Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

The link to the story in the Star-Telegram is dead, and I can't find this old story anywhere. 

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• The was crazy flooding in West Fort Worth last night while other parts of Tarrant County didn't see a drop.
  
  
  
• The Texas legal machinery of death was back in business last night. 
  
  
  
• Hot opinion about it:
  
  
  
• Last words:
  
  
  
• There's no way the actually affidavit is released. It will be at some point, but not at this stage. 
  
  
  
• These headlines are so misleading. This would make you think a mass of kids were found and rescued from some big room somewhere. In actuality, it involved 391 different state and federal investigations involving over 200 different agencies across the entire country with the numbers being the totals from a two week period. 
  
  
  
• Rudy in a wheelchair last night at the Atlanta airport after his testimony before a grand jury investigating his election interference. 
  
  
  
• If I had to bet right now who the Republican nominee for president will be, I'd bet on Ron DeSantis. But it's early. And I wouldn't bet a lot. 
• But I don't know what this guy is thinking. He doesn't stand a chance, but he was in New Hampshire yesterday in an obvious campaign feeler move. 
  
  
  
• I agree. Those deputies that run security at the Denton County Courthouse come across as soulless jerks. 
  
  
  
• Random NBA news from yesterday.  With the new contract's guaranteed money, LeBron will have earned a total of $532 million in the league from salary alone during his career.
  
  
  
• Random poster from boyhood. I can't remember if this was just an ad in a magazine, or if it was a full poster I got from dad's store in Bridgeport.
  
  
  
• Nerdy legal stuff. A judge on the federal 2nd Circuit lambasted the prosecutors yesterday. That last line is fire. 
  
  
  
• Extremely nerdy legal stuff for practitioners only: 
• It's always a point of contention as to whether past bad conduct of cop is admissible by the defense in a case the officer worked on if his past bad act didn't rise to the level of a criminal conviction (which everyone agrees is admissible.) 
• There was a Texas case which was reversed on appeal yesterday because the State only disclosed after the trial that an officer had improperly accessed a government database to get dirt on his wife and lover so he could use it in his divorce proceeding. 
• The court held that the defendant was entitled to a new trial because that evidence could have been used to impeach the officer because it was relevant. Specifically, there had been a search and seizure issue submitted to the jury under 38.23 which would turn on the officer's truthfulness. It looks like the question involved whether images on the defendant's phone had been located "inadvertently" while the officer was handling the phone (with limited consent to see if was capable of "making a call") or whether he was intentionally rooting around on it. Since the past bad act was relevant to show the officer had done some illegal rooting around on computer devices without authorization in the past, it's relevant.
• Bottom line: Not all bad acts are admissible, but they will be if you can nicely tie it to an issue in the case. 
• The defense lawyer on trial and appeal was Jake Spiegelhauer out of Bryan, Texas. Good job. 
• I'm into the second season of The Morning Show. It's very good, but I can't believe I went into thinking it was going to be some feel good comedy.