Texas Justice

The Volokh Conspiracy points us to a lovely Texas case where a plantiff's attorney secured a $28 million judgment for his clients...with his girlfriend on the jury. Once the news got out, the judge dismissed the woman but refused to declare a mistrial, despite other issues of professional misconduct likely present in the case as well.

Apparently, this is actually the rule of law in the state. In Armstrong v. Williams, a Texas State Court of Appeals upheld a life sentence for a murderer who was convicted with the Prosecutor's girlfriend on the jury, and expressed "no opinion" on whether or not the Prosecutor violated the Texas Disciplinary Rule of Professional Conduct 3.09, a special rule for prosecutors (Texas has rules for prosecutors?).

Ahh...Texas. I can always count on it to uphold the strictest standards of justice. At least this isn't the infamous sleeping lawyer case, where Texas Courts (thankfully overruled by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals) held that a defendant's right to a fair trial wasn't violated when his lawyer consistently dozed off through his proceedings. I believe the Texas Courts argued this could have been a "tactic" by the lawyer.