the Supreme Court of Texas blog

There is an interesting guest post on the Texas Appellate Law Blog about a case out of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

In Vasilas v. State, decided May 7th, the CCA held that a person could be criminally prosecuted for a false statement made in a civil filing regardless of how that same conduct would [...]

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The Houston Chronicle has an online article titled “Report says most Texas Supreme Court opinions anonymous”.

The “report” of the headline is from Texas Watch. The newspaper quotes the group:

“All too often, the Texas Supreme Court uses per curiam opinions as a shield to hide behind when they render decisions that are controversial, [...]

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Ted Cruz chooses his new law-firm home; another firm launches a “national appellate practice”

Morgan Lewis & Bockius (former holders of one of the early outstanding email-address domains) announced today that they just hired Ted Cruz to lead their new national appellate practice as a partner out of their Houston office.

This is a good thing [...]

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The press reacted very quickly to the Perry Homes decision, getting stories onto their online editions:

“Texas Supreme Court rules against Mansfield couple in battle with homebuilder” by Wayne Slater of the Dallas Morning News. This one has been “above the fold” on the online version of the website. “Houston homebuilder Bob Perry wins big in [...]

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Takeover battles often have more pieces in motion than fit into any one courtroom. In the ongoing Clear Channel merger, the banks (who are trying to escape or at least renegotiate their funding obligations) have filed a petition for writ of mandamus with the Texas Supreme Court seeking dismissal of a pending tort suit [...]

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Is Texas Really 41st in This Ranking? Seriously?

Fifty-state rankings are a creative way to lobby for change. Nobody wants to be last in any list, no matter how calculated.

The “Institute for Legal Reform” at the United States Chamber of Commerce has published its 2008 list, complete with state-by-state press releases, detailed voting information, [...]

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[Update: As noted on the Texas Appellate Law blog, the Third Court issued two orders on Friday, which together cancelled this argument and denied the emergency stay.]

As speculated here and elsewhere earlier, a petition for writ of mandamus was filed yesterday challenging the trial court’s handling of the initial hearing, and the Austin Court immediately [...]

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It was apparently the biggest show in town: “Even with a two-story gallery in the courtroom, many students were turned away as the line stretched from the door, past the guards, through the metal detector and out into the new building.” That detail, and others, are in this article on Lubbock Online (by the [...]

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FLDS Compound Child-Custody Cases

It’s apparently not too early to talk about an appeal. And, given the stakes involved for both sides of the litigation in this sort of preliminary ruling, I would expect one to come soon:1

Parents have two opportunities for appeal, [Scott] McCown said. They can appeal the judge’s procedures or [...]

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The Supreme Court of Texas’s last arguments of the term are to be held next Wednesday at Texas Tech. The University’s press release says that video of the arguments will be made available later.

The Texas Lawyer’s blog has a few more details on the new courtroom, which is “a 150-seat high-technology courtroom” that the [...]

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