Random Friday Morning Thoughts

• Well, after 20 minutes of jury deliberations, the defendant in the Lottery Sexual Assault case received life in prison yesterday.  Final thoughts:
• The case had some bad, bad facts with evidence of abuse of other victims. It had Life in Prison potential written all over it regardless of the defense strategy. 
• "According to court documents, [the defense team] pursued a no-defense defense in hopes of winning on appeal." I'm still confused by this.  I want to see those documents.
  
• Edit: I found this in a different story: "Barbieri claimed a 'last-minute document dump' from prosecutors meant they couldn't give Carlile the effective defense he is constitutionally entitled to, according to court records. Barbieri and Nimz even filed a motion to withdraw as Carlile's attorneys Dec. 3, saying they were unprepared for trial. Fudge denied it."
• I don't think I've ever written, deleted and revised so many bullet points about one subject like I did about this case yesterday. If I knew 100% the reason behind the "no- defense defense,"  I'd probably have some hot opinions. But I've got to reserve judgment because I don't know exactly what is going on. 
• Rightly or wrongly, this story has the absolute potential to go national. The headline, "Lawyers Charge $600,000 And Do Nothing As Client Receives Life In Prison," while perhaps misleading, is the the type of thing that goes viral.
• Folks out of Austin were already taking notice last night. Below is a tweet from TDCAA (prosecutor's organization). But TCDLA (the defense organization) quickly fired back in the thread  pointing out that TDCAA "knows nothing about the procedural posture of the case" and "two of the best defense lawyers in the state [received] a rousing small-town experience."
  
• TCDLA also referred to the defense lawyers as "Ken Paxton's lawyers." I didn't know that. 
• Trump set a record with 248 tweets and retweets yesterday. Anyone else gets fired for jacking around that much of his work day, right? Here's his tweet numbers by month (not including this month.) 
  
• Hey, moms and dads who have kids with difficulties, he decided to mock a 16 year old girl on the autism spectrum. That is not normal from an adult. Any adult. #BeBest
  
• Her quick response shows she's smarter than he is:
  
  
• My staple of "And Another" bullet points have slowed down because they don't seem to be making the news as much. But we had one out of Oklahoma worthy of note because of the regular photo vs. book-in photo contrast. 
  
  
  
  
• Wise County had an interesting case filed in JP2 yesterday (CR-19-02221-2) for "THREATENED SPECIES UNLAWFULLY TAKEN (TIMBER RATTLE SNAKE)."
• That reminded me of one of the weirdest moments in Wise County Criminal Justice history. I was at the DA's house for a fantasy football draft and innocently posted a picture of him killing a snake which had come slithered up near the house (where kids were around.)  The Game Warden saw it online, decided that it was an endangered snake, and wrote him a citation. And he paid it!
• People make errors in judgment. We've all done things we regret. And it's very common for very, very good people to get arrested for DWI -- I've met thousands of them. But I don't know a single one of them who would accuse someone else in a public forum -- much less mock them -- for having a substance abuse problem. Yesterday, Florida Man Congressman Matt Gaetz did it as Trump nears impeachment. He was quickly slapped down. 
  
  
  
  
  
• The Aggies are treating the Baylor mascot who has been diagnosed with a benign tumor. Really.
  
• The impeachment process is certainly weird when the jury foreman is already working with the defendant's lawyers before the trial begins. He really could shoot a man on Fifth Avenue and the result would be the same. They don't care. 
  
• Did I mention Zeke's new contact of $50 million guaranteed yesterday? Worth it? 
  
• The firing of Star's coach Jim Montgomery is still a mystery. If I heard Tyler Seguin on The Ticket correctly, everything was fine at a Christmas Party the night before the firing -- a firing which he thinks went down at around 6:00 a.m.  So what "unprofessional conduct" happened during the short window of time? (And I get the feeling that a lot of the people in the media know but, for whatever reason, aren't saying.)