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Showing posts from November, 2014

Jury Misconduct

The Court of Criminal Appeals (the highest court in Texas) rendered that a rushed juror who regretted his decision and cooperated with the defense in a motion for new trial is not good enough evidence to overturn a verdict. In Colyer v. State, 428 S.W. 3d, 117 (2014), the jury foreperson testified that his verdict was not a true verdict because he was rushed into judgment. He detailed that the late time of day, distance to the parking lot, approaching inclement weather, and amount of time it took for the Judge to respond to the jury’s notes, caused him to rush to a guilty verdict that he later regretted. He meticulously described how he received an emergency phone call from a doctor regarding his daughter. After this, and worried about her serious condition, he stopped deliberating. He hurriedly rushed the other jurors to judgment, agreeing with them without forming his own true opinion. This information later came to the court's attention. The defense made a proper motion f...

If You Drink Alcohol, You Should Read This- They Will Get a Warrant for Your Blood and Then.....

The Texas Department of Public Safety laboratory in Houston was responsible for thousands of botched results (some completely fraudulent) because of lab analyst Jonathan Salvador. This occurred from 2006-2012. The Texas Forensic Commission got wind of his questionable work and launched an investigation. One of the commissioners in the investigation, Dr. Nizam Peerwani concluded that the Texas Department of Public Safety lab's office "tolerated under-performance". So this was not just a problem from the analyst, but the whole lab shared culpability. Rather than properly address the problems after this scandal in order to improve testing, Texas DPS convinced our legislators to restricting test results in court only to them. Hence, Texas Code of Criminal Procedure 38.35 was enacted that restricts test results admitted to court to be limited to those of a lab with the Texas DPS certification. Laboratories like Max Courtney's was shut down immediately. Max Courtney...