Texas Lawyer Blog

Voir dire under way in R. Allen Stanford criminal trial

Jury selection began this morning in Houston in R. Allen Stanford’s criminal trial.

Stanford, former chairman of Houston’s Stanford Financial Group, faces 14 criminal charges in connection with an alleged conspiracy to defraud investors who bought about $7 billion in certificates of deposit sold through Stanford International Bank Ltd.

Stanford, who wore a gray suit, a blue shirt and no tie today, watched from a seat at the defense table as Senior U.S. District Judge David Hittner began voir dire of prospective jurors.

“You’ll find this a very, very challenging morning and a very challenging trial,” Hittner told the 80-member panel. “It’s about as interesting a case as you will find anywhere in the country,” he added before questioning potential jurors individually.

After warning prospective jurors the trial would last “plus or minus six weeks,” Hittner waved around a chess timer to show the panel that he would ensure the lawyers would be accountable for their time.

Hittner introduced lawyers for the government and for Stanford’s defense team, then introduced Stanford to the prospective jurors. The judge said he hoped to have a jury picked by the end of the day.

Stanford then said to the panel, "Thank you for coming, thank you."

A June 2011 superseding indictment in United States v. Robert Allen Stanford lists 14 counts against Stanford: one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and mail fraud; five counts of wire fraud; five counts of mail fraud; one count of conspiracy to obstruct an SEC investigation; one count of obstruction of an SEC investigation; and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.

At a pretrial hearing on Jan. 18, Stanford pleaded not guilty to the charges.

-- Brenda Sapino Jeffreys

UPDATED: Sixth Court of Appeals, Koons Fuller Vanden Eykel & Robertson boast candidates for Texas Young Lawyers Association president-elect

The two president-elect candidates for the Texas Young Lawyers Association are organizing their campaigns, after TYLA’s board of directors made their candidacies official on Jan. 14. Jennifer Evans Morris, chairwoman of TYLA’s Nominations Committee, says the 2012 candidates are Kristy Sims Piazza, TYLA’s current vice president, and Shivali Sharma, a current TYLA board member. “The committee was just very impressed with what they had to offer,” says Morris. The candidates will campaign in March, and TYLA members vote in April. “I’m extremely excited; I have an agenda of projects I can’t wait to get started on,” says Sharma, staff attorney at the 6th Court of Appeals in Texarkana. She says she’d like to talk about the projects but she’s unsure if TYLA’s election rules allow her to discuss it now. Piazza, an associate with Koons Fuller Vanden Eykel & Robertson in Plano, didn’t immediately return a telephone message seeking comment.

-- Angela Morris

UPDATE: “I’m very honored to have been nominated and excited to get to meet young lawyers across the state,” says Piazza, adding that she wants to discuss her project ideas and learn about issues young lawyers face with their practices. She declines comment about her project ideas.

Morning docket

Supreme Court Sends Redistricting Case Back to Texas (The Blog of Legal Times)

S.A.-area woman joins Wal-Mart suit (San Antonio Express-News)

Reversal of sonogram law not likely in Sparks' court, he says (Austin American-Statesman)

Judge dismisses suit challenging Texas' concealed carry law (Austin American-Statesman)

Hurd changes lawyers, will plead not guilty (San Antonio Express-News)

"Occupy the Courts" Protests Hit Supreme Court and Federal Courthouses Nationwide (The Blog of LegalTimes)

State supreme court rules new school funding system unconstitutional (Texas Day by Day)

-- Angela Morris

Andrews Kurth intellectual property partner and her husband to buy historic fishing lodge in Alaska

