accidentally stabbed another with a knife provided by the independent
contractor during a play the faculty advisors supervised. In this case
Bishop, a student actor, was stabbed by another student during
performance of the play “Dracula.” The play’s director had approved use
of a real knife with a “stab pad,” but the faculty drama club advisors
testified they were unaware of that decision. University policy forbids
dangerous weapons on campus. The court of appeals affirmed the trial
court’s judgment in Bishop’s favor, holding that the faculty advisors
were negligent in supervision of the play and that negligence was a use
of tangible personal property.

We (judges and lawyers alike) frequently deal with the "Objection, 401, 404b, 403" litany and we know intellectually what all that means, but do we have a structure within which to actually "run the traps" on the filter that those sections of the Evidence Code provide?

At http://www.jdbliss.com/ is a site worth visiting. It's about the personal side of lawyering -- about the 'take care of yourself' side which most of us leave until we hit a personal crisis of some sort.

In case you don't get enough of it from the news media, the Peterson trial is extensively covered, analyzed, dissected, editorialized, commented upon and otherwise reported about on the CourtTV Peterson site. That link is to the jury blog itself but there are many links in the sidebar.

A 'web page archive' is a page that is no longer an active page on the web but which has been archived by a search engine. Google does this and there is a site whose sole function is to archive web pages.

You hear all the time that there are too many lawyers.  As we know, that varies from place to place, but overall could this be? Here is an article  from the University of Illinois -  Urbana/Champaign asking Are There Too Many Lawyers?, which was presented by the Pre-Law and Law School Admissions office. While many stats are presented I can't figure out what the real point was of the article.

You may recall my diatribe against the deprecating humor about lawyers. Just say 'no' to that but here is some genuine legal humor. It's billed as 'Notes from the (Legal) Underground -- A weblog that asks the question--Why are lawyers so stuffy?'

We lawyers and judges are "wordsmiths" by training and trade. Words are important and how they are used can be quite interesting. Even in legal briefs. Why are those called "briefs" anyway? Oh, but I digress.

I really don't want this venue to become politically charged, but the following has some awful truths with a tad bit of humor.

About Physicians
A) The number of physicians in the U.S. is 700,000.

Facts: Search Warrant incorporated the probable cause affidavit by reference. The SW did not itself describe the premises to search. The affidavit did and was sufficient in that regard. The SW did not have the affidavit physically attached (such as by stapling) and the copy served on D did not have the affidavit attached.