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Immigration Law Commons

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Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility

St. Mary’s School of Law

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Full-Text Articles in Immigration Law

Procedural And Judicial Limitations On Voir Dire - Constitutional Implications And Preservation Of Error In Civil Cases., R. Brent Cooper, Diana L. Faust Jan 2009

Procedural And Judicial Limitations On Voir Dire - Constitutional Implications And Preservation Of Error In Civil Cases., R. Brent Cooper, Diana L. Faust

St. Mary's Law Journal

The right to a trial by jury is meaningless without an effective voir dire. Recurring tort reform, rapid technological advancements, immediate access to media coverage of incidents that give rise to litigation have greatly expanded. Consequentially, courts are faced with the prospect that potential jurors’ opinions and attitudes have been tainted. In addition to these issues, trial courts display significant interest in promptly expediting the advancement of their dockets. Voir dire is an essential element of trial strategy. Voir dire allows counsel to establish rapport with potential jurors, introduce them to the issues and facts of the case, and identify …


Texas Law's Life Or Death Rule In Capital Sentencing: Scrutinizing Eight Amendment Violations And The Case Of Juan Guerrero, Jr., John Niland, Riddhi Dasgupta Jan 2009

Texas Law's Life Or Death Rule In Capital Sentencing: Scrutinizing Eight Amendment Violations And The Case Of Juan Guerrero, Jr., John Niland, Riddhi Dasgupta

St. Mary's Law Journal

The United States Supreme Court has never explained the Eighth Amendment’s impact in noncapital cases involving a mentally retarded or brain-injured defendant. The Court has not provided guidance to legislatures or lower courts concerning the acceptable balancing of aggravating and mitigating factors and the role that mitigating factors must play in the sentencing decision. A definitive gap exists between the protections afforded to a criminal defendant facing a life sentence as opposed to those confronted with the death penalty. The Court requires sentencing procedures to consider aggravating and mitigating factors, including mental retardation and brain damage, when imposing a death …


Legal Malpractice In Texas: Examining Selected Cases And Forecasting Future Trrends Third Annual Symposium On Legal Malpractice & Professional Responsibility: Symposium Presentations., Wallace B. Jefferson Jan 2004

Legal Malpractice In Texas: Examining Selected Cases And Forecasting Future Trrends Third Annual Symposium On Legal Malpractice & Professional Responsibility: Symposium Presentations., Wallace B. Jefferson

St. Mary's Law Journal

Little hard data exists concerning legal malpractice in Texas. What’s more, few legal law malpractice rulings are published. To date, there are only fifty written opinions on legal malpractice from Texas intermediate appellate courts. The activity that most often gave rise to a claim of legal malpractice involved the preparation, filing, and transmittal of documents, accounting for about a quarter of all claims. In San Antonio, Chief Justice Alma Lopez of the Fourth District Court of Appeals discussed common issues she sees in her courtroom. The issues ranged from failures to follow simple court rules to more substantial failures of …