5.13.2022

It's Friday -- Let's Get Out of Here

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Random Friday Morning Thoughts





NBC 5 treated her pretty harshly by taking her off the air and  then not letting her back on after she pled guilty and received 18 months probation. But, as most people do, she bounced back OK.  She currently has a gig as co-host of WFAA-TV's "Good Morning Texas."  


  • Two are dead and three are injured after a shooting in Deep Ellum at around 2:00 a.m. this morning. It sounds like the police will have lots of video of it, but none has been released yet.  Best I can tell, the location is at Crowdus and Elm: 


    • This was from yesterday:

  • Decatur's relay team had a wild day in Austin. In the 4 x 100 they were disqualified after a false start. But then a little later they ran the 4 x 200 and got a gold medal.   The UIL's one false start = automatic disqualification is one of the harshest rules in sports.

    • Am I crazy, or did Decatur's 4 x 100 relay team also get disqualified for a false start at the state meet around 1980? Or did they get third? I was there and one of the two happened.  
  • Looking more at the bodycam from the search of Delaware lacrosse team bus in Georgia, I discovered this girl who might be my favorite 4th Amendment scholar of all time. She asks the officer (@10:21), "How did we go from driving in the wrong lane to [you] going through our bags looking for marijuana?"  Girl, you are preaching what many of us have been asking for years. 

  • We had 50 indictments filed yesterday in Wise County. 
  • We've got a TDC inmate on the run in Leon County after he got out of his "restraints" and attacked the bus driver. Shots were fired at him as he ran away. 


  • I'm confused, are they pro-life or not pro-life? Or do brown babies not count?

     

  • Elon Musk confirmed a news story in the middle of the night that his Twitter deal is on hold. I told you I was skeptical that he would go through with it. 


  • These probable Insurrectionists will ignore the subpoenas and then nothing will happen to them. The law doesn't matter any longer. 

  • My Pete Delkus 10 day temperature predictor watch is on! I'll be using the official temperature at DFW airport (which was 92 degrees yesterday and which I added to his graphic.) He missed Day #1 by three degrees. I'll update it on Monday. 

  • Seems big: Britney Griner was in a Russian courtroom this morning regarding her detention. It will continue for at least another 30 days. Edit: Here's a pic of her.

  • Not letting it ride: The 80-1 shot winner of the Kentucky Derby won't run make a run for the Triple Crown. 

  • Business quick headlines:
    • I keep telling you. There's money in warehouses.

    • This is not an overstatement: I have never in my entire life seen as much construction in the metroplex (and all around us) as I'm seeing right now. 

  • Extremely very legal nerd stuff for criminal practitioners only: Say a judge at an MTA hearing adjudicates the defendant guilty and imposes a 10 year sentence but tells him he will strongly consider shock probation. But later the judge and the defense lawyer figure out that because there's a deadly weapon finding, he can't get shock probation. Can the defense lawyer then potentially solve the problem by filing a Motion for New Trial to reconsider the sentence or adjudication? Yes, but if you don't assert "interest of justice" as one of the grounds in your motion, your client is screwed and will be going to prison for a long time. That's what the the Fort Worth Court of Appeals held yesterday. (The judge, George Gallagher, actually went along with the defense lawyer and put the defendant back on probation because of their screw-up.  But the DA's office were able to sabotage the judge, the defendant, and his lawyer by appealing. You know, because they tell us their job is to seek justice.)
  • Time which has passed since the Wise County Sheriff's Office has failed to solve the murder of Lauren Whitener in her home at Lake Bridgeport: 1,043 days.
  • Messenger: Above the Fold

5.12.2022

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts





There were two links in that post to find the book about Ricky Lee Green. One link is now dead and the other from Amazon now lists one used copy of the book for sale for $1,161.  (Amazon also tells me I bought a copy on January 21, 2003, but now I have no idea where it is.)


  • The Senate tried to pass a bill yesterday making abortion legal through federal law (which would trump whatever states do if Roe were to be overruled), but it failed 49-51.
    • They needed 60 votes anyway because of the filibuster rule. 
    • West Virginia's Joe Manchin was the lone Democrat to vote against it. 
    • Related: The Supreme Court meets today in conference, and it is the first time they have all got together since the opinion leak. 
  • That's a heck of a picture of a wild fire in California from yesterday/last night.

    • And those are some big homes destroyed. The main street that was hit was Coronado Pointe. I wanted to look at it on Google Streetview but it's gated. 

  • Southlake PD has backed off its claim that it was a poisonous water moccasin found in a closet. They posted this on Facebook (the department does a lot of social media cutesy bits):

  • Legal news quick hits:
    • #1. The South is still being the South.  Let me tell you something, the unconstitutional prolonged detention of people after a traffic stop based upon a hunch, bringing in an inept "drug dog" to do an open air sniff, followed by a full blow intrusive inspection of every part of a vehicle, is an epidemic of Biblical proportions in all Southern States including Texas.  

