Random Friday Morning Thoughts

A Plano bar got in hot water for a domestic violence joke. The bar was Scruffy Duffies which would later that year become part of the sensational murder case of Christina Morris. 

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• When I'm wrong, I'm wrong. And, man, I did not see this coming. 
  

  

  
  
  
  
• So how did I screw this up, and what did I not put enough stock in? Upon reflecting about it:
• You can't go out in the hallway and personally insult the jury during the trial and expect them not to hear about it.
• You can't insult the judge daily and not expect the jury, which always respects the judge, to not hold that against you.
• And you can't put on a stupid defense. To have any credibility, you have to admit the obvious and fight the key points. If it's a DWI case, you don't deny you were driving but you instead fight on whether you were "intoxicated." Here, Trump should have admitted the affair and the payoff but fought on (1) whether "attorney's fees" is a false statement, (2) whether there was intent to deceive, and (3) no intent to commit any "another crime".   Instead, Trump and his lawyer lost all credibility by denying everything. 
• That being said, I'm still very surprised. But I also learned decades ago to never predict what a jury will do. 
• One of these things is not like the other. 
  
  
  
• It's absolutely shameful, embarrassing, and downright dangerous that Texas politicians have no respect for the criminal justice system.  I expect it from Paxton, but Abbott is former district judge, Texas Supreme Court justice, and attorney general.
  

  

  
  
  
  
• Any chance he thinks that this post, from two days ago, came true?
  
  
  
• Legal nerdy stuff: There has been some misinformation that the jury didn't have to unanimous about the verdict. That's wrong. They just didn't have to be unanimous on which of the three "other" crimes Trump intended to commit so long as they all agreed there was at least one.  Texas law does this on a ton of crimes. 
• Lake Bridgeport has rise about 1 foot over the last week but still sits -10.79 low. It's gained about 4 feet over the entire spring. 
• You probably have to see it to appreciate it, but the Valley View Volunteer Fire Department chief did a heck of job on Fox 4 last night.  Without waffling, he admitted a tornado warning siren didn't function. He also admitted taking down a prior Facebook post  (below) where he had made that admission. Was he trying to cover up the malfunction?  Nope. "I’m the one who said, ‘Alright, take it down. Let’s delete it because we were getting bashed .  And it’s not something we needed to have."  He could teach a PR class.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Tree limbs are heavy. Seriously. 
  
  
  
• A Google search under their "news" tab is royally screwed up today.  I finally did a test with this:
  
  
  
• Time which has passed since the Wise County Sheriff's Office, despite having a full male DNA profile, has failed to solve the murder of Lauren Whitener in her home at Lake Bridgeport: 4 years and 332 days.