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Rule 404b Extraneous Offenses Now we are starting out with comparison of the Texas Rule and the FRE and basically what you see is that it’s roughly the same thing in term of structure. It starts out with the prohibition 1 rule, the Texas rule calls it, it’s not admissible to prove the character of […]

Client Relationships Perjury and Subpoenas Part 2 The other big area for criminal defense lawyers is the avoiding the subpoena issue. How many of us gotten that call on Sunday night and the jury trial is on Monday morning and there was this panic phone call: “OMG! OMG! I’ve been subpoena to my husband trial

Client Relationships Perjury Attorney Client Conflicts Part 3 The other big issue under conflict of interest is that it says it becomes immediately apparent that the lawyer’s responsibility has adversely effected by the responsibility to another client. That’s clear in these family violence cases. Oh! but I’ve lawyers tell me wait you can get a

Client Relationships Attorney Duty to Withdraw Perjury Part 4 A Motion to withdraw indicates that the attorney thinks that his client is going to perjure himself, this is in the press, the weekend before the lawyer is trying to pick the jury in this case. So as you can imagine, it was all over the

Unrepresented Pro Se Defendants and Prosecutor’s Duties Now the prosecutors may know that the criminal case is coming, I have clients routinely arrested at the protective order on the criminal charge. So the prosecutors know that they are going to have a criminal case and yet my client just knows that if they can just

Flat Fees in Criminal Cases and Grievances So that came out and we got our discovery bill. So what we are wondering if this is going to change the way the prosecutors are handled in the State of Texas. I guess we will wait to see. I want to shift gears a little bit and

Barratry and Client Solicitation So I want to take few minutes to talk about barratry, Barratry is in person or by phone solicitation of the client. The advertising rules have really confused lawyers about what barratry is but it’s very clear under the Penal code, you cannot go up to a client who are a

Jury Selection in a Criminal Case As of their past experiences, you’re dead in the water at the beginning which is why a lot of lawyers think that jury selection is where you win or lose a trial. The other thing you can let them know, it is a privilege to serve on a jury.

Challenging Jurors in a Criminal Case In terms of establishing the challenge; You’re going to start off by starting the cause question. Ask the specific juror of how they feel and why they feel – and if they don’t – and if they don’t admit to the bias –that’s fine – move on to another

Challenging Jurors on Burden of Proof Burden Of Proof; I would like to save it for the end of Jury selection and the reason why it is because I know I am absolutely entitled to talk about it. So if I am running out of time I want to make sure that is at the