Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

 

• Texas hospitalizations: +62.  
  
  
  
• Record deaths in U.S. yesterday: 2,777.
• Record number of new cases in U.S. yesterday: 200,070.
• Wise County hog hunters were featured in a front page story in the Los Angeles Times last weekend. Link. Trey Hawkins even got color photos in the newspaper. He's gone all Hollywood on us. 
  
  
  
• Arizona's newest U.S. Senator was sworn in yesterday. Big kudos for the other Arizona senator, Krysten Sinema, with the purple hair. Mrs. LL? You're on the clock.  (That's not the senator who had the wild leather boots on a while back, is it?)
  
  
  
• As COVID spreads throughout Texas at the quickest rate ever, there are some numb-nuts like former state Rep. Jonathon Stickland (who endorses Shelley Luther) who think Gov. Abbott needs to ease restrictions and stop "being a tyrant." What restrictions?
  
  
  
• In addition to doing great political polling tracking, 538.com also tracks things like how concerned Americans are about the spread of COVID-19.  I'm telling you, no matter what the issue, there are 1/3 of all Americans who are just "out there."  
  
  
  
• A response filed late yesterday to one of Sidney Powell's crazy Kraken lawsuits pulled no punches: 
  
  
  
• Speaking of incompetence: 
  
  
  
• Rudy brought a lady to a "hearing" in Michigan yesterday who was apparently channeling a drunk Victoria Jackson* as she sparred with a fellow Republican. Watch. (*A dated reference yet an accurate one.)
  
  
  
• There were six people killed in a crash near Snyder last Friday. I noticed a Bridgeport name: 
  
  
  
• Warning: Here comes legal nerdy stuff. Double warning: I offer conclusive proof that I am The Premier Legal Genius in the Southwest Proper. 
• Remember the crazy Amber Guyger trial last year?  The Dallas cop who killed Botham Jean while he was in his own apartment?
  
  
  
• Back then, I was listening to a replay of one of the final day's proceedings when I heard the judge read the jury the "Court's Charge" (the jury instructions). I fell out of my chair because, based upon the way it was worded, the judge basically told them to find her not guilty. Spoiler: They jury didn't. 
• The wording was simply wrong, and I couldn't believe it had been given.  I was so amazed by it that I even went to the trouble of sitting down and transcribing what the the judge read and wrote a long post about it the next morning. (I care that much about you, dear reader.) 
• At the time, I heard no one else say what I had observed: The jury was told to acquit Amber if she simply believed she had gone to her own apartment. Heck, that fact was undisputed. 
• And it was far worse than that. The court's charge put the burden on the State: The jury was told to acquit unless they believed the State had proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Amber did not believe she was in her apartment. 
• Here's a small portion of what I wrote: 
  

• And here comes the part that proves I'm a modern day Oliver Wendell Holmes disguised as a backwoods Wise County country lawyer. The Dallas County D.A.'s office recently filed its brief on appeal and they, after months of study, have finally discovered exactly what I was trying to point out at the time. 
• The prosecutors are now freaking out about that very wording in the charge.  Here's an excerpt of their brief which, after quoting the charge just like I did, complained that it should have never been given. What they wrote should sound pretty, pretty familiar now: 
  
  
  
  
  
• I had written, "Holy cow. That's insane." They wrote: "That's open season [to kill]"!
• I wrote: "Do you understand how that literally reads?" They wrote: "Read it again"! 
• Have I mentioned that I'm simple country lawyer who was just listening to the court's charge on the radio and heard something in real time that a roomful of silk-suited boys in Dallas at the time did not. Do I need another trophy?
• The next day I was driven more nuts that Amber's lawyers didn't take advantage of the error by jumping up and down during closing argument with the charge, as written, in front of the jury. It was fair game then.
• I would have highlighted those important words on the hard copy of the charge and held it up like I was Moses presenting the Ten Commandments to partying Israelites. I would have blown it up the big screen. And then I would have read that part of the court's charge with all the passion of a soap opera star trying to convince his mistress not to call his wife: "Look at the law that the judge has given you! Look what she has told you in her own words." Like I said, it was a gift to the defense, but they didn't use it. 
• Here's triple legal nerdy stuff, but if you've read this far, here goes: The fact that the Dallas D.A.'s office brings this jury charge error up in their brief, as a "cross-point" no less, is really weird. It doesn't matter to Amber's appeal at all. The incorrect wording in the charge wasn't (and couldn't have been) one of Amber's points of error because the error had no impact on the verdict. Any insufficient evidence Amber has raised on appeal must be based upon what the law is (the "hypothetically correct jury charge") and not the law given to the jury. Amber's lawyer even filed a reply brief pointing this out, and said the D.A.'s office was just trying to get an advisory opinion on an irrelevant matter. I'm guessing they are just worried about other Dallas judges using the that same form in the future. 
• There's always basketball: #2 Baylor beat #5 Illinois last night, 82-69. On Saturday, we get #2 Baylor vs. #1 Gonzaga at noon. 
• Crazy football breaking news: Undefeated BYU and undefeated Coastal Carolina just got scheduled for this weekend. 
• If there is any question that government is one of our America's biggest employers and a major cog in the economy, the City of Fort Worth has bought the Pier 1 building for around $90 million: