5.24.2021

Random Monday Morning Thoughts




The Joplin, Missouri tornado killed 158. 

  • The story of the abduction of Cash Gernon in the Mountain View area of Dallas really disturbs me.
    • And, unless I'm missing, the local TV stations are dropping the ball on this case. Video footage of the abduction of the 4 year old in the Mountain Creek area was actually obtained and  released. But it wasn't one of our local stations to let us know this, it was the Daily Mail. 

    • And according to the story, he came back and hour and a half later and stood of the same crib containing the boy's twin brother!

    • The only way the above came to my attention was a Dallas Observer twitter post. Is is just so disturbing that the local stations don't want to air it? 
    • And another non-local news outlet, The Daily Beast, obtained neighbor's footage of the alleged abductor stalking the area 10 weeks earlier.

  • The online mob is upset about a matter-of-fact recitation of the Black Lives Matter movement in the yearbook at Decatur High School. 


  • The Texas "constitutional carry" bill has arisen from the dead and is on the verge of passage. It went to a joint committee to work out the differences, and it has now made it out without being gutted. At midnight last night, the House signed off on the comprise bill it 82-62. It now goes to the Senate where it is expected to pass. 

  • A midnight vote? The only guy I really know in the Texas legislature is the recently elected David Spiller out of Jacksboro. I've thought about him every time I read about some marathon committee meeting or session. Is that gig worth it? I'll ask him. 
  • Highway 380 on the other side of Denton is dangerous. There's always a horrible wreck happening, and there was a bad one yesterday.

  • Cable car accident in Italy kills 14.




  • It won't get much play here, but what happened in international politics yesterday was wild. Say there was a journalist in Costa Rica bad mouthing President Biden. The journalist then gets on a plane to take a trip to Canada. Once he gets over U.S. airspace, the U.S. calls in a false bomb threat to the plane which then makes an emergency landing in the U.S. as a precaution. U.S. authorities then board the plane and arrest the journalist and may now imprison him or worse. That's basically what happened yesterday with a flight between two European Union states. The U.S. condemned the act. (At least one U.S. citizen was onboard.)

  • A play in three Acts:
    • Act I

    • Act II

    • Act III

  • Speaking of Greene, she and embattled Matt Gaetz decided to make a joint appearance on Friday in Arizona in support of the the bizarre and ridiculous vote "audit" being conducted by the wheels off firm called "Cyber Ninjas." They oughta hook up. They are prefect for one another (except that she's 46.) 

  • I just love this picture from Spring Commencement from the University of Maryland. And if you zoom in, there's a lot going on in it. 

  • The Trump Republicans plan to oust Liz Cheney are off to a rough start. 

  • Random video footage: Cybill Shepherd, as Miss Teenage Tennessee, on the field of the Cotton Bowl in 1967 before a Cowboys/Steelers game. 

     
  • We've now got an official state handgun? 

  • With all the rain, somehow Lake Bridgeport still isn't full. (I'm not complaining. We went what seemed to be a decade of the thing looking like Death Valley.)

  • Another Texas case solved by "familial DNA" or "genealogy testing" through commercial DNA sites. To clarify, this process isn't the typical running a a known DNA sample through the national criminal database (CODIS) and getting a direct match. No, it's running the DNA through commercial DNA databases (23andMe, etc.) and getting a match for a portion of a family tree, and then doing the footwork of elimination. (This girl's death was one of the many deaths that Henry Lee Lucas falsely confessed to doing.)

  • I was going to post a front page from South Carolina of Phil Mickelson's victory, but not a single paper from that state, where the win occurred, had it on the cover. Nor did North Carolina to the north nor Georgia to the south. I gave up after that and just went random.

at 8:34 AM

5.21.2021

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

(As to the last one, the driver is OK.)
at 2:30 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts




The scandal of the so-called Mineola Swingers Club is just another sad chapter in the history of the Texas criminal justice system falsely accusing people. (The pleas were to simply get out of jail and get away from the justice-be-damned sorry excuse for a D.A.'s office and the judges in Smith County.)  Texas Monthly was indeed all over the injustice. Its collection of articles about the cases, including later pieces interviewing "victims" who recanted, are here. The facts are wild. 

  • If you live in Frisco next to a member of the offense of the Dallas Cowboys who just happens to have a dog, be careful. 

    From 2019

    • Zeke has a tattoo of one of those dogs. (Did you know there's a website which breaks down 14 of his tattoos, but I know there are more than that?)

    • Zeke lives in the "Starwood neighborhood" in Frisco. You know it's exclusive when Google Streetview can't get to it because of the locked gates. 

  • After watching the video of the attempted abduction and how quickly it began and ended, I doubt that this update to the story is true at all. And who plays with "blue dye" that doesn't easily wash off? The story is sensational enough without tricking up the facts. 

  • Los Angeles deputies are unhappy:


  • Ransomware wouldn't be successful but for Bitcoin. 
  • This guy has filled in as host of the Mark Davis radio show, and he's as dumb as a box of rocks. While on the Farmer's Branch city council, he lead the charge to adopt an ordinance preventing private apartment companies from renting to undocumented aliens -- an ordinance which was struck down by the courts and cost the city $6.6 million in legal fees (with a lot of it paid to scam artist and failed politician Kris Kobach). More recently, O'Hare also "founded the Southlake Families PAC, an organization formed to counter the Critical Race Theory in Southlake schools." With Tarrant County already border-line Blue, his love of Jim Crow might be the final straw if he leads the GOP.

