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Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury

Commercial Litigation tease

With Police Actions Recently Targeting Journalists, Will Courts Protect the Rights of the Free Press?

Last Friday, police in Marion, Kansas, seized the computers, file servers and personal cellphones of journalists at the local newspaper, the Marion County Record. According to a search warrant, officers believed there was probable cause that newspaper personnel had used equipment seized by officers to commit identity theft. Journalism is not a crime. Reporters and editors are not criminals. The First Amendment guarantees it. This common view of freedom of the press in America appears to have escaped the attention lately of at least one police department in Kansas. And one in Texas, too.

Paul C. Watler

In Netflix’s Lincoln Lawyer, Law is a Source of Fun – and Storytelling Style

Created by David E. Kelley, adapted from the Michael Connelly novels, The Lincoln Lawyer series piles up legal and ethical dilemmas in the service of drama and suspense. The key ingredient: Manuel Garcia-Rulfo's Mickey Haller, a Los Angeles defense attorney who stays likable even when he seems to slither as much as he strolls. Texas entertainment and arts critic Chris Vognar provides a peek into Season 2, which resumes Aug. 3. 

Chris Vognar

Texas Stands Apart — And That’s Not a Good Thing: ‘Concurrent Causation’ in Texas Coverage Litigation

Texas prides itself on its rugged, independent spirit. Often, that’s a good thing. However, there is an aspect of insurance law in which Texas stands gloomily distant from the other 49 states. They are united, and Texas is a stuck-in-the-mud outlier rather than a paragon in its isolation. Ironically, it’s an area in which the Texas jurisprudence is distinctly detrimental to Texas businesses.

Marc Gravely

Schlumberger Cleared in Female Field Engineer’s Harassment, Retaliation Suit

The jury of five women and three men heard six days of testimony before beginning deliberations around 1 p.m. Wednesday. About three hours later they determined Schlumberger had not discriminated against Jessica Cheatham based on her sex, had not subjected her to a hostile work environment, had not retaliated against her and had not constructively discharged its former field engineer.

Michelle Casady

Judgment & Mercy: The Turbulent Life and Times of the Judge Who Condemned the Rosenbergs

In 1951, Judge Irving R. Kaufman wrangled to get the trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, charged with stealing the “secret” of the atomic bomb and handing it to the monstrous Joseph Stalin. Judge Kaufman was 40, one of the youngest federal judges in America and only sixteen months in office. During the trial, he often intervened in ways that helped the government. Upstairs in his chambers, he conducted secret, ex parte meetings with prosecutors, including the infamous Roy Cohn. No one knows what they discussed. Once jurors convicted, he deftly advertised his anguish over the sentence and alluded to solitary soul-searching in his empty, dimly lit synagogue. Now the hour for judgment had come.

The Texas Lawbook is pleased to publish an excerpt of Houston lawyer Martin Siegel's new book about the judge he clerked for decades ago.

Martin J. Siegel

Litigation Roundup: Oral Arguments Set in Paxton Disciplinary Case, Fifth Circ. Won’t Rehear En Banc ‘State Created Danger’ Case

In this edition of Litigation Roundup, the Dallas Court of Appeals sets the panel and date for oral arguments in the state bar’s disciplinary lawsuit against Ken Paxton, an oilfield services company’s trade secrets suit against its ex-president gets rolling and an East Texas jury hits LG with a $1.68 million patent infringement verdict.

Michelle Casady

Dallas Lender Owes Millions for Wrongful Foreclosure in ‘Business Coup D’état’ Case

Dallas County District Judge Monica Purdy presided over a seven-day bench trial in May before determining that PrimaLend violated the terms of a loan agreement when it changed the locks and foreclosed on an Ohio car dealership before first exhausting attempts to recover its money by pursuing the business’ assets. Judge Purdy is expected to enter final judgment awarding the Benit family about $6.7 million within the next week.

Michelle Casady

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