      • After the officer making the traffic stop of the lacrosse team bus was told of the drug dog "hit" by the canine officer, he said on video, "There's a bunch of dang school girls on the bus - there's probably some weed." (Bodycam video starting at around 6:40.)
      • He found no weed. Or anything else. Outrageous. 
    • #2 A three judge panel of the Fifth Circuit, in a 2-1 ruling, lost their minds late yesterday and reinstated Texas new (and ridiculous) law which prevents companies like Twitter and Facebook from censoring any user's post based upon the user's "viewpoint." This is an insane ruling and would be the death of the First Amendment.  Legal folks I follow who are much smarter than I am were losing their minds last night about it. This story should pick up steam in the media today.

    • #3 A guilty plea of a Trump Insurrectionists fell through yesterday when a defendant waffled in front of the judge. This type of exchange will cause a courtroom emergency brake to be pulled every time:



    • #4: The lady which was amazingly sentenced to prison for 5 years in Tarrant County for casting a provisional ballot got a reprieve yesterday as Texas' highest criminal court sent the case back to the Fort Worth Court of Appeals to determine if there was sufficient evidence on whether she "knowingly" voted illegally. 

       
      • Here's what the said the Fort Worth court of appeals got wrong: 

      • These were the prosecutors:

  • Richard Greene of the Messenger found this old (and odd) ad in the newspaper 25 years ago where Mitchell Energy denied having "sour gas." The oddity came about after the FBI stopped alleged bombers from blowing up the plant as a diversion for robbing an armored car. But . . . 

    • . . . it turned out that there wasn't much up of a scheme to blow it up at all as this Texas Monthly story explained. But that didn't stop the Feds from coloring it as a great Crime Fighting Adventure. 

  • Pete Delkus says we might reach record highs several times over the next 10 days. If I'm smart enough to remember, I'm going to track and post this everyday with the actual results to see how accurate he is. 

  • Am I missing it, or is there not much political advertising going on in the Bush v. Paxton race for Texas AG? The runoff is right around the corner. 

  • The Dallas Observer reflects on To Catch A Predator and how it came to a crazy end when an assistant DA near the metroplex got caught up in it and killed himself as cops moved in. He ended up with a Wikipedia page.

  • I finally got around to starting Succession. My review after Episode #1: Big thumbs up.

5.11.2022

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts




The commercial is still online. It just shows how much things have changed in ten years because now stuff like that is the mainstream.  (Willett, after transforming into an "Aw Shucks" guy on Twitter, managed to get appointed to the federal Fifth Circuit by Trump in 2017.) 


  • We've got video of the post-wreck capture of the Alabama killer who was on the run with the now deceased female jailer.  He's every bit of the 6'9" they said that he was. 

  • Breaking inflation numbers from moment's ago: It's still bad but it has slowed. It's not just going to magically disappear overnight. 

  • Before a jury trial was derailed yesterday in the Wise County district courtroom even before it began (the jury panel apparently saw the defendant shackled before jury selection), the ceiling above the judge's bench collapsed causing "10 gallons of water" to fall on the judge's chair. Fortunately, he wasn't sitting in the chair at the time. 
  • Southlake Police were called about an actual water moccasin which found its way into a spacious closet of one of the city's homes. 

  • D Magazine revealed the name of the kid who "put his hands on" the mother of the Suns player. 

  • A guy with no flying experience landed a single engine Cesena with the help of air-traffic controllers yesterday in Florida after his pilot became incapacitated. There's only a portion of the flight recording which has been released so far, but what I've heard is wild. Air Traffic had no idea where he was so they first had him follow the coastline at 5,000 feet until they could pick him up on radar.  (If you want some crazy entertainment, go watch some Youtube videos of the complete recordings of other situations like this.)

  • Elon Musk says that he would let Trump back on Twitter.  Now that he's a private citizen, I don't have any problem with that. In fact, we need to be reminded of just how crazy he is. (One of my favorite follows on Twitter is "Old Donald Trump Posts")

    • But check on this standard that Musk said he would use to monitor the account of Trump and others.  I cannot believe a many spends $50 billion to buy the company because he didn't like its "censorship" standards, but apparently has never given a moment's thought as to what his standards will be. "Wrong" and "bad"? That's his lofty and high-minded rule? 

  • The last respected remaining American institution has crumbled. 

  • Update from last night regarding my political observation about a guy from yesterday.


  • There's been a lot discussion of how the Ultra-MAGA candidates have taken over Southlake ISD with the help of Super PACs, but apparently those same PACs made huge inroads in Frisco ISD on Saturday. 

  • Emotional distress from an NFL coach? Oh, come on. 

  • Very legal nerdy niche stuff: For you lawyers who try DWI cases from time to time, there was a rare appellate defense win yesterday out of Houston in the somewhat common situation of a person being found asleep behind the driver's seat in a car with the engine running but with the transmission in park.  State v. Espinosa, No. 14-20-00751-CR (Tex.App.-Houston[14th Dist.] 2022).  There is a dissent.
  • Fun attendance and tuition facts for the new Big 12:

  • Messenger: Above the Fold