When Andrews Kurth intellectual property partner Wei Wei Jeang (pictured) and her husband started looking for a vacation house to buy, they were thinking maybe something in Texas or Colorado. Instead, Jeang and her husband, Keith Mantey, are buying Gwin’s Lodge, a historic fishing lodge in the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska, which she calls a “mecca” for salmon fishing. “It’s just a beautiful place. How could you say no? It’s amazing to see the salmon on the river. You can reach down and pick them up,” Jeang says. Jeang says she will continue to practice law full time, and her husband will spend the May-to-September tourist season in Alaska, running the business. “I will travel out there as much as I can, especially when we are over 100 degrees,” Jeang says, adding that the couple’s two teenage children will spend much of the summer in Alaska and probably work at the lodge. Jeang says she and Mantey will close on the purchase next week. Jeang says she and her husband discovered they really like Alaska, because it seems like Texas. “We don’t have mountains down here, but the kind of feeling, the frontier, the kind of people, is very Texas to me,” she says. Jeang says neither she nor her engineer husband has experience in the hospitality industry. However, she notes, her husband is an avid fisherman. “He grew up fishing, and this is just a perfect thing for him. He would love to be in that kind of surrounding, talking fishing with everyone,” she says. Gwin’s Lodge, which was built in 1952, according to its website, has a store, a restaurant, 12 cabins and two houses. Jeang declines to reveal the purchase price, but says, “[W]e think it is a good value.” Jeang says the lodge is apparently well-known among the fishing set, and in fact, she and Mantey ran into people in Texas last week who had stayed there before. “It’s like one of the very few lodges available in that location, that central Kenai Peninsula location,” she says.
-- Brenda Sapino Jeffreys

This week in Texas Lawyer

Who's responsible?: While lawyer Scott Marshall has pleaded guilty to a murder charge, his victim's mother has filed an unusual wrongful-death suit against not only him but his parents and his 92-year-old grandmother. Senior reporter John Council hears from attorneys about the unusual suit.

Election litigation: What does Citizens United mean in a fight over an El Paso recall election? One lawyer says the decision isn't relevant, but another disagrees. Senior reporter John Council talks with both.

File fight: Two separate suits have been filed in Dallas district courts by plaintiffs seeking the return of client files. Jennifer Spencer (pictured) represents the plaintiffs in one suit. Reporter Miriam Rozen eyes the tug of war.

Work woes: A former law firm employee has filed two suits against her ex-employers. Reporter Angela Morris looks at the suit alleging civil barratry and the suit alleging failure to pay overtime — allegations the defendants deny.

Approach the bench: Those who thought law school was hard should imagine going through it with three kids. Reporter Angela Morris talks with 186th District Judge Maria Teresa "Tessa" Herr (pictured). 

Inadmissible. Newsmakers. Case summaries. Discipline. VerdictSearch.

Dealmaker of the week: A big year in the shale plays kept this lawyer busy right up to the end of 2011.

Special FOCUS Report: Toxic Torts

 Clock's ticking: John Eldridge and Jason Huebinger explore limitations considerations.

Doctor, doctor: Mark Courtois and Mary Ann Dougharty walk lawyers through the complex issues that arise when settlements involve Medicare.

Litigating causation: David A. Oliver considers a toxic-tort causation question at the Supreme Court. 

Start off right: Vianei Lopez Robinson has six workplace fixes the savvy in-house lawyer can make for 2012.

Maternity matters: Elizabeth Poole (pictured) looks at why employers should work to retain working moms. 

The write stuff: Kendall Gray red pencils editing techniques lawyers can use to improve their briefs.

Dallas attorney pleads guilty to murdering his former law partner's ex-wife

Handcuffed and sitting beside his defense attorney, Dallas plaintiffs lawyer Scott Marshall today pleaded guilty to murdering Staci Michelle Montgomery, the ex-wife of Marshall's former law partner Bady Sassin. Marshall received a 40-year sentence.

On Dec. 20, 2009, Marshall shot and killed Montgomery at his Addison home.

At today’s emotional plea hearing before Judge Don Adams in Dallas County Criminal District Court No. 2, Marshall kept his head down and did not speak as Montgomery’s mother, Donna Cowey, gave her victim impact statement.

“You did this because you were mad at other people. You were mad at her,” Cowey said. “But you hurt other people. . . . She was supposed to be home making cookies that day,” Cowey said, explaining that she had a tradition of making Christmas cookies with her daughters.

“I don’t sleep nights anymore . . .,” Cowey said. “My youngest daughter, she’ll never be the same. She’s 21.”

Sassin, a Dallas solo, also gave an impact statement. “I think you need to get down on your knees and beg for forgiveness” from Montgomery’s family members, Sassin said.

He also said Marshall needs to beg for forgiveness from his own parents, who sat in the courtroom at the Jan. 20 hearing. “They had dreams and aspirations when they were young. And they got you,” Sassin said. “And look at what you’ve done.”

