A new year. A fresh start. Or so it’s supposed to be. We are all still dealing with COVID-19 and all its many implications on our profession. Many of us are balancing work with helping our children with connected learning. Some of us have lost loved ones. We have all been, and continue to be, impacted. Amidst all this, please know that TCDLA continues to be out front fighting for us. Your officers and executive director work incessantly for the interests and benefit of all of us. Recently, our leadership reached out to Governor Abbott about vaccine prioritization for criminal defense lawyers. After all, as we know, criminal defense lawyers are essential to a fully functioning criminal justice system.
Keep on keepin’ on (as my Dad would say), stay safe, and let’s continue to take care of each other.
Sarah
Two New Year Reads
I want to share a couple of books with you that I recently read and think you will enjoy.
Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man
By Emmanuel Acho
I had heard about this book a while back and considered reading it but honestly just happened to pick it up on a whim recently. I’m so glad I did. I couldn’t put it down. The book is exactly what its title indicates. There’s nothing pretentious about it. Acho, the son of Nigerian immigrant parents who grew up in Dallas, played for the NFL, and who now is an analyst on Fox Sports, fully acknowledges his experience is not representative of all black people, and that gives the book a certain credibility. Each chapter begins with a question – a question many people have thought if not wondered out loud at some point. Then, each chapter discusses the history behind the question, the uncomfortableness around the question itself, and how to come together. The book is appropriately divided into three parts: 1) You and Me; 2) Us and Them; and 3) We. Acho doesn’t talk down to the reader or make the reader feel ashamed, and he provides actionable suggestions to become a part of the solution. This is a quick but thought provoking read. You will learn something about yourself and someone else. As Acho points out (and we all know from experience), black men are disproportionately arrested, convicted, and imprisoned in our justice system. You won’t regret spending the time to read this book if you haven’t already.
Murder in Montague: Frontier Justice and Retribution in Texas
By Glen Sample Ely
Even though I’m a Baylor/Texas Tech girl, Mr. Ely and the University of Oklahoma Press was kind enough to send me Murder in Montague to review. If you love history, this book is for you.
On a sweltering August night in 1876, a Methodist minister, his wife, and children were brutally slaughtered in their North Texas home. Acting on deathbed testimony, three men were arrested and tried for the murders. The book is a blend of true crime reporting, social drama, and legal history and presents a vivid snapshot of frontier justice in Texas following the Civil War.
The sheer brutality of the Montague murders terrified settlers already traumatized by decades of chaos, violence, and fear – from the deadly raids of Comanche and Kiowa Indians to the terrors of vigilantes, lynchings, and Reconstruction lawlessness. But the crime’s aftermath – involving five Texas governors, five trials, five appeals, and life at hard labor in the state’s abominable, inhumane prison system – offered little in the way of reassurance or resolution.
Viewed from any perspective, the 1876 murders were both a tragedy and a miscarriage of justice. Combining the long view of history and the intimate details of true crime reporting, this book captures this moment of reckoning as vigilante justice grudgingly gave way to an established system of law and order.
