Jaime Spencer

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Jamie Spencer

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  Dallas DWI lawyer Robert Guest recently asked a question on the Texas DWI Defenders listserv: Dearest Brain Trust,  I’ve been using the same DWI voir dire for a few years and I’m looking for some fresh questions for the jury.  If you wouldn’t mind send me your favorite DWI voir dire question or idea. I’m open to anything, just something you think is creative, or has gotten results in the past.  Thanks in advance,…
  The ballot title and submission clause numbered Amendment 64 to the Colorado Constitution asked: Shall there be an amendment to the Colorado constitution concerning marijuana, and, in connection therewith, providing for the regulation of marijuana; permitting a person twenty-one years of age or older to consume or possess limited amounts of marijuana; providing for the licensing of cultivation facilities, product manufacturing facilities, testing facilities, and retail stores;  permitting local governments to regulate or prohibit…
Further deepening my growing suspicions that life may best be described as a series of random events comes this news via Discover Magazine, “Justice is served, but more so after lunch: how food-breaks sway the decisions of judges”. Yeah, that’s right, food breaks. A Ben Gurion University researcher tracked over 1000 parole hearings over a ten month period, and then plotted this graph: Think of the X-axis(labeled ordinal position) as stretching from 9 am…
 Administrative Law Judges handle all sorts of cases for the State Office of Administrative Hearings – aka SOAH – from the tremendously boring, such as boat motor sales and use tax cases, to the no doubt endlessly fascinating scenarios where a trucking company is alleged to have failed to carry a required certificate of registration. (I know so little about those cases that I can barely understand what is written in the previous sentence; frankly, I…
William Safire popularized the phrase “if by whiskey…” in his columns, and defined it in his Political Dictionary as, “Taking both sides of an issue; equivocating; a political straddle”. The term originates from a speech given by Soggy Sweat, a 1950s Mississippi legislator, master of irony, and a real character to boot: My friends, I had not intended to discuss this controversial subject at this particular time. However, I want you to know that I…
Jeffrey Partlow’s apparent lack of a law license hasn’t kept him out of the legal representation business over the last nine years: A Dallas man arrested on suspicion of showing up to court intoxicated is now also accused of practicing law without a license. Judge Andrew Bench summoned deputies to his Hunt County courtroom on Oct. 22, telling them that Jeffrey Scott Partlow was intoxicated. After Partlow was arrested for Public Intoxication and held in contempt, presumably…
I use one of the world’s most complicated and sophisticated voir dire note taking systems, consisting in no small part of adding plus and minus marks in each venire person’s allotted space on my sheets, and sometimes adding short annotations.  It can be from something on the juror sheets, or something they say in voir dire.  Or perhaps a squirm here, a glare there.  I preassigned juror #8 five plus marks for the following answers at impaneling: Injuries…
So, I get a text this morning walking out of my office on the way to court. Here’s the full exchange: Got pulled over Cop has my DL in his car                                 OK. It’s fine They can’t get me for an unpaid parking ticket can they?                                 No Not why he stopped me but just worried There are two kinds of people in this world. The ones that get nervous when they’re around the police, and those that…
“Comedy has to be based on the truth. You take the truth and you put a little curlicue on the end.” – Sid Caesar.  At 2:18 in silly video number 2, the pretrial hearing, comes one of the exchanges that actually made me lol: Officer: His hands were shaking. Based on my experience and training he was sweating profusely. Defense Lawyer: Officer, what are you talking about? Officer: I could see his carotid artery beating. Yes I could. And, from…