4.21.2022

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts




Ten years ago Wise County Attorney Thomas Aaberg ran the Boston Marathon (above).  He would be so disappointed with his time that he went back and ran it again next year. He was faster in 2013, and it's a good thing: After he finished and left the area the bombing took place. 



  • The vehicle and body of the missing pharmacist from Lewisville, Robert Moulds, was found yesterday off of 380 between Bridgeport and Decatur.  On the Facebook page dedicated to finding him, one his family members posted the screenshot below a couple of days ago with the note, "Can we get walkers to check for phone in these areas?" If I understand it correctly, it was a map of the GPS tracking of his phone based upon Allstate app that he had. It pretty much pegged the location of where the man was found: 

  • I don't understand this. The only thing the lawsuit asked for was to establish parentage -- she never asked for money (which she couldn't because she wasn't entitled to any regardless.) So now she drops the lawsuit but still says wants to establish parentage. Huh? I don't get it.   This was all a publicity stunt. She currently works for Wise County's much-aligned Congressman Ronny Jackson.  

  • I'm sure you've seen it, but here's the video of the pitcher for Weatherford College tackling the batter who just went yard on him. The pitcher's name is Owen Woodward, and he graduated from Breckenridge High School.


  • I honestly don't understand how a drop of 200,000 in subscriptions in one quarter was enough to tank the Netflix stock yesterday. First, the decision to pull out of Russia cost 700,000 subscribers alone but, more importantly, the company still has 221 million subscribers. 

  • I know I've dogged DPS Director Steve McCraw a lot lately, but I thought of him again yesterday when I saw the tweet below from Gov. Abbott. Then I thought more about him even when I learned he said in an interview in January, when Abbott wasn't around, that he didn't have much faith in the Mexican governors:  “If you believe the government of Mexico is helping, then you're sadly mistaken, The Mexican cartels not only have operational control of the border, they really have operational control of Mexico through corruption, intimidation and bribery.”

  • According to the dismissal motion, prosecutors said they thought they would find the body "well before" the trial was to begin.  Little premature on getting that indictment in the first place there, fellas? (But they can still refile the case.)

  • This case seems really wonky.  

    • There was an American citizen living in Mexico named Herrera who would traffic drugs from Mexico to the U.S. through Texas.  
    • But, as I understand it, he was just a middle man who would collect a fee for getting the drugs from a supplier in Mexico to an end distributor in the U.S.
    • But Herrera came up with a plan: He would steal the drugs so he could resell them himself and get in on the action. 
    • But the suppliers wouldn't be happy with the dope never getting to the end distributor, right? Well he came up with a scheme. He would steal the drugs and then replace them with cheap, low quality stuff. He would then, and this is the genius part, tip off border agents when the low quality stuff was coming through the border. The replacement drugs were then seized and people were arrested.  So Herrera could then tell his suppliers, "Sorry, the drugs you sent me got caught." Herrera could then sell the real drugs he stole. 
    • So how does a Texas attorney end up in federal prison over all of this? Well, Herrera needed proof for his suppliers that their drugs (in reality, his low quality drugs) were seized. So he had the attorney search the public accessible PACER federal database for the documents which were filed related to the seizures.  The attorney would then send the public documents to Herrera who would then send those documents to the suppliers as "proof" their drugs were stolen. The attorney paid 10 cents per page to PACER and sold the same documents for $1,000 each time.  He did that "at least eight times."  But that's the lawyer's full involvement. 
    • The attorney seemed less than excited about entering a guilty plea yesterday. “So are you pleading guilty to this or are you not pleading guilty to this?” The judge asked. “What are you doing?”
    • So the case is wonky. Was the attorney just accessing a public database? Or was he part of a criminal drug conspiracy? The Feds said the latter. 
    • Here's the story link. Here is the U.S. Attorney's press release. 
  • This was kind of a weird route. She graduated from SMU law school with honors in 2017, took the Oklahoma bar, and hired by Oklahoma's largest law firm. Now four years later she got around to taking the Texas bar and became the top scorer. That's impressive. 

  • Out of Clifton, Texas. Those photos really got people worked up.

     

  • Don't we have a whole civil lawsuit system already in place that actually would allow for much more than just child support?

  • This was a funny and bold move by SMU.   
    • The great scandal of paying recruits that caused SMU to get the death penalty occurred in the 1980s. One part of the story is that prized recruit Eric Dickerson showed up on campus in a new gold Trans Am.  Here's Dickerson making fun of the incident back in 2013: 

    • Anyway, SMU made a promotional social media post this week to tease something (I don't know what), but as part of it they snuck in a picture of a gold Trans Am. With players legally being paid left and right these days with NIL deals, it's now OK to joke about it I suppose. 

