Texas, Texans & the Law
Interesting Economic Research, Race, Poverty and American Tort Awards
Another post on a great piece from Marginal Revolution, Alex Tabarrok discusses his recent research with Eric Helland on Race, Poverty and American Tort Awards. His conclusion:
A 1% increase in black poverty rates, for example, can increase tort awards by 3-10 percent with a similar increase in Hispanic poverty rates. Careful forum shopping can easily [...]
More on the Fulbright & Jaworksi N-word incident
I posted my reaction to the n-word incident at Duke - Fulbright & Jaworski Partner Drops N-Word in Interview; Sky Falls - having only read the early reports based on Dean Bartlett’s interview. A big thanks to Hans Bader for alerting me to the more recent developments. His comment appears in full below my first [...]
Houston Crime Lab Makes News Again; Impact on legal cases?
The Houston Crime Lab tends to make the news from time to time and almost never for anything good. In the latest debacle, an lab technician has been arrested for stealing cocaine processed in the lab over the last several years.
Houston Chronicle: Impact of cocaine thefts from DPS lab disputed
This is actually relatively benign after [...]
Fulbright & Jaworski Partner Drops N-Word in Interview; Sky Falls
Apparently a Fulbright & Jaworski Partner on a recruiting trip to Duke let the dreaded N-word fly in a story he or she was telling to a student. As might be expected, except by the offending F&J Partner apparently, the shit has hit the proverbial fan.
Duke Law Dean Kate Barlett sent out a campus-wide e-mail [...]
Sam Milsap, who prosecuted Ruben Cantu, now crusades against death penalty
Houston Chronicle: Former Bexar DA crusades against the death penalty
More on Ruben Cantu
Where Angels Fear to Tread…
Here’s an interesting bit in the Houston Chronicle: In the eyes of UT, sawed-off logo is illegal.
That’s right, the University of Texas is suing an Aggie schlock peddler over his, let’s face it, less than novel use of ’sawed-off horns’. There are songs, for goodness sake, the entire, complete lyrics of which are “Saw Varsity’s [...]
Glaring Decisis
Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick: Texas Side-Step: Have the Supreme Court’s opinions become suggestions in Texas?
Well, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals—that state’s highest court—has figured out a better way to thwart a clear directive from the U.S. Supreme Court. When the Texas court was instructed, in a 2004 decision about the constitutionality of its jury instructions, [...]
Return of the Jamail “Big Boy” Deposition Video
I swear I’m the only person in my section not to have seen this thing. Until now.
Death Penalty Land
Twenty-four condemned Texas killers were executed in 2006, accounting for 45 percent of all the executions in the United States. While the national count of 53 was seven fewer than 2005, the Texas total was up five from the previous year.
Houston Chronicle: Executions down in U.S. but not in Texas
A while back I ran into [...]
More on Marshall, Texas, U.S. Patent Litigation Capital
NY Times So Small a Town, So Many Patent Suits
More patent lawsuits will be filed here this year than in federal district courts in San Francisco, Chicago, New York and Washington. Only the Central District of California, in Los Angeles, will handle more patent infringement cases.