  • I stumbled upon a random murder case affirmed on appeal on Wednesday arising out of an incident in a Burleson hotel.  It sounds pretty salacious factually and pretty interestingly legally. Part of the dissent is reproduced below. A Facebook page dedicated to the victim is here.  News story when the defendant testified is here. 

  • Legal nerd stuff: Yesterday the Fort Worth Court of Appeals affirmed a Wise County conviction of 35 years for sexual assault of a child occurring in Rhome. There's nothing "unusual" about it, and the Defendant's brief is really good without much to work with. For some reason the State's brief isn't available online -- the Fort Worth court is really bad about not posting briefs when they should. 
  • I just finished this book about a man taking a former Indian hostage back home -- a journey which begins in Wichita Falls and then moves through Montague County and on to San Antonio. Verdict: I love the author's style but, honestly, not a whole lot happens. 

  • 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: 686 days.
  • Messenger: Above the Fold



at 8:34 AM

5.20.2021

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts




I had forgotten about this one (and the mean deputies.) The original post is here which includes links that are still good.   

  • We learned that Colonial Pipeline paid $4.4 million in response to the ransomware. I've seen some reports which said the hack didn't stop the gas from flowing but only prevented the company from being able to track the amount of the flow and, thus, prevented them from being able to accurately bill for it. That makes sense. 

  • The House voted to approve the creation of a bipartisan commission to investigate the causes of and government response to the January 6th Insurrection. The investigative committee would be fair in that it would be made up of five Democrats and five Republicans. What's wrong with that? Amazingly, only 35 Republicans voted for it.


  • The unconstitutional (for now) heartbeat bill was signed by Gov. Abbott yesterday with a crowd around him. No media was allowed but the event was broadcast on Facebook. 


  • The State of Texas executed a man last night but failed to let the media witness it due to a "miscommunication." Incredible. 

  • Our Texas Court of Criminal Appeals is often called an embarrassment and they helped prove it yesterday.  
    • First, the good news: The finally cleared Lydell Grant of murder.  The trial court and prosecutors had asked the Court to clear him earlier last year because of DNA testing, but on July 1, 2020, the Court booted the case back to the trial court saying it needed more evidence. Sheesh. That led to Texas Monthly outlining the case and blasting the Court in this great article. And even though the Court finally cleared the man yesterday, four of the judges got all defensive and  wrote separately to blame the lawyers and clerk below for the delay. That's obviously a response to Texas Monthly. 

    • In another case, the Court still refused to clear a man for ineffective assistance of counsel even though the case had been reversed by the United States Supreme Court who had sent it back to them. But it gets crazier: Even those who dissented didn't do so because they agreed with the ineffective assistance claim. Oh, no. They dissented because they think the Supreme Court is going slap them down again when they don't deserve it. This, from the dissent, is really incredible: 

       
    • For Texas criminal practitioners only: The Court was also became a bully yesterday.  A couple of months ago, the appellate court out of Eastland reversed two guilty pleas after the defendants objected to entering the plea via Zoom and instead demanded they do it in person. The Court of Criminal Appeal agreed to review that decision yesterday and said they want the case briefed immediately by the State and within 10 days. The wild part is that the Court, in a separate order, told the Eastland Court to change the designation of their opinions back from "do not publish" to "publish" because the Eastland court had changed that designations, in their opinion, too late. 
  • Legal fun fact: You can't get a felony case in a courtroom without a grand jury indictment, and in most states you can't get in front of the grand jury without the permission of the District Attorney. In the story below, I learned that in Kansas anyone can present a matter for criminal consideration to grand jury if they can get a petition "bearing the signatures of a number of electors equal to 100 plus 2% of the total number of votes cast for governor in the county in the last preceding election."

  • For those familiar with the great Dr. Death podcast, here's the trailer for the film version of it which will appear on NBC's Peacock streaming service.  The story of the Metroplex doctor was first told in this D Magazine article. 

  • Rare baseball bullet points from me, and I've got three:
    • So Corey Kluber pitched a no-hitter against the Rangers last night? For those who don't recall, the Rangers acquired him for the 2020 season, but he was placed on injured reserve, never to pitch again for Texas, after he threw only 18 pitches in his first start. (Someone can help me out but I don't think it cost the Rangers anything for 2020 to have him on the roster -- I believe Cleveland, whom they acquired Kluber from, paid his $17.5 million salary for 2020 in exchange for two players.)
    • The Rangers have been no hit twice this year. No team in the history of baseball has been no-hit three times in one year. Place your bets.  (Side note: I think it is bizarrely childish to call a no-hitter a "no-no.")
    • Long time readers know I pronounced Chris Davis the Official Liberally Lean Major League Baseball Player way back when he struggled as a Texas Ranger. He then went on to Baltimore to become a sensation and signed a monstrous contract in 2016 ($23 million for six years) only to almost immediately flame out. Yesterday, it was announced he'll miss the rest of this season due to injury (which probably doesn't upset Baltimore too much because they didn't want to put him in the lineup no matter how much they have to pay him.) Look at these numbers:

  • New York thought it was a big deal . . . 



at 8:35 AM
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