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Criminal Law

The Matlock Blog

Insights, updates and news on criminal law in Texas and the 5th Circuit.
By Shawn Matlock

Post Frequency: 0.9/day

Last Entry: July 28, 2012 at 20:23:07

Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching

Posted on August 12, 2008
In June, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals created the Texas Criminal Justice Integrity Unit. The goal of the 13-member unit is to address the growing concern surrounding the state's criminal justice system. The unit if made up of judges,...

The F*** Off offer

Posted on August 11, 2008
Every so often, I venture outside the friendly confines of North Texas. I take a case, usually against my better judgment, in a jurisdiction I would not generally stop in if I was driving through on my way to someplace...

Is this bizarro world?

Posted on August 07, 2008
Imagine you are a criminal defense attorney representing a person accused of capital murder. This is no easy task. You have a lot of work to do, and it is not likely to be an easy adventure. After all, the...

Rocking the Mag Court

Posted on August 04, 2008
The Magistrate's Court. It's in the basement of the Tarrant County Justice Center. It's not a real court (I don't mean that in a bad way). It's the place where felony cases go typically before they have been indicted for...

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Where does the time go?

Posted on July 25, 2008
Being in trial can be tough sometimes. Just being out of the office for a couple of days while things pile up can cause for long working weekends. Make that trial a federal drug conspiracy involving international drug smugglers with...

The Pretender strikes again

Posted on July 17, 2008
Ari Gold vs Josh Weinstein I suppose that in every profession, there are those that pretend to know what the hell they are doing. They are generally not terribly bright, and don't usually know what they are doing. In the...

No snitches

Posted on July 16, 2008
You really have to hand it to a guy who is in a position to really help himself out with regard to sentencing by flipping on people for the government, yet he chooses not to. A first-time drug offender can...

A Broken System?

Posted on July 01, 2008
In the 1980's, the Tech Rapist terrorized women on the Texas Tech University campus in Lubbock. I was maybe eleven years old. I still vaguely remember the news accounts from KCBD in Lubbock. In January, 1985, Lubbock police went to...

Rusty Duncan 2008 - Thank you and good night

Posted on June 30, 2008
In case the five or six of you that might actually read this blog on a regular basis were wondering, I have been in sunny San Antonio for this year's Rusty Duncan Advanced Criminal Law Seminar. I wanted to try...

DWI is not a crime

Posted on June 24, 2008
I have, for some time now, wanted to post on DWI in general. Not so much in terms of what a suspect should or should not do, or even really the "nuances" and pitfalls of DWI law, but rather on...

Sharks: The rabbit foot never worked for the rabbit

Posted on June 19, 2008
Before leaving for Vegas, more than several people wished me luck. I hate that. All of them knew that it was HIGHLY likely I would play poker. But for whatever reason, people insist on thinking that it is really luck...

Jail: It's like living in the 1600s

Posted on June 19, 2008
In yet another in what has been a string of questionable deaths at Tarrant County Jail, a 35-year-old Dallas woman died on June 13th while in the custody of the county. Adrienne Lemons died of an apparent untreated staph infection...

Disappearing Act?

Posted on June 18, 2008
No, I haven't pulled a Kobe Bryant and completely disappeared like he did in Game 6 of the NBA Finals last night. But, I have been gone for a while on a much-needed vacation. Throw in an extended trip to...

The feeling

Posted on June 08, 2008
It's a mind-numbing experience. Everything slows down. You can not only feel your heart beating, but hear it as well. Your breathing seems to drown out the rest of the world. In fact, at that moment, there is no rest...

Great Google-ly moogley

Posted on June 04, 2008
This whole site tracking thing on this blog is pretty cool. You can see how people came to this blog. Did they type the URL directly, did they link from my website(

Sharks - Getting value in poker and litigation

Posted on June 01, 2008
Knowing how to value your cards, and perhaps more importantly, your opponent's is a basic core concept of poker. The first lesson of poker is to reduce betting on bad hands while recognizing good ones. The same is true in...

Tattooed

Posted on May 30, 2008
Yesterday in the 213th District Court, Phyllis Dawn Harvey, known as the "Tattoo Bandit" got tattooed by a Tarrant County jury for her 12 day crime spree last July and into August. The spree began July 21 with a carjacking...

Sharks

Posted on May 29, 2008
Perhaps it is fitting the two times the word "shark" is used to describe someone are when referring to a lawyer and a poker player. For most of my life it seems, I have been fascinated by the correlation of...

Cops as crooks

Posted on May 20, 2008
An interesting story out of the L.A. Times discusses a former L.A.P.D. officer sentenced to 102 years in federal court for his involvement in a robbery ring in which several officers conducted bogus drug raids staged to look like legitimate...

The Wheel and the well-meaning relative

Posted on May 12, 2008
The second case I helped defend when I returned to Texas was a nasty aggravated sexual assault case. The facts were very bad, but that was only if they could be proven and both sides knew that was questionable. The...

Heard at the courthouse today - Part 2

Posted on May 09, 2008
During a Preliminary/ Detention Hearing in the United States Magistrates court the following question was asked: "Other than being a crook, does he work for the D.E.A. in another way?" The question was asked by the judge.

Crying wolf

Posted on May 06, 2008
In an unusual case, an Arlington woman was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison for her role in the shooting death of her lover. Tracy Roberson, represented by local attorneys Jill Davis and Kim Minnick, must serve at...

Can you imagine?

Posted on May 04, 2008
Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins is pushing for severe punishment for those that violate the law. Nothing new about that, right? Well, the difference is the potential offenders might well be in his own office. Or any other District...

The latest sign of the apocalypse

Posted on May 01, 2008
After court today, I stopped by the downtown Barnes and Noble. I was looking for a book on Thomas Jefferson. Specifically, I was looking for a new version of "American Sphinx" because I have apparently misplaced mine, and after watching...

A War Criminal, A Nazi, and I walk into a bar

Posted on April 29, 2008
We all order a beer, but the bartender only brings one beer. Why? Well, apparently we are one in the same. As you recall, I posted a simple question of which character trait would you most want in a defense...

People say I am ruthless. I am not ruthless. And if I find the man who is calling me ruthless, I shall destroy him."

Posted on April 29, 2008
So said Robert Kennedy. It is amazing how much contempt you can garner when you throw a silly little post up on Sunday night after a few cocktails. I recently posted a completely rhetorical post about character traits found in...

What's better?

Posted on April 27, 2008
It has been said many times that to defend someone you must have a certain amount of empathy. Many have said defense attorneys must have this, whereas few prosecutors have it at all. It seems like Mark Bennett made a...

The opponent

Posted on April 27, 2008
During the recent run-off election for the 213th District Court, there were several arguments for and against both candidates. There were those that said that because Lisa Callaghan was board certified she was the most qualified, whereas there were also...

A Canard

Posted on April 25, 2008
So yesterday in a district court in Dallas, a day's worth of testimony revealed what many believed to be true. The email is fake. It appears everyone involved in the investigation of Judge Elizabeth Berry's alleged racist email believed the...

More on the H.V. case

Posted on April 21, 2008
For those interested in this case, there is a new article in Texas Lawyer about In the Matter of H.V. It has comments from not only myself, but also the two main prosecutors on the case as well as Professor...

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