Quelling a minor insurrection by the Travis County judiciary, the Texas Supreme Court issued a pair of emergency stays blocking two lower-court rulings that might have allowed same-sex marriage in the state. Tuesday, a Travis County probate judge ruled Texas’ ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional while splitting up the proceeds…
Continuing Lance Armstrong’s long descent from cycling champion to tragic, cautionary tale, SCA Promotion confirmed Monday that an arbitration panel has decided that Armstrong and Tailwind Sports, the owners of the U.S. Postal Service team for which Armstrong rode, owe the Dallas-based company $10 million for bonuses SCA paid after…
Opening statements in the trial of Eddie Routh, the former Marine accused of murdering “American Sniper” Chris Kyle and Kyle’s friend Chad Littlefield focused on the limited ground over which the case will be decided — whether or not Routh met the Texas standard for legal insanity when he shot…
Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price, acting through his attorney Billy Ravkind, has pulled his application for a taxpayer-paid lawyer. Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Barbara Lynn reset a hearing to evaluate Price’s claims of indigence after Price didn’t show up to court — apparently with Ravkind’s blessing. Lynn was aggravated,…
Barring any last minute action by the United States Supreme Court, Robert Ladd will be executed Thursday night by the state of Texas. Ladd, convicted for the 1996 murder of Vicki Ann Garner, will be the second inmate on Texas’ death row killed in 2015. Texas’ highest criminal court, the…
Showing what The Dallas Morning News’ Rudy Bush derisively called “moxie,” Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price says that, despite his $141,000 salary, he is unable to pay for his defense as he faces a bevy of federal corruption charges. Bush, among others, thinks this is ridiculous, that Price is…
It’s hollow succor, to be sure, but 5th Texas Court of Appeals ruled Monday that a judge made an improper ruling in the case that ended in outgoing Dallas District Attorney Craig Watkins being charged with contempt of court. Watkins secured an indictment in 2011 that accused Al Hill III…
The Case: DeLeon vs. Perry features two sets of plaintiffs fighting for two distinct rights. Cleopatra DeLeon and Nicole Dimetman are already married. The couple seeks to force the state of Texas to recognize their Massachusetts union and grant them the rights afforded to opposite-sex married couples from other states…
The new year will ring in with two major skirmishes in the nation’s culture wars, as the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is set to hear oral arguments in one case challenging Texas’ restrictive new abortion law and another seeking to overturn the state’s ban on same-sex marriage. The…
Are strippers employees, or just independent contractors working for tips? A lawsuit filed against Dallas’ all-nude Jaguars settled on Wednesday, leaving us no answer, at least in this case. The plaintiffs in the suit, 182 women who worked for the club’s outlets in Texas and Arizona, will divvy up $1.54…
Shane Garner’s alleged scam was simple: Set up a reputable-sounding company, i.e. the Credit Alliance Group. Flood the Internet with promises that he can help hard-working Americans escape from crushing debt. Convince the people who respond that they need to pay the company up front so it can negotiate down…
It was a valiant effort. Earlier this year the Texas Package Stores Association, in an attempt to shield the thousand or so liquor stores it represents from meaningful competition, sought to resuscitate an obscure and transparently stupid provision of Texas Alcoholic Beverage Code barring non-Texans from holding Texas liquor licenses…
Until 2010, Sergeant Delbert Johnson had a great career at the Fort Worth Police Department. He joined the force in 1990 and had worked his way up to sergeant by 2000. In 2005 he was transferred to the department’s day shift traffic division, giving a regular schedule that allowed him…
Two statements that are axiomatic are 1. Anyone representing themselves in court has a fool for a client, and 2. No good ever comes out of the O’Reilly Factor. For evidence, we offer you Deion Sanders’ ex-wife Pilar, who was hauled into a Collin County Court by the former Cowboys…
The Boy Scouts of America has been found negligent in the case of Siegfried Hepp, a Connecticut troop leader accused of sexually assaulting multiple Scouts. Hepp was convicted of unlawful sexual touching of a minor in 1999. Witnesses at the trial, held in Waterbury, Connecticut, said that the Irving-based organization…
Josh Brent may have done his time for the December 2012 drunk driving wreck that killed his passenger, former University of Illinois teammate and best friend Jerry Brown Jr., but the legal battle surrounding the case isn’t over. Brent’s been sued by Beamers Private Club as it attempts to insulate…
Back in April, the carefully airbrushed Yelp reputation of Irving attorney Sherin Thawer took a major hit when user Kayur P. left a bruising, one-star appraisal of her legal talents. The content of the review has since been removed from the site for unspecified violations of Yelp’s terms of service,…
Tuesday morning, a lawsuit was filed in federal court by an anonymous plaintiff asserting that her daughter, who has Down syndrome, was raped twice by a DART paratransit driver in September 2013. According to the plaintiff, driver Cedrick Agentdropped off his other passengers on the bus before pulling over and…
Last week, Denton became the first city in the state to pass a citywide ban on fracking. Voters approved the ban in a landslide, with 59 percent in favor of the ban and 41 percent against, after more than five years of struggle between anti-fracking activists and the energy industry…
You want to live in Frisco’s Plantation Resort 2 neighborhood, you better keep your property looking good and fancy. Because Plantation Resort 2 isn’t going to put up with your shit. Here are Plantation Resort 2’s hardcore summer lawn-watering instructions: Although we are currently under water restrictions we cannot allow…
Five years ago this month, a Dallas County justice of the peace signed an order evicting Clifford Holland from the $1.2 million home he was renting on Caruth Boulevard, a block outside of University Park. Aside from the eye-popping $6,000-per-month rent, the case was a routine tenant-landlord dispute: Landlord claims…
On Saturday, the Supreme Court decided to let Texas enforce its strict two-year-old voter ID law, which a district court judge struck down as grossly discriminatory this month, but that ruling was temporarily put on hold by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Got that? No? Then let us…
