Carlos Sanders was at home in Burleson with his young son on January 31 when there was a knock on the door. He opened it to find two cops standing there, holding a warrant. Exactly what happened next depends on whom you ask. Sanders says in a federal lawsuit filed…
The U.S. Supreme Court will not hear an appeal from Dallas-based Luminant seeking to topple Clean Air Act limits on emissions increases resulting from planned startups and shutdowns of its power plants. The state’s largest generator of electricity sought an exemption for these operations from fines levied by the EPA…
In one very limited sense, the Dallas PD response to a pair of armed robberies in South Dallas on the night of February 2, 2012, was a success. After a brief chase, they arrested 29-year-old Donnell Charles Collins after finding him wedged between a toilet and a wall in an…
A decade ago, Konrad “Konny” Reimann, tired of his native Hamburg, Germany, packed up his family and set off for Gainesville, Texas. There, he established Konny Island (Google translates it back from the German as “Konny Iceland”) and embarked upon a thoroughly American life, complete with an ever-present cowboy hat…
BREAKING: PP, @ACLU, & @ReproRights have filed a suit in federal court to stop #HB2 from taking effect in TX. #StandWithTXWomen— Cecile Richards (@CecileRichards) September 27, 2013 Long before Wendy Davis laced up her pink Mizunos and stepped onto the floor of the Texas Senate for her historic filibuster, the…
It started with a call to the Alzheimer’s Association in Dallas. On May 29, David Seyfried phoned the agency’s hotline to tell them that his wife, Delores, a 67-year-old Alzeheimer’s patient, was “agitated” and waving around a letter opener. He was expecting advice. What he got a few minutes later…
Craig James’ tenure as a college football analyst on Fox Sports Southwest was hilariously brief. It took all of one day for the station’s corporate parent to learn of the hire, review James’ comments on homosexuality from his failed U.S. Senate campaign, and show him the door. College football fans…
In mid-July, CBS 11 carried a brief report about a near-drowning at a University of North Texas swimming pool. A teenager attending an overnight football camp had been pulled from the bottom of the pool by lifeguards around 9 p.m. on July 11 and rushed to the hospital. The boy…
Dr. Alireza Atef-Zafarmand played a memorable role in The Dallas Morning News’ series on sexual abuse allegations at Parkland Hospital. He’s the kidney specialist who allegedly told a bedridden patient that she looked like Julia Roberts, then grabbed her breast and wrapped his fingers around her neck, asking if she…
Steven Kenneth Staley’s guilt was never much in doubt. The facts of the case, attested to by multiple witnesses, were clear. One evening in 1989, Staley and two female accomplices showed up at a Tarrant County Steak & Ale with guns. When police showed up, Staley took the restaurant manager…
Last month, Chelsea Davis filed a lawsuit, which in and of itself is pretty unremarkable given that she’s a lawyer.. Davis, though, is a patent attorney, and this particular suit has nothing to do with the nuances of intellectual property law, a fact she alluded to in a handful of…
There’s something fundamentally troubling about seeing a judge on the campaign trail. Take Texas Supreme Court Justice Don Willett, for no other reason than that he has waded into the debate. He knows the system and has successfully held onto his place on the state’s highest bench. Voters, assuming they…
When federal agents raided local hacktivist Barrett Brown’s apartment last fall, throwing him in prison for what could wind up being the rest of his life, they succeeded in shutting him up for about a day. Soon, however, he was scribbling letters from prison claiming the FBI had broken his…
Updated at 4:56 p.m.: Dallas County Community College District sends word that, following a hearing in federal court this afternoon, they have agreed to allow Rodin to observer all the holidays. “Rodin has agreed to make up those clinical requirements on appropriate dates in January 2014,” DCCCD says in a…
Ronald Thompson is not a particularly sympathetic defendant. Authorities say the 50-year-old visited Sea World in July 2011 to surreptitiously photograph young children. When police arrested him and seized his camera, they found 73 pictures of children in swimsuits, almost all of the images centered on the chest or buttocks…
David Hartman’s death at the hands of Highland Park police back in June was weird. For starters, there was the shooting itself. The 32-year-old had already been searched and was handcuffed in the back of the squad car when police say he managed to pull out a handgun and shoot…
District Attorney Craig Watkins has escaped from the contempt-of-court allegations that have dogged him for six months like Charlie Brown’s personal rain cloud. A specially appointed judge — a Republican from Wichita Falls who is far removed from Dallas County political intrigue — ruled that the hearing at which he…
The legal fight aimed at halting the advance of the Keystone pipeline through Texas was cut off at the knees on Tuesday. A state appeals court in Texarkana threw out Lamar County landowner Julia Trigg Crawford’s lawsuit against TransCanada, rejecting arguments that Keystone can’t condemn land because it’s an interstate…
Late one night in July 2009, Sachse police officer Kenneth Paul Smith happened upon a 13-year-old girl in a car with her boyfriend. When they tried to drive away, he turned on the lights and made them stop. It was around 3 a.m. when Smith arrived with the girl at…
Jeffrey and Henry Buck were married in Massachusetts on September 22, 2006, some two years after the state recognized same-sex unions. They moved to Texas in 2008 and quickly discovered what heterosexual couples have known for ages about the sanctity of matrimony: Sometimes it just doesn’t work out. The Bucks…
Carrollton police Officer Don Patin was pretty sure Jason Geils was drunk when he pulled him over on December 10, 2009, for speeding down Stemmons Freeway and driving in the HOV lane without a passenger. Patin said he could smell alcohol on Geils’ breath and, according to Dallas County court…
One of the undersung virtues of dating is the ability to end a relationship without lawyers and protracted litigation. It’s easier that way to make a clean break and move on with one’s life. Christopher Konvicka, a 24-year-old from McKinney, appreciates that fact less than most. He was dating a…