  • The Masked Singer is the dumbest show on Earth. Accordingly, it had coup-conspirator Rudy Giuliani on it last night. Video.

at 8:31 AM

4.20.2022

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts




A man who was training for an iron man competition. Tony Weathers, died in the Trinity River during a "Mud Run" near downtown Fort Worth. Oddly, they didn't find his body in the river until the next day. 

  •  I've got questions about a wrongful termination lawsuit filed by a deputy in the Denton County Sheriff's Office. (PDF of lawsuit here.)


  • It's becoming very Black Mirror when murders are live-streamed. 

  • I'll admit I wasn't aware of this money based incentive:  "By state law, 90% of criminal cases in a five-year period must be cleared or the county can face losing as much as $50 million in criminal justice grants from the state. The county's current disposition rate stands at 87%." To meet that mark, Dallas County "must dispose of 556 cases a week to meet the Aug. 1, 2022."  I wonder what they definition of "cleared" is because it could be very easy to meet that goal.

  • So let me get this right: Disney uses its free speech right to come out against Florida's "Don't Say Gay" law, and now the Florida state government wants to punish them by eliminating a favorable taxing district that was created in 1968?  This is the party of limited government? 


  • Junior Miller on The Ticket this morning said it is a crime to witness  someone shooting another person and not report it to the police "although it is only a misdemeanor." That's 100% not true*. You can't tamper with evidence, but it's not a crime to just keep your mouth shut in the United States. And there is no catch-all "obstruction of justice" law in Texas.  I can think of only two exceptions:
    • There is a duty for some people in a child's life to report suspected abuse of that child. See Texas Family Code §291.101
    •  And Texas has a weird law about having a duty to report a "corpse" that you find under circumstances you "reasonably should know that a law enforcement agency is not aware of the existence of". See Texas Penal Code §37.09(d)(2).  As far as I know, no one has ever been prosecuted under that law, and there would seem to be a serious question about it requiring unconstitutionally compelled speech.
    • *Edit: Ok. I'll admit being slightly wrong. There is a statute, which appears in no reported appellate cases, that makes it a crime: (1) if you witness a felony, (2) you believe someone has died or was seriously injured, and (3) you don't immediately report it unless you believe someone else reported it and, even if you don't believe that, you are still off the hook if you believe reporting it would "place" yourself in "danger of suffering serious bodily injury or death." Those exceptions to the third prong pretty much guts the statute since they provide a built in excuse. (And the same constitutional issue of forced speech hasn't been hashed out yet.)  Nevertheless, I'll call that being somewhat wrong. 
  • Someone told me that Johnny Depp was instructed by the judge at the end of the day yesterday that he was not allowed to consult with his own attorney before he resumes his testimony in his defamation case.  I had never heard of that, but apparently that is the law in some jurisdictions and, honestly, it kind of makes some sense to me. 

  • Bill O'Reilly hasn't changed. Video. Do it live! 

  • More headlines about Wise County Congressman Ronny Jackson ties to Oath Keepers yesterday. 

  • Calling someone who disagrees with you a pedophile or a groomer is an old blood-libel fascist trick which has been adopted by QAnon (see Pizzagate) and now frighteningly moving into the mainstream.  This lady was having nothing of it yesterday. It was a 5 minute glorious angry rant. 

  • Random photo I saw yesterday which I think is both funny and a piece of art.

  • Very Legal nerdy stuff: This opinion from yesterday has to have a misstatement in it, right? Link

  • Only 152 games to go.

  • Messenger: Above the Fold

at 8:31 AM

4.19.2022

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts




And two months later he would be found not guilty on all six counts.



  • I have no idea what is going on in Slidell, but there must be something when the varsity girls basketball coach, who went 194-38 record in seven season, quit last night.
  • This is a weird standard for fitness: DPS requires its troopers to have a waistline of no greater than 40 inches for men and 35 inches for women. And their new "get in shape or not be promoted" rule seems to be unnecessary. From the story: "As of April, 213 officers – out of about 4,000 total – had failed the waistline requirement, according to the department. Only two of the 213 also failed the physical fitness test . . . ."  I've know lots of troopers in my life. Obesity never seems to be a problem with that agency. 

  • The CDC's mask requirement for airlines was struck down yesterday by a 35 year old judge appointed by Trump who was rushed through the confirmation process by the Senate after the 2020 election. Oh, and she was deemed “not qualified” by the ABA and once clerked for Clarence Thomas. (The ruling is wrong but the Biden Administration will let it go. They realize they should have let it expire on its own terms anyway. At this point, it's a political loser to appeal the decision -- which is a lousy way to make legal decisions but they should have got out in front of this thing.)

    • Can we stop taking our shoes off at airports now, too?
  • The Supreme Court refused to hear a death penalty case out of Texas yesterday. The three judge dissent tried to say, "Are you kidding me that they let that person be on the jury?" but explained it this way:

    • The case was actually the wild one out of Dallas where a dentist was killed in a parking garage. Texas Monthly had a great long article about it here. 


