Introductions and Complaints

Welcome a new voice and immediately hear it complain.

Thanks to Mark for inviting me to share my long-form thoughts on the law here. I promise not to abuse the privilege too much or to anyone’s great annoyance, although I cannot promise to scrupulously observe the arcane rules regarding hyphenation usage. It is a piece of garbage punctuation and I don’t respect it.

How fortuitous for the readership that contemporaneous with my being granted posting access that the Court of Criminal Appeals issued its opinion ion Shumway v. State, a case dealing with Texas’s judge-made corpus delicti rule.

I have been watching this case with interest for a number of reasons, but mostly because counsel for the Appellant, Mr. Richard Canlas, is a friend of mine and called me to discuss his theory of the case. I agreed with him at the time; I agreed with him when he was drafting the brief. I agree with him now; his understanding of the law and precedent was absolutely, inarguably correct. Which makes it all the more galling that the majority of the Court admits