Before finishing, Sassin added, “If you did this to get back at me . . . you win.”

At the time of Montgomery’s murder, Marshall was involved in litigation with Sassin, who had sued Marshall over the break-up of their former firm Marshall Sassin. That case settled in June 2010, according to a motion for nonsuit filed in Dallas County's 101st District Court.

At the hearing today, Marshall also pleaded guilty to drug charges connected to the murder. “The lesson is the evil of drugs,” Marshall’s attorney Gary Unell said after the hearing. “They destroy lives, even attorneys’ lives.”

Marshall “has been wanting to plead the case for some time” and did not want to put the families through a trial, Unell said. After Unell and the state could not pick a jury last December, Unell said Marshall offered to plead guilty. Many of the venire members were struck for cause during voir dire, he noted. “Some of the jurors said they couldn’t be fair to an attorney-defendant,” Unell said. “It was a complicated case.”

Dallas County assistant district attorney Rachael Jones, who prosecuted Marshall’s case, could not be reached for comment after the hearing. Marshall’s parents --- John Webster Marshall and Beverly Harrison Marshall --- declined comment.

Last month, Cowey filed a wrongful-death suit against Marshall, his parents and his 92-year-old grandmother, Kay Wiser. In answers filed this week, Marshall and his parents deny the allegations in the civil suit; Wiser has not yet filed an answer.

-- John Council and Anne K. McMillan

State Bar of Texas board of directors votes to ask Texas Supreme Court to suspend work of Uniform Forms Task Force

Without objection today, the State Bar of Texas board of directors voted to request that the Texas Supreme Court suspend the work of the court’s Uniform Forms Task Force and ask the Bar to study the issue of indigent self-represented litigants. The board’s action ratified a resolution its executive committee passed Jan. 5 in the wake of controversy over standardized forms the task force has recommended for the use of pro se litigants in uncomplicated, uncontested divorce cases. The task force submitted its first set of forms to the court on Jan. 11. The State Bar’s Family Law Section and the Family Law Foundation have been voicing concerns about the proposed forms. Tom Ausley, the section’s chairman, told the Bar board today that it is not possible to adopt forms to address all issues that could come up in a divorce. “The last thing a pro se indigent litigant needs is poor forms,” Ausley, a partner in Austin’s Ausley, Algert, Robertson & Flores, said during the public comment period of the board meeting. But Harry Reasoner, a partner in Houston’s Vinson & Elkins and chairman of the Texas Access to Justice Commission, told the board that many states have used uniform forms. “No state has had the problems that the Family Law Section fear,” Reasoner said. Tim Belton of Houston, a public member of the Bar board, made the motion to ratify the executive committee’s resolution. Belton said, “I fear that some well-intentioned folks have equated equal access to the courtroom with access to justice and affordable legal services to the poor. Access to justice begins and ends with access to expert legal counsel.” After the vote, Ausley applauded the board’s action, saying that the Family Law Section is in favor of looking for the best way to continue to help the poor in this state. “To do this we must be sure we’re considering all the ramifications and not just handing them some blank forms,” Ausley says. Reasoner says in an interview that he does not think the court should scrap consideration of the proposal. The Bar could have input while the Supreme Court Advisory Committee reviews the forms, Reasoner says. Justice Phil Johnson, the Supreme Court’s liaison to the Bar, says the court will look at the board’s request and “consider it very seriously.” Johnson says it is his guess that the court will follow a procedure it used when adopting protective-order forms, which involves submitting the divorce forms to its Advisory Committee. “The Advisory Committee also welcomes input,” Johnson says.

-- Mary Alice Robbins

State Bar poised for historic election

For the first time in the State Bar of Texas’ history, the two candidates for president-elect are both African-American. The Bar board of directors today approved the nominations of Steve Bolden, a shareholder in Mahomes Bolden in Dallas, and Lisa Tatum, owner and manager of L.M. Tatum in San Antonio. Kim Davey, a State Bar spokeswoman, says the Bar never has had an African-American president. Ballots for the president-elect election will be distributed April 2, and voting will end May 1.

