Leaving Houston
The Defending Drug Cases Seminar went well, and I have a few more tools to take home with me for the next trial. I had the pleasure of meeting with Houston criminal defense lawyers Mark Bennett and Paul Kennedy today for BBQ and good conversation. Bennett believes that we are three guys in desperate need of razors, although I have to note that he managed to not get into the picture. As you can see on his website, however, he is also in desperate need of a razor.
It really is amazing to get out of South Carolina and see how things are done in other parts of the country; in some respects it makes me feel better about the system we have in S.C., but it also highlights areas that we could improve upon.
Despite an ever present need for improvement and more funding, we are doing well with our public defender system compared to some other states. The public defender system seems to be fragmented in Texas; for example Dallas has a public defender office but in Harris County (Houston) there is no public defender. Indigent cases are handled by court appointed attorneys with no real system in place.
Texas, like many states, has attorney-conducted voir dire which seems to be considered a necessity by all parties involved including the judges. Picking a jury without the benefit of voir dire, as we have to do in South Carolina in all but capital murder trials, is flying blind. There can't be any meaningful jury selection based only on name, occupation, and the few questions that our judges will ask the jury for us.
At any rate, I am glad to be coming home and we're set to jump back into the fray, with a DUI trial scheduled for Monday morning (and trials on CDV and assault charges in different courts later in the week) and a retrial of last week's murder trial coming up soon.
