Interesting cross-examination by a prosecutor

The video below shows inappropriate conduct for a prosecutor, or any attorney, in a courtroom, and I'd say the same for the judge. The witness is Stacy Castor in Syracuse. Read more about it at the Syracuse Post-Standard. You think a defense lawyer would be allowed to scream at a cop like this?

Traffic/Criminal Lawyers Club Update

The Traffic and Criminal Lawyers Club is up and running. We are approaching 30 members. I've put together a draft user guide and posted it on my firm website: Traffic/Criminal Lawyer Club User Guide. This is a large file in "pdf" format. It describes how to join and how to use the club features.I will be updating the guide over the next few weeks.

Hiring Is Harder Than Firing

We're currently in the process of hiring a new associate. Since I started this firm, nearly 6 years ago now, I've hired several people and fired some. Based on my experience so far, I have to say that firing people is much easier than hiring them. That may sound harsh, but it's true.Say you get applications from about twenty people for one job. You're going to have to say no to 19 people. When

Weird Analytics

Something weird on Google Analytics just now. This blog had nearly 300 visits in the past two days from a single keyword phrase search from Yahoo. The search was for "funny speeding ticket excuses".Ordinarily I'd figure it was some kind of glitch on one computer somewhere. But I checked and the searches come from 255 different cities. See image below. I also checked operating system -- 273 from

Traffic Lawyers Club - Free!!

Our traffic lawyer club is up and running. This is a feature on our traffic court website.Membership in the club is for lawyers only and it's FREE. We are going to verify that those who register are lawyers.If you're a lawyer who handles some cases in traffic court or local criminal court, please register on the site.There are currently 14 states in the directory, plus DC. A couple of the states

Oklahoma Playing Dirty

Just a quick hit on the Florida-Oklahoma game. Oklahoma is playing dirty. There was a horse-collar tackle on a FL running back (#3) - no call and it took him out of the game. A wicked facemask on Demps (FL #2) as he neared the end zone - called but just a nasty facemask. There was the uncalled and obvious cheap shot on Harvin (FL #1) when the Oklahoma defender yanked his legs after the tackle.

Traffic Court 2008

2008 was a good year for our traffic court website. Here are some numbers:Almost 900,000 visits (897K)Over 700K unique visitors (different people using the website)Over 2 million pageviewsThe site's homepage was viewed over 220,000 times by over 150,000 people. The NY page had over 80,000 views by nearly 55,000 different people.The top court pages were:Jersey City Municipal Court (over 10,000

Attorney Ethics and Jurisdiction

Here's an interesting ethics question that came up in our practice. We have gotten a number of cases dismissed on "geographic jurisdiction" under Article 20 of the CPL. In short, our client is charged in a town, but it turns out that the location where the incident occurred is clearly in a different town.When it's a simple traffic ticket the police are unlikely to reissue the ticket. It's just

Speeding ticket and DWI data

Interesting data on the web about speeding tickets on the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle website. There's another data set on DWI: RocDocs DWI.Now, I say the data is interesting. Partly that's because it doesn't look accurate to me. For example it appears there are more DWI arrests in Albany County than in the Bronx. And there also appear to be no speeding tickets in New York City.But it's

Albany: DWI and Mass Transit

Here's an article in the Times Union. Albany County couldn't get a program together to provide free bus rides home for New Years Eve drinkers. For various reasons we ended up with nothing at all.Government is just fine at getting the arrest and prosecution programs together. Prevention must be too difficult.I wrote an article about the policy choice between mass transit versus DUI enforcement