-- Mary Alice Robbins

Settlement reached late last night in Risperdal whistle-blower litigation

Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc., a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, will pay $158 million to settle litigation filed by the state of Texas and a whistle-blower over allegedly false marketing of the antipsychotic drug Risperdal for Medicaid patients. The settlement announced today by Janssen ends a trial that began on Jan. 9 with jury selection in 250th District Judge John Dietz's court in Travis County. Janssen announced it will pay $158 million in “full resolution” of all claims in Texas. “This settlement represents a resolution to claims brought by the State in 2004 for alleged Medicaid overpayment during the years 1994-2008,” Janssen wrote in a press release, which it provided in response to a telephone call seeking comment from Johnson & Johnson. State of Texas, et al. v. Janssen LP, et al. stemmed from a whistle-blower suit that plaintiff Allen Jones filed under seal in 2004, the Texas Attorney General’s Office wrote in a press release. In the Plaintiffs’ Fifth Amended Petition, the state and Jones alleged the defendants, a group of related Johnson & Johnson companies, worked together to market Risperdal. The plaintiffs alleged the defendants falsely marketed Risperdal and violated the Texas Medicaid Fraud Prevention Act. In the written statement, Janssen wrote that it is “committed to ethical business practices.” The settlement money will go to Jones and his attorneys, the state of Texas and the federal government, which provided Medicaid reimbursements to the state, Janssen wrote in the press release. Tom Melsheimer (pictured), a shareholder in Fish & Richardson in Dallas who represents Jones, says, “We’re thrilled with the settlement. This settlement is the largest Medicaid fraud settlement in Texas by almost a factor of two.” Melsheimer says settlement negotiations had been ongoing during the trial, but talks “sped up” at the conclusion of court proceedings yesterday. He says they reached a deal late last night and informed the judge of the settlement this morning. Melsheimer says his client, a former employee of the Office of the Inspector General in Pennsylvania, could receive up to 25 percent of the settlement, after paying attorneys’ fees and expenses, but the split of the money hasn’t been decided. In a statement today, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott writes that the settlement “sends a strong message.” Abbott was not immediately available for comment. Defense attorney Stephen McConnico, a partner in Scott, Douglass & McConnico in Austin who gave the opening statement at the trial, did not immediately return a telephone message seeking comment. The defendants — all represented by McConnico — include Janssen, Johnson & Johnson, and five other related Johnson & Johnson companies.
-- Brenda Sapino Jeffreys

Grand juries, no worries: Savings clause obviates need for discharge after H.B. 79 provision standardizes terms

District courts and prosecutors statewide have scrambled this month to figure out what a 2011 law would do to their grand juries, but all appears well for now. In the past, district courts used different terms of court. “Grand juries are impaneled by term. So for each term that a district court has, that district court gets to impanel a grand jury,” explains Shannon Edmonds, governmental relations director for the Texas District and County Attorneys Association. A provision effective Jan. 1 in House Bill 79, an omnibus court reorganization bill, creates two annual terms of court, one starting in January and one starting in July. Edmonds says his initial research led him to believe — and publish in TCDAA’s December 2011 Interim Legislative Update — that H.B. 79 required courts to discharge their grand juries on Dec. 31, 2011, and impanel new jurors, a process that can take up to three weeks. Carl Reynolds, administrative director of the Office of Court Administration, gave the same advice through his blog, CourTex. But discharging the grand juries and impaneling new ones could create issues with indicting criminal defendants in a timely manner, says Edmonds. But a couple of days after he published his interim update, Starr County Attorney Victor Canales called and informed Edmonds about Texas Government Code §24.018, a “savings clause,” which says if a law changes a court’s term, the grand jurors from the former term carry over to the new term. Canales says he researched the issue independently because a judge wanted to know what would happen to her grand jury. He says he learned of the savings clause when he reviewed materials prepared by the office of the 5th Administrative Judicial Region. When Canales learned about the TDCAA’s and Reynolds’ advice that differed from his conclusion, he says he decided to ask if Edmonds knew about the savings clause. Reynolds says he then learned about it from Edmonds. Reynolds and Edmonds say they just didn’t know about that section of the Government Code. Reynolds explains, “The statutes on courts are extensive, and we just didn’t realize it was out there.”
-- Angela Morris