OUR LEGAL BLOG

Get Your Story Straight, Officer

May 23rd, 2015

When a civilian gets arrested for a crime – let’s say an aggravated assault with a deadly weapon (gun) – they are separated and interrogated immediately. Under no circumstance is the civilian allowed to go home, get some rest, reflect on the event, and watch a video with his attorney in private before providing a statement. This would be an opportunity for his attorney to inform him of the definition of defenses, like self-defense. True, the arrestee may choose to remain silent, but then he is definitely going to go to jail and face criminal charges. In Dallas, and many cities around the country, the same is not true for […]

Police Shootings and the Mentally Ill – “Justifiable Homicide?”

May 22nd, 2015

Ask any chief of police and they will tell you that a high priority for any of their officers is to deescalate a situation. Cooler heads do prevail and de-escalation can prevent a tense situation from becoming a deadly one. National data collection on police shootings and their various factors have not been collected, but anecdotal evidence, according to a joint report by the National Sheriffs’ Association and Treatment Advocacy Center in 2011, shows that nearly half of all people who are shot and killed by the police each year have mental health issues. The media has only recently re-ignited the conversation of police misconduct, but the use of excessive […]

Iqbal and the Altered Landscape for § 1983 Litigation

May 20th, 2015

For a primer on the case that single-handedly rocked the legal world and altered the Federal Rules of Civil Procedures with the swipe of the pen, take a look at this great article by Adam Liptak. For federal practitioners around the country, especially those practicing employment and civil rights law, a daily question we face when receiving a call from a potential client is… how do I prove that to withstand Iqbal? The standard created by Iqbal requires a complaint to state “plausible” allegations, unlike the “short and plaint statement” required by FRCP 8. The Court, citing to its predecessor Twombly, stated that claims needed to nudge “across the line […]

* Legal Disclosure: The above newspaper articles are reproductions of actual articles that have been published by various news outlets. Pursuant to the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct, Rule 7.02(a)(2), disclosure of the nature of the case, injuries sustained by the client, and all fees and expenses is required for cases in which a gross amount is stated within a public media advertisement. In order to comply with these rules, see the below links to our Verdicts & Settlements page for a full description of each case that correlates to any article above which states a gross amount in the published title of the article.

“Dallas settles with 16 in fake drug frame-ups” | “Man awarded $406,500 from fake drug arrest” | “$1.2M to go to family of woman who died in jail” | “Deputies to receive $2 million in lawsuit” | “Woman wins $1.2 million settlement after Dallas police interrogation” | “Jury awards $433,200 to 16 for police DWI scam” | “Inmate awarded $900K over care” | “Dallas County to pay $550,000 to settle jail neglect suit” | “Officer gets $315,000 in retaliation lawsuit” | “City Council approves $500,000 settlement for motorcyclist whose beating was caught on police dash-cam”