In the realm of legal jurisprudence, few issues carry the weight and moral complexity as capital punishment, particularly when it involves juvenile offenders. The United States Supreme Court, as the highest judicial body in the land, often finds itself at the epicenter of debates surrounding the constitutionality of such penalties. In a landmark ruling, the…
Texas law on identifying yourself to police is pretty specific. Whether you have to identify yourself to police – or provide identification documents – is a situational thing. Usually, you do not have to provide police with your identity or identifying documents, but there are certain specific circumstances in which you are required to provide…
Modern life is full of things that did not exist even 20 years ago. Many of these things, such as smartphones, social media, and other electronic devices and services, make it easy to keep track of someone else’s movements. On social media, for instance, many people voluntarily put up posts telling the world where they…
Everyone has at least heard about driving while intoxicated or driving under the influence. You drink alcohol – or, these days, smoke marijuana or take other drugs – you drive your car and get pulled over by the police, you get charged with driving while intoxicated, which is what Texas calls all charges related to…
Texas has many degrees of homicide, even though the state does not refer to the crimes in that fashion. There are four levels of homicide charges in Texas. They range in punishment from a state jail felony all the way up to the potential for life in prison or even the death penalty. None of…
Federal criminal charges cover a lot more area than they used to. In the early days of the republic, there were few federal criminal charges. After the ratification of the Constitution, Congress passed a law creating a total of 17 federal crimes. These included treason, forgery of federal documents, and murder within a federal facility,…
There are criminal charges, and then there are criminal charges. For some charges, you might wonder whether you really need to get a lawyer. Those tend to be misdemeanor charges. Even then, you usually would be dealing with lower level misdemeanor charges. Once you get into felony territory, you should not even question whether you…
The sentence almost does not matter when it comes to sexual assault charges. If you are convicted of sexual assault, you will be on the state’s sex offender registry, likely for the rest of your life. Given that being on the sex offender registry can have all manner of negative impacts on your ability to…
If you are in government custody, whether as a convicted prisoner or as someone detained in jail while awaiting trial, that does not have to be the end of the story. You have avenues to challenge whether your detention is lawful. You can file a petition with the proper court seeking a decision on whether…
Every state has various degrees of criminal charges. That includes felonies. In most states, there are three degrees of felonies – first-, second-, and third-degree. First-degree felonies are the worst crimes and carry the most severe punishments. Texas has a category of felonies that is a little unusual, however. The Texas criminal code includes crimes…
Free Initial Consultation