Just a tip: The best time to get yourself killed in the City of Dallas is between 6 p.m. and midnight on a Wednesday, if I’m reading my January-July YTD homicide statistics right, and I’d like to think that I am. (So you can forget what I wrote in May,…
For a man about to spend at least the next 40 years of his life in prison, Roy Arredondo hardly seemed nervous. Arredondo, the reputed leader of a Dallas-based cell of the Texas Syndicate prison gang, was sentenced this morning in Dallas federal court to life for his role in…
A picture of Don Hill we never, ever get tired of running When last we heard from former Dallas Mayor Pro Tem Don Hill, he was insisting that the U.S. government’s case against him — you recall, has to do with low-income housing — was racially motivated, politically charged and…
The Dallas Police Department, riding high off the arrests made from this YouTubed video, has posted two more — including this freshly baked footage of four men burglarizing a residence in broad daylight. (It appears to have been shot by a neighbor, who, one would hope, was dialing 911 with…
Texas Department of Criminal Justice Leon David Dorsey IV Leon David Dorsey IV will likely be executed tomorrow for shooting to death on April 4, 1994, two East Dallas Blockbuster clerks for $392 in the cash register — a crime to which he admitted four years later, while serving 60…
From the Courthouse News Service, this bit of legal ephemera out of Denton County, where Jeff Soele Real Estate alleges that Lake Lewisville’s Xtreme Marine and salesman Mike Flowers are just a little too extreme for his tastes: DENTON, Texas (CN) — The “new 2006 demo boat” a customer bought…
Sure, things can get a little slow in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, but, seriously, Josh Howard. Arrested? For drag racing? In a black Lexus? Yup: “The 28-year-old has been charged with drag racing, exceeding the posted speed limit, and reckless driving to endanger.” Guess it coulda been worse. Lesse — September…
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas in Marshall is a popular venue for patent infringement lawsuits; as The New York Times pointed out in 2006, right after that famous Echostar-TiVo trial wrapped, “more patent lawsuits will be filed here this year than in federal district courts…
On Saturday morning in Norman, Oklahoma, officer John Terry was called to an apartment complex, where a man was sleeping in a car that had been allegedly stolen. Terry confronted the dude, who then tried to drive off — while dragging Terry along for the ride. The officer had enough…
Henry Wade First thing that comes up when you search for “Dallas” in Google News for the past month is this freshly minted piece about former Dallas County District Attorney Henry Wade. The headline blares: “After Dallas DA’s death, 19 convictions are undone.” Craig Watkins says of his predecessor: “There…
Interesting media release this afternoon from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, about how 55-year-old Dallas-based FBI “support employee” Deborah Lee Stinson and her 27-year-old son Mark have been charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The entire narrative, as usual, is after the jump, but the feds allege that from January…
No doubt, Scott Henson at Grits for Breakfast puts it best concerning yesterday’s late news out of the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office that 38-year-old Patrick Waller will, next Thursday, become the 19th Dallas County man freed from prison since 2001 following a DNA test. Notes Henson, “This one blows…
This morning, Attorney General Michael Mukasey gave a speech at the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives National Conference, which takes place today and tomorrow in D.C. The title of his speech, delivered moments ago, was “Victory of the Level Playing Field,” and in it, he referred to…
A couple of days ago, the Dallas Police Department posted this video of a man taking his sweet time to play stick-’em-up at the the Shell station at 13910 N. Central Expressway at 9:13 p.m on June 12. Says Det. Martha Sanders this a.m., the guy’s also wanted in conjunction…
Yesterday, during our weekly staff meeting, the question was raised concerning the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report for 2007, a preliminary version of which was released last week. We wondered if perhaps we’d missed it in The News; all I can find concerning the report’s release is this very general Associated…
Charles Dean Hood The story of Charles Dean Hood, who was scheduled to die tonight for the 1989 murder of Ronald Williamson and his girlfriend Tracie Wallace in Plano, has garnered national attention since at least 2005, when Salon first broke the story that State District Court Judge Verla Sue…
Ronald “Buffalo” Chambers, as he looked 32 years ago Dallas Observer editor Mark Donald and I have written about Ronald Chambers on and off for years — Mark, for D, way back in the spring of 1986. (Ancient Observer stories, alas, have not been been so rigorously archived.) For 32…
Dallas lawyer Laura Shockley told a Utah newspaper she is considering filing a civil rights lawsuit against the state of Texas stemming from the April 3 raid of the polygamist compound in Eldorado. A spokesman for the polygamist group, Salt Lake City attorney Rod Parker, also said he is considering…
Brad Lollar On Tuesday, Dallas County Chief Public Defender Brad Lollar resigned — right about the time he was being forced out by Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price, who claimed Lollar wasn’t very good at his job — wasting money, wasting time. From jump, Scott Henson at Grits for…
Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins wants to address “the bigger picture” concerning wrongful convictions. One month ago, hundreds of law-enforcement officials from around the state gathered under the dome in Texas’s Senate chamber at the behest of Sen. Rodney Ellis of Houston. They came to pay their respects to…
More than 4,200 defendants convicted in federal court in the Northern District of Texas owe their victims $1 billion, give or take. Which would make U.S. Attorney Richard Roper and his financial litigation unit the biggest debt collector in North Texas, give or take. Among Department of Justice Districts, Northern…
Say it ain’t so, Joe Ezeokeke. Because, really, if you can’t take more than three ounces of liquid onto an airplane, what in the world made you think you could bring four kilos of cocaine onto a flight? Alas, that’s just what the Nigerian citizen did on December 22 of…
