This week, Notre Dame Law School is hosting its second annual Death Penalty Abolition Week. Among the speakers are two men who, between them, spent nearly 60 years on death row for crimes they did not commit. Elwood Jones was convicted of aggravated murder in Ohio in 1996 and sentenced to death. He spent 27 […]
Indecency with a child is one of the most frequently charged sex offenses in Texas and one of the most misunderstood. Many people facing this charge (and their families) conflate it with sexual assault, assume it requires physical penetration, or don’t understand how the two separate offense types within the statute carry fundamentally different penalties […]
In early March 2026, Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Mike Lee (R-UT) reintroduced two pieces of bipartisan criminal justice legislation: the Smarter Sentencing Act and its companion, the Smarter Pretrial Detention for Drug Charges Act. The fact that a Democratic Senate whip and one of the Senate’s most conservative members keep reintroducing this bill together […]
Forensic expert witnesses carry unusual authority in criminal trials. A jury that might skeptically evaluate an eyewitness’s account often defers to a laboratory analyst who presents technical findings in confident, technical language. The perception that science is objective (that a GC-MS result or a DNA match speaks for itself) can overwhelm the jury’s usual critical […]
In February 2009, the National Research Council of the National Academies published a report that fundamentally changed how forensic science evidence is understood in the American legal system. Titled “Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward,” the report was the product of a congressionally mandated study examining the state of forensic science […]
Federal sentencing is fundamentally different from state sentencing. In Texas state courts, judges and juries impose sentences within a statutory range (for example, 2 to 20 years for a second-degree felony), and the decision is driven primarily by the facts of the offense and the defendant’s criminal history. In federal court, the sentencing process is […]
A DWI arrest is a Class B misdemeanor. The moment someone is seriously injured in the same accident, it becomes a third-degree felony. The moment someone dies, it becomes a second-degree felony. That escalation (from misdemeanor to felony, from probation-eligible to mandatory minimum) happens because of two words in the statute: serious bodily injury, and […]
The THC vape cartridge in your carry-on bag just cost you a felony charge. That sentence captures what tens of thousands of travelers who pass through Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport every year do not know until it is too late. A THC vape cartridge that is entirely legal where you purchased it, that you have […]
Few areas of firearms law have changed as rapidly as the rules governing homemade firearms and NFA-regulated weapons. A Supreme Court decision in March 2025 settled one major dispute about ghost gun regulations. A new federal law in July 2025 eliminated the $200 NFA tax stamp fee that had been in place since 1934. Texas’s […]
Federal fraud prosecutions almost always involve multiple statutes charged together. A scheme that uses email communications, involves a bank, and includes documents sent through the mail can produce wire fraud counts, bank fraud counts, and mail fraud counts with each carrying its own penalty, each requiring the same or similar evidence, and each adding to […]