Blog
Police powers of “stop and frisk” have proved controversial with landmark legal cases in Texas and elsewhere. New York is the current focus of the dispute due to a rigorous implementation of the power by the city’s police department. The New York Police Department recently lost an attempt to prevent an expert witness testifying about…
While there is a wide body of research linking poor reading skills at school with later offending, new research suggests language problems at an early age lead to later juvenile delinquency and crime. More than half of adolescents in the Australian justice system have language impairments, a study by the Australian Institute of Criminology found….
Police in Dallas have outlined how they want to use a raft of new technology to help catch criminals more quickly and to secure convictions. Chief Police David Brown has detailed the radical strategy to the City Council which he wants to foot the bill for this equipment. “The technology consists of monitoring devices such…
For the second year in a row, both Clint Broden and Mick Mickelsen were named to D Magazine’s list of best criminal defense lawyers in Dallas. There were a total of 14 lawyers named Dallas’s best in the field of criminal defense by the magazine including both of the partners at Broden & Mickelsen, LLP….
Though TV shows depict prosecutors as the link in the criminal justice system that is responsible for restraining the others, always talking sense to overzealous cops, what happens in real life when the prosecutors are the ones that need to be controlled? Prosecutorial misconduct is a big problem in Texas and one that’s incredibly hard…
On April 11, 2012, the Dallas Court of Appeals reversed two sexual assault of a child convictions and a sixty-year sentence in Tran v. State. Clint Broden represented Mr. Tran on appeal and argued his case before the Court of Appeals. A few months earlier, Clint had another client’s twenty year federal money laundering conviction…
As any experienced Texas criminal defense lawyer will tell you, the vast majority of cases are resolved with a plea bargain long before they ever reach a courtroom. Plea bargains are important to prosecutors because they help efficiently clear dockets and allow them to prosecute more cases. They can also be beneficial to defendants by…
The recent death of Florida teen Trayvon Martin has garnered national attention for a number of reasons. However, most of the controversy centers on Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law. Passed in 2005, the law has long been controversial; critics claim that its broad provisions encourage vigilante justice. For those of you not aware of the…
An investigation by the American-Statesman has revealed that an independent forensic lab has filed a complaint against the Austin Police Department Crime Lab. The complaint claims that employees at the Austin P.D. lab either lost, contaminated, or incorrectly classified drug samples. In at least three cases, the complaint claims that these mistakes have caused significant…
According to a recent article on DallasNews.com, a prominent Dallas plaintiff’s attorney recently pleaded guilty to murder. The lawyer, Scott Marshall, pleaded guilty on January 20th to murdering Staci Michelle Montgomery, the ex-wife of Marshall’s former law partner Bady Sassin. In return for his plea, Marshall received a 40-year prison sentence. The plea hearing took…