Defense Lawyers Broden & Mickelsen, LLP

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People have a right to protest peacefully under the First Amendment. However, it’s illegal to obstruct the roadway if it prevents the passing of emergency vehicles. This month, the Texas House passed a bill that would increase criminal penalties and require jail time for people who block highways during protests if their action impedes emergency vehicles. The legislation is a response to the protests following the killing of George Floyd, a Black man, by a police officer last year in Minneapolis. The House passed Bill 9 on a 90-55 vote. It now heads to the Senate, the Texas Tribune reports.…
Police reform bills were introduced across the country after the shocking death of George Floyd in Minneapolis last year. Texas was no exception. At the end of last month, the Texas House approved three reform measures that form part of a larger raft of legislation relating to police conduct. A jury convicted Derek Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer, of the murder of Floyd last month. He is awaiting sentencing. The Texas House approved three police reform measures soon after the verdict. The bills would require law enforcement agencies in Texas to beef up their disciplinary actions against police following…
Date rape allegations are taken very seriously by authorities, particularly if a drug is used. In Texas, the authorities are investigating allegations of date rape at the Texas Capitol. The TV station KVUE reported a Capitol staffer claimed she was drugged with a date-rape drug by a lobbyist during a meeting in downtown Austin. The report stated the Texas Department of Public Safety is investigating the alleged sexual assault. DPS spokesman Travis Considine told the media he was not unable to give any specifics, including where and when the attack allegedly happened. Officials also said they were not yet prepared…
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In recent years, the instances of credit card fraud have continued to increase. As a result, prosecutors take credit card fraud very seriously, and the penalties for a conviction can be tougher than you might realize. Furthermore, as federal law enforcement continues to develop more sophisticated tools for tracking down cyber criminals, it’s reasonable to expect that prosecutions for these types of offenses will rise. How Common Is Credit Card Fraud? Just about everyone uses credit in some form or another, and many people shop online or conduct other kinds of business with a credit card over the internet. Whether…
A defendant’s mental illness makes him or her less morally culpable of a crime and should be taken into consideration as a reason to avoid the death penalty, according to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling. However, states can and do execute defendants who suffer from mental illnesses. Texas is no exception. The Death Penalty Information Center lists four prisoners who were executed in the Lone Star State despite suffering from severe mental health issues such as paranoid schizophrenia. In some cases, the perseverance of legal teams can pay off. This month, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals tossed out the…
As criminal defense lawyers, we do everything in our power to keep defendants out of jail. We realize that Texas’s jails and prisons are hazardous places that can harm inmates. This was again illustrated by the tragic death of Marvin Scott III in Collin County. Police arrested Scott, a Black man, in Allen for allegedly possessing less than two ounces of marijuana last month. The 26-year-old was taken to a local jail and later pronounced dead, the Texas Tribune reported. Now, seven detention officers in Collin County have been fired for allegedly restraining Scott, according to the Tribune. An investigation…
Hate crimes again made headlines in recent weeks when a gunman killed eight people, including six Asian women, in Atlanta. The Biden administration faces pressure to bring hate crime charges against shooter Robert Aaron Long, 21, over the killings. However, the incident demonstrated flaws in the federal legislation, according to the Washington Post. The hate crimes issue has again been raised in Texas after an attack on the Asian owner of a beauty supply shop in Houston was caught on camera.  Jung Kim, who owns Uptown Beauty Supply, told KWTX 10 she was attacked by five women who used racial…
Thousands of prisoners have been exonerated in recent years for wrongful convictions, amounting to almost 25,000 lost years behind bars. Texas leads the nation on exonerations. In 2019, the most recent year figures are available for, Texas had the joint second highest number of exonerations in the country. However, the state leads the table of total exonerations since 1989. The Innocence Project reported 143 exonerations in 2019. The exonerees spent a cumulative 1,908 behind bars for crimes they did not commit. The 2019 report blamed mistaken witness identification, official misconduct, and false confessions for the miscarriages of justice. Exonerations were…
A new bill filed in Texas would make it more difficult for police to withhold body camera footage of fatal encounters involving police officers and criminal suspects. The bill was filed after prosecutors brought a murder charge against an officer, almost a year after the fatal shooting of an unarmed black and Hispanic man in Austin. Travis County District Attorney’s Office issued a warrant for the arrest of Christopher Taylor, a police officer, over the killing of Michael Ramos. It is the first known murder indictment for an Austin police officer in a deadly force incident, the Texas Tribune reported.…
For more than four decades Texas Rangers have used the controversial practice of hypnosis to interrogate crime suspects and witnesses. The Texas Department of Public Safety has finally stopped using the technique. The Dallas Morning News reported the decision comes less than a year after its two-part series “The Memory Room” which raised troubling questions about the use of the technique. The newspaper’s investigation revealed the widespread use of hypnosis with officers doubling down on the technique despite mounting scientific evidence that hypnosis can distort memories and result in false confessions. The Morning News’ investigation found many officers continued to…