A salute to fallen warriors

The Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association will honor its fallen warriors this morning at 11:00 a.m. in the Trial Ready Room on the 7th floor of the Harris County Criminal (In)justice Center.

The Honorable Michael T. McSpadden, the presiding judge of the 209th Judicial District Court will speak and past HCCLA President Robb Fickman will read the names being added to the plaque.

Here are the names of those who will be honored for fighting to defend the Constitution and the rights of the accused:

Frank Alvarez, Jr.

Frank Briscoe

Charles C. Cates

John R. Coe

John L. Denninger

Thomas Barker "Tody" Dupont

Rosemary Garza

William Hatten

Marguerite Hudig

Phil Jenkins

Stuart Kinard

Benjamin Levy

Miron Love

Robert Most

Joe Roach, Jr.

Jose Rojo

Felix Salazar

Don Shipley

Robert J. Sussman

Bob Tarrant

David A. Wills

In case of emergency...

Following the untimely death of Marguerite Hudig a couple of weeks ago, my colleagues and fellow HCCLA members, Mark Bennett and Murray Newman decided to create a special "In Case of Emergency" listing for all attorneys who practice in Harris County.

If you practice in Harris County, whether or not you're a member of HCCLA, you can enter your emergency contact information so that, if something were to happen, someone would know how to contact you to check up on your welfare.

The information will not be shared with anyone and can only be accessed by a member of the HCCLA Board of Directors.

Here is the link for more information:

Excellent work, Mark and Murray.

We hold these truths to be self-evident...

Here's a special shout-out to the folks who showed up at the Harris County Criminal (In)justice Center this morning for the reading of the Declaration of Independence. We had over 100 HCCLA members, attorneys and others in attendance for the reading.

Here are a few crowd shots...

Celebrating the Declaration of Independence

Join HCCLA for a live reading of the Declaration of Independence on Friday, July 1, 2011 at 11am outside the doors of the Harris County Criminal (In)justice Center at 1201 Franklin Street.

Robb Fickman (aka The Czar) organized a live reading last year and new TCDLA President Gary Trichter has asked defense attorneys across the state to conduct live readings at the courthouse this year.

Come join HCCLA for the continuation of a new tradition.

Reasonable Doubt, 2/17/2011

Tonight I'll be a guest on Reasonable Doubt on public access television (Houston Media Source) in Houston. The show is sponsored by the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association and is hosted by Todd Dupont. We'll be talking about police brutality and the town hall meeting on police brutality held earlier this week.

Reasonable Doubt is on Channel 17 on Comcast in Houston. The show airs at 8pm. You can stream the show at http://hmstv.org/streaming.htm.

Making sausage

In the past week both Mark Bennett and I have written about the op/ed piece written by HCCLA Vice President Chris Tritico regarding the release of the videotape showing officers with the Houston Police Department beating a teenager lying on the ground.

In his piece, Mr. Bennett alluded to the fact that members of HCCLA's Executive Board are defending some of the officers accused of beating Chad Holley. Mr. Bennett seemed to be implying that there was a conflict of interest in the decision to submit the op/ed piece and that members of the Executive Board were using HCCLA to promote their own agenda.

But the lawyer for one of the police officers shown on the video is HCCLA’s President, and HCCLA’s President-Elect and Immediate Past President have a contract to defend police officers against criminal charges. So they pick whatever is behind door C.

I must admit that the same thought crossed my mind when I read Mr. Tritico's op/ed piece.

I can tell you that Mr. Bennett is barking up the wrong tree in this instance.

I'm a member of the board of directors of HCCLA - but I am not a member of the Executive Board, so I wasn't privy to the goings-on behind the curtain last weekend.

Here's what happened. A member of the board approached the Executive Board and suggested that HCCLA should take advantage of the release of the video and issue a statement indicating our opposition to police brutality. The members of the Executive Board discussed the matter and when the decision was made to go forward with the op/ed, the members of the Executive Board who were representing officers accused of beating Chad Holley recused themselves from any further discussion. That left Mr. Tritico to write the op/ed piece. With no other members of the Executive Board taking part in the discussion (for unknown reasons), Mr. Tritico wrote the piece and submitted it to the Houston Chronicle without any input from any other member of the organization.

I'm not going to rehash my criticism of the article because I don't think Mr. Tritico had any ulterior motive when he wrote the piece.