Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
Lawyers from Carrington weren’t looking for an award when they assumed the pro bono representation of a death row inmate. "I didn't even know that award existed," Lyndon Bittle said.
Texas’ environmental watchdog is expected to reveal Friday whether it will continue allowing municipalities and power generators to jump to the front of the line over the right to use increasingly scarce water in the Brazos River region. A state judge ordered the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to stop that practice, ruling that it should follow a more than 100-year-old system for allocating water, called the priority doctrine. Read more for the details.
Last week, a federal judge dismissed the $3 billion World Trade Center attack lawsuit against American Airlines. “The horrible attacks on September 11 were terrible for our country and, truthfully, could have been disastrous for our airline,” says Koorenny, an associate GC at American. “Those were my colleagues we lost that day and the lawsuits against us only added insult to our injuries by trying to blame us for the attacks." For a dozen years, the WTC cases have been Koorenny's life, but 10,000 hours or so later, the end of the litigation may be in sight.
Jury ruled that Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson and other technology vendors did not infringe on a Canadian licensing firm's patents.
Plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit claimed SWA flew planes that violated federal “airworthiness directive” safety measures.
The firm was able to remove an intellectually challenged man off of death row in exchange for life in prison, thus ending 12 years of litigation.
A jury of a dozen Dallas citizens sat in judgment in the five decade old case in a mock trial orchestrated by the State Bar of Texas.
The historic case determined last year the City of Farmers Branch's election system was unfair to Hispanics and other minorities.
Alan Schoenbaum is fed up with patent trolls and he’s not going to take it any more. The San Antonio tech GC vows to fight the patent assertion entities.
Federal Appeals Judge Pat Higginbotham warned lawyers and federal judges in 1997 that civil jury trials were headed to extinction. Most lawyers and judges scoffed. After all, no state in the country trusted citizen juries to resolve personal and business disputes more than Texas. During the 16 years since Judge Higginbotham’s warning, civil jury trials have plummeted to historic 40 year lows. “The reduction in jury trials isn’t about the empty courthouse," Judge Higginbotham says. "it is about the alienation of the people from the process. The jury system is about governance.”
The Fifth Circuit federal appeals court is examining the case of a teenage rape victim who claims the police and prosecutor in her case knew she was being sexually assaulted and raped but didn't intervene because they needed more evidence to ensure a conviction. The victim has sued the officials claiming they violated her substantive due process rights, but the state says the law enforcement officials are protected by sovereign immunity.
Jim Coleman has tried of hundreds of jury trials over six decades of practicing law. He has defended huge corporations, including Oscar Wyatt’s Coastal States in 1972 in a multi-billion-dollar trial. Scores of lawyers in trouble have called him for help. He fired clients when he learned they hid evidence from the court and when they refused to allow women lawyers at his firm work on their case. Simply put, no lawyer has influenced the legal profession or lawyers more. On Thursday, Coleman turns 90. “I know my clock is running down,” he says. This is Jim Coleman's story.
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