Notable Victories

Manslaughter Her attorney plead her guilty to Manslaughter and I was called in strictly for the punishment/PSI hearing. Client was a young woman on her way home from work. While at the Voss light on Westheimer, a motorcyclist riding in between the cars and crashes into client’s car and another car. The motorcyclist takes off. The two hit cars go to the parking lot to call the police.  Just then they see the motorcyclist come from the hiding place with no license plate on and speed down Voss. My client and her girl friend pursue the motorcycle. They are on the phone with 911 the entire time. The motorcyclist gets trapped trying to run behind the Kroger. You can hear my client telling her to stop, the cops are on her way. The motorcyclist instead tries to play chicken with the car and drive through the small gap between the wall and the car. The car ends up hitting the motorcyclist and severing the riders femoral artery. You can hear on the 911 call my client telling the rider to stay awake and with me and why did you have to run. The rider dies in my client’s arms. My client had no criminal history. The State was asking for 14 years in prison. Yeah, 14!  We asked for deferred adjudication probation. The Judge gave our client 10 years probation. She is very thankful for the compassion shown by the Judge.

Aggravated Robbery. Client was a 17 year old young man. Never been arrested or in any real trouble in his entire life. Then, the summer before his senior year he hung out with the wrong crowd. The two boys that he was running with were linked to a murder, unbeknownst to the client. They would drive around the neighborhood robbing hard working yard men and innocent bystanders. Truly scary stuff. Client then used a gun to steal a car that an innocent person was just washing. He was caught and that gun was his friends, which was linked to a murder. Talk about big trouble and a nightmare. Client went in and confessed to 7 armed robberies that summer. By the time he bailed out and came to me, we had no defense. So we started the long hard road of getting him back on track. He graduated high school, got a construction job, stayed clean, and just went to work and home. He donated his free time with church. We went to the Judge for a PSI hearing. The Judge showed tremendous compassion and mercy and gave the young man deferred adjudication probation for 7 years, 6 months jail, and 6 months juvenile boot camp. Which means, if the client stays clean and out of trouble all of these cases are dismissed and he gets a fresh start at life. We talked about how all of his friends will probably spiral down for the next 7 years, but he will advance. There can be a silver lining, you just have to find it. Thank you to that wonderful judge for showing mercy on this young man and giving him a second chance at life.

Intoxication Assault. Client was a good young man. He was engaged and his fiancé called it off. He went out and got so intoxicated he didn’t eve know he was driving. Somehow, he got on I-10 and went the wrong direction (most of it in the HOV lane that was closed off) for 16 miles. From Barker Cypress until just east of downtown Houston. He had a head on collision with a woman causing her to break his leg. The woman was understandably very upset and would ever let the DAs settle for anything that involved probation. The case was 2-10 years in prison. The DAs offer was 4, client would sign for 3. The DAs refused to come down. Because of the facts and how intoxicated client was, there was no defense and we all knew it. But because the case involved a deadly weapon, only a Jury could give probation. So we plead guilty to the Jury and the State put on the entire case asking for prison time. The State was also allowed to show that while on bond the client picked up 4 heavy felony charges for weed in Ft Bend. Client explained that he couldn’t get a job with a pending felony and never tested positive. He was only selling things that were legal and bought from CO and CA. The client had also been acting as an informant for the past few months and was half way done with how many people he had to catch when they terminated his contract 2 days before trial. We have text messages that the contract was terminated because of pressure from the Harris County DAs office. The Jury saw through the trickery of the DAs. They also saw that the client was heartfelt sorry and didn’t even remember driving let alone the accident. The HPD DWI Officer also agreed he didn’t even think the client knew where he was. The jury chose to spare our client from the cage and give him a chance at getting his life and freedom back. He got 5 years of prison, probated. Judge gave him 10 years probation to prove himself with 120 days of jail as a condition. Client and his mother both cried for the mercy that Jury showed in such a tragic accident. There was never any intent to harm anyone, he made a horrible mistake and is thankful to not get thrown into prison. Thank you to that merciful jury.

The compassionate jury gave our client probation for running over a man. 2.5 years ago our client double parked in the common circular driveway of her apartment complex. She ran inside to grab some papers from her apartment. When she came down she found owners of the vehicle she blocked in waiting for her, a father/daughter team. Both were bigger, older, and stronger than my client. Both the father and the daughter had been drinking and started yelling at my client for double parking. Our client yelled back and proceeded to get in her car and leave the circular drive. As she was leaving the father flanked her around the other side to “take a picture of her front license plate.” I asked why and he said for the tow truck, I told him that didn’t make sense since she was leaving and one wouldn’t be needed. Father testified that our client stated if he didn’t get out of the way, she would run over him. The drive left about 20 feet on either side of the father to move. And he testified he biked 6k miles a year (120 miles per week/ 40 mi 3x a week). Little did he know that our client was lured into sex slavery at the age of 13 and kidnapped. She was kidnapped back out by the FBI during a sweep. While in police custody she was raped by a guard and once again fled to her sex slavery captors. She was then rekidnapped out by the FBI and debriefed. She suffered serious PTSD from men and especially men trying to trap her. According to our client as she was driving away from the scene, the father jumped out in front trying to stop her and she accidentally ran over him. There were no tire marks or burn out marks on the concrete. The father sustained no cuts to his leg or injuries to his knee. All of the evidence and the accident reconstructionist opined this accident occurred between 5-10 mph. The State was very overzealous and the Chief actually jumped into the middle of cross exam of the expert. He tried to force the expert to change his opinion if the father had been there waiting for the car to come around. The expert plainly stated: that would be dumb. The jury agreed. Anyone who just stood there and let a car run over them at 5-10 mph was dumb. The State knew they couldn’t make the Aggravated Assault with a Deadly Weapon, so they charged client with Failure to Stop and Render Aid, which was actually very smart. Our client did not stop or come back, or ever try to call 911 to get the father help. The State dismissed the Agg Asslt and the client pled guilty to FSRA. We went to the jury for punishment. The State asked for the max of 10 years in prison. Not surprising as they had been over aggressive the entire time. The jury heard the entire case for the Agg Assault and the FSRA. In the end, the jury showed great compassion and gave this now 21 year old mother of 3 probation for FSRA. The Judge also showed great compassion for our client by giving no jail as a condition of probation. Not every win can be a Not Guilty verdict, sometimes you did something wrong and we need to ask for forgiveness. Thank you to the jury for your compassion and we promise you that our client will not be back and she will make yall proud. Taly and I made a great team and both cared so deeply for this client.