  • Highway 380 in Wise County in nirvana compared to how it is east of Denton. Video.

  • Wise County's rep Ronny Jackson is in the news again. The Oath Keepers, the group leading the storming of the Capitol to overthrow the government  -- so much so that they had a stash of weapons in a hotel room ready to be put on a boat to cross the Potomac which gave rise to a indictment on seditious conspiracy charges -- were on alert to protect our Congressman that day.  

  • I failed to note Decatur's Bryce Elder second major league start on Sunday night.  It was OK. Nothing wrong with that. 

  • Anyone remember that Brittney Griner is still in a Russian jail?
  • I just finished this book. It's fantastic. Even if you think you have a good grasp of what happened over the last six months of Trump's presidency, to hear it all laid out again, with some new great details, is really mind-blowing.  (Probably the biggest moment of Trump's coup plan came in a crazy impromptu meeting on December 18, 2020 when somehow crazy Sidney Powell, crazy Michael Flynn and crazy former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne managed to get in the White House and catch Trump's eye. That meeting has been explored at length elsewhere as well.)

  • Legal nerdy stuff: There's a "murder" case going on in Wichita Falls which by all accounts should be an Intoxication Manslaughter case. The facts are bad (there's a dead child), but I can't figure out from any of the news articles why it's charged as murder. Some of you folks up in Big Sky Country get me an answer on that. 


at 8:31 AM

4.18.2022

Random Monday Morning Thoughts



Here is someone else's blog post about the incident. One of the prosecutors was disciplined by the State Bar for withholding evidence in the case. 

  • The missing pharmacist, Robert Moulds, is quite the mystery. Both he and his vehicle have vanished with his last known location being in Wise County.  Lots and lots of people are looking for him in the county. (Facebook group.)

  • On the Friday afternoon news dump, Gov. Abbott finally officially abandoned his border search policy.  And the $300,000 man also finally spoke. 


  • South Carolina gives a death row inmate the right to chose firing squad as his method of execution if he so wishes. A guy just made that choice. Happy Easter.

  • Mass shooting weekend update. A club, and Air BNB, and a mall.



  • First they came for science, then history, and now they are coming for math? 

  • This 49 second promotional video of Tucker Carlson's new special would be banned from schools in Florida. I have no idea what he is trying to pull off here. And this lady wasn't lying -- it's one of the weirdest things I've seen from him. 

  • The mental health of the leader of the Republican Party is not improving. 


    • Compare and contrast:

  • I listen to a lot of talk radio, and I went insane over the last three days because of radio hosts completely screwing up the Law of Parties in light of the news that the Dallas Cowboy Kelvin Johnson was in the same car where bullets were fired out of, killing a man. 

    • Let's get it straight. 
    • The Law of Parties says this: If you intend for a crime to be committed, and you then, in any way, assist someone else in committing that crime, you can be charged with that crime just as equally as the person who actually committed it. Here's the subsection prosecutor's always rely upon: 

    • But here is where they have all been wrong: Merely being with someone who commits a crime does not make you guilty of anything.  The law is clear: "Mere presence" won't get you in trouble.
    • I'll go even further, if you had no idea the other person was going to commit a crime, you could even give that person a ride home after the fact and not be committing a crime.  (It's not smart, and prosecutors will probably try to wrongfully convict you by saying your actions after the fact are proof of your intentions before the fact.)
    • In the case of the Cowboys player, almost every radio host has said that the fact that he was "in the car" from which the shots were fired is enough to make him criminally responsible for the murder. That's flat out wrong. Ticket radio hosts George Dunham, Craig Miller, Jake Kemp, Mark Elfenbaum all said it as did the Dallas Morning News' David Moore. 
    • There is one limited circumstance where the Law of Parties does extend to unintentional acts that your buddy commits:  
      • Say you are in a convenience store, intend for your buddy is going to rob the clerk, and are serving as a lookout. In that situation you will are certainly guilty of robbery under the Law of Parties because you are assisting him with the intent that the robbery be committed.  
      • But here is how you can become responsible for unintended conduct:  If your buddy goes one step further and kills the clerk during the course of the robbery, you've bought the crime of murder even though you didn't have any intention of the clerk dying. That one felony morphing into another felony rule is specifically covered in the statute. 

      • But the key in that hypothetical there is that there was some underlying felony (robbery) that you intended to assist in which gave rise to your unintended felony (murder.) 
  • Here's the indictment in the intentional miscarriage/murder case out of Starr County.  I'm still not pleased that we haven't heard more about how all this went down or how one of the assistant DA's was privately representing the husband of the defendant in a divorce. 

  • I know! I know! I know!
  • Why Fox Sports is investing in and backing the USFL is beyond me. 



at 8:31 AM

4.15.2022

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

at 2:30 PM
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