Homeward Bound -- Kind of

As many of you know, my friend and and DWI lawyer extraordinaire, Tyler Flood and I recently started a law partnership up in Bryan/College Station.

I grew up in Bryan and spent two and a half years working at the Brazos County District Attorney's Office when I was going to Texas A&M.  I also spent a few months working at the Brazos County Attorney's Office while I was waiting on my Bar Results.  It is hard to believe that was 12 years ago.

We've been doing a case or two here and there over the past year, but I look very forward to getting back by my hometown more often.  It is always good to go back and visit old friends.

You can check out our website here and on Facebook by clicking here.

Just an Idea

Co-written by Tyler Flood.


Well, it doesn't look like the Fire Marshal's Office or anybody else in control of safety, order, or reason at the CJC is going to be doing anything to help the nightmarish situation that occurs at the elevator banks every weekday morning.

Here's a view from last week at the bank:






And here:

I've been saying somebody would get hurt with all the crowding, and someone finally did. Attorney Mary Moore got one hell of a bruise on her arm by a defendant slamming his way into an elevator that was already filled to capacity. According to Mary, the defendant was unapologetic, but pointed out he couldn't be late for court.

The Commissioner's Court and the Fire Marshals aren't doing too much investigating in the mornings because they are most likely terrified of what the results of that investigation would show:

That the Harris County Criminal Justice Center is a poorly designed and poorly created multi-million dollar building that requires drastic structural changes to make it safe for the public. That would cost millions of dollars that the County just doesn't have to spend right now -- not to mention the havoc that would be created while construction to fix the problems was taking place.

They need about four more elevators on each side of the building and a floor plan that doesn't create the insane bottleneck that we all know and love every morning.

Or, we could re-evaluate some docket scheduling matters that might help it as well.

Why do Harris County Criminal Courts at law make all people on bond come to court every 2-3 weeks? Why don’t the courts give the defendant’s lawyers enough time to investigate the case and then come back to court when they are ready to do something on the case, like plead or go to trial?

This is completely unnecessary and a monumental waste of time for lawyers, defendants (people who have real lives and real jobs yet people who are being forced to take off work for almost a full day while their case is pending, people who are “presumed” at this point to be innocent. Why can’t Harris County follow proper manners and etiquette and extend a little professional courtesy to the people charged with an offense and the lawyers representing them and allow the parties to appear at mandatory court dates less frequently?

In Galveston County, they actually let you come to court about once every 6 months so you can actually have time to work on your case. Montgomery County will give you a 3 month reset. Fort Bend and Brazoria also show the same courtesy. Harris County, however, will make a person come to court about 5 times in a 3 month period.

Why does Harris County do this?

One reason is there are a few judges that are hyper-concerned with the number of cases pending on their docket. There has become a competition between courts to see who can plead out the most cases and have the lowest number of pending cases on their docket. How do you encourage more people to give in and just plead guilty? Make them take off from school and work so many unnecessary times that they risk losing their job or getting kicked out of school. That way, the defendant comes in, throws their hands up and says to their lawyer, “Let’s just get this over with, I’ll plead guilty because I cannot take off any more time to come to court for these settings.”

You know why the court building is unable to handle the number of people there each day?

Because it wasn’t designed to have 15,000 misdemeanor defendants coming to court every 2 weeks. Longer resets would save money on human resources and reduce overcrowding in the mornings. It would also give lawyers time to work on their client’s cases and give the case a long enough reset date to actually matter.

Also, by spacing out the dockets for your on-bond defendants, there is more space to bring in those defendants who are still in custody and having their freedom actually deprived at the moment. These are the ones who need to be working more quickly towards a resolution of their cases.

I know that docket numbers are important to the judges, but have we really examined why? In most instances, a high docket isn't a reflection of poor management by a judge. A judge has to do their job regardless of whether there are 100 defendants on their docket or 1,000. If a case gets reset, it may be because a prosecutor doesn't have some "to do" done, or it could be that a defendant just doesn't want to work out their case.

That's not something to blame on the Judge of the court, is it?

Anyway, it's just an idea.

(EDITOR'S NOTE: Any portions of this post that were written with poor spelling or grammar or that were in any way offensive to a judge were written by Tyler Flood. All the good stuff with immaculate spelling was written by Murray Newman).

Tyler Flood's Experience with the DIVERT Program

My friend and Officemate, Tyler Flood, was kind enough to share his recent experience with Pat Lykos' new, controversial DIVERT program. Tyler, who's criminal law specialty is DWI and other related intoxication offenses details how Bridgwater's "rehabilitation program" really is just a great opportunity for a DWI Defendant to risk getting betrayed and screwed over by the Gang Who Couldn't Shoot Straight.

Tyler describes his experience as follows:

I accompanied a client to a DIVERT interview a week and half ago and met Raymie Hairell-Sweat, the person in charge of this program at 49 San Jacinto. She was very professional and did an excellent job at calming my concerns about what questions would be asked of my client about the actual incident. I was concerned with my client making any admission that could later be used against him. I expressed my concern to Raymie that I didn’t want my client to have to go into details about the incident and she ASSURED me that the interview wouldn’t be that intrusive and that a brief statement of what happened would suffice, such as “I was arrested for DWI.” I was more impressed upon our exit that Raymie actually went to the interviewer and told her to be cautious about asking too many questions about the incident that the attorneys were there and are very concerned.

WELL…on another client, we just received an email from ADA Roger Bridgwater, stating, “It appears his needs exceed the ability of DIVERT.” A Rejection from the program! His SALCE scores weren’t even at the highest 5 mark. They were in the middle and they still rejected him. Mr. Bridgwater attached the interview and it is a complete de-briefing on the incident covering EVERYTHING about what happened, including how much the client drank, admissions of operating, basically everything they need to have a solid case at trial now. They first promised they wouldn’t ask intrusive questions and were not seeking admissions and now not only do they send me a rejection letter into the program but through the interview process they have just prepared themselves for trial at our $202 expense!

After calming down and reflecting, it all makes perfect sense…They claim DIVERT is about rehabilitation and treatment for those that struggle with substance abuse. They also say that they are going to have a ZERO TOLERANCE policy meaning one screw up, one reading of alcohol in the ignition interlock, one relapse, whatever you call it, that person is out of the program and on their way to jail.

The problem is that treatment and zero tolerance are contradicting strategies. Treatment is not about "no mistakes". Treatment commonly involves relapse. This presents a problem to the DIVERT program. It sets it up to have very low success rates. The DA’s office needs for it to appear successful. So how do we fix the problem? By now deciding to reject anybody who they think won’t make a zero tolerance policy. Rejecting everyone who truly needs and could benefit from REAL treatment. Reject anybody who may have a problem and then you’ll have higher success rates. From what I heard yesterday, there was a meeting and it was stated that half of all applicants are in fact being rejected. So much for across the board acceptance for first time offenders.

I was suspicious of this program before, and now I am just angry. I would caution every attorney and client considering taking it and I would urge the attorney’s presence at the interview when possible.