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They were selling small amounts of weed and pills to friends. This skirmish in the War on Drugs led to some of the cases being dismissed and others receiving a short deferred adjudication probation. What wasn't known at the time was that cops abused the civil forfeiture law and took $46,243 in cash; 15 vehicles worth more than a quarter of a million dollars; nine weapons; and nearly $20,000 worth of iPhones, iPads, MacBooks and cellphones. Some of that was returned.
- Bob Sagat's family said in a statement: “The authorities have determined that Bob passed from head trauma. They concluded that he accidentally hit the back of his head on something, thought nothing of it and went to sleep. No drugs or alcohol were involved.” Add this to my long list of beefs with the office of the Medical Examiner. Medically, they can certainly tell us that it was a head injury which caused "brain bleed" (a subdural hematoma), but they cannot say it was an accident. Maybe it was -- heck, it probably was -- but you can't determine that from an autopsy.
- Breaking economic news. This is President Biden's biggest problem right now. Nothing else will matter if this doesn't stop.
- It's a heck of a project, but how exactly are they going to pay for it? Answer: "It will be paid for with a 2% increase in hotel taxes and a new state designation that allows Dallas to keep all of that tax money." I tried to find that "new state law", and who snuck it through, but couldn't readily do so.
- That's quite the involvement in the criminal justice system for this guy. He was once falsely accused of a quadruple murder in McKinney that has its own Wikipedia entry, and now the DA agrees to overturn a sexual assault conviction because the witness recanted.
- I had been warning about this for years, and now they publicize it.
- Man I wish they had chosen Decatur to film this series. And it's going to be a "series" and not just a movie! I'm so on board with this.
- I've mentioned it many times before, but it may be the greatest courtroom drama/true crime story in Texas history. "Candy Montgomery, who was charged with murder after being accused of hitting Betty Gore 41 times with an ax in 1980 after having an affair with Gore's husband. The women were friends and attended the same church." She was found not guilty.
- Texas Monthly just released it's newest long-form story, and it's about a Texas lawyer I've never heard of -- but am now interested in.
- The prosecutors in the Harris County DA's are getting ambitious. "In 2020 not a single Harris County prosecutor ran in any of the nine local criminal court races; in 2018, which featured 31 races, just one prosecutor ran." But today . . .
- Someone needed to tell George P. Bush that riding a 4-wheeler isn't the look he was hoping for.
And what's the AG have to do with "tougher criminal penalties" anyway? - Anyone know what this is? Is it routine or is something weird going on? It's a filing in the Denton County records by the District Attorney styled "In Re: Ballotting [sic] Materials to be Used by the Denton County Elections Department in the Special Election to Take Place on January 29, 2022 and In the Primary Election of March 1, 2022." It's cause no. 22-0069-393 if you want to look it up.
- It was funny to hear her the QAnon/Jewish Space Laser lady confuse "Gestapo" with "gazpacho." Video.
- Axios reporter using open records for a public university:
- The Ticket's Bob Sturm, who is in LA with the station for the Super Bowl, told a story yesterday of trying to buy tickets from scalpers outside of a Clippers game the night before. He couldn't believe that the sellers wouldn't even cut their prices by halftime and chose instead to eat the tickets rather than sell them at a discount. It's not news to me. Way back in 2007, I wrote a blog post about the exact same thing happening to me years before.
