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The article focuses on the Texas veterinary practice act and its requirement for in-person establishment of a veterinarian-client-patient relationship (VCPR), addressing the recent court ruling affirming this regulation despite challenges regarding its constitutionality. Topics include the significance of VCPR, the legal battle between a Texas veterinarian and the state board over VCPR requirements, and the implications of free speech and equal protection under the First Amendment in the case.

The article sheds insights into the litigation, Arnold v. Life Partners, Inc.: Life Settlements are Securities in Texas. The Dallas Court of Appeals held on August 28, 2013, that life settlements are securities subject to registration and regulation under the Texas Securities Act. The article examines the holding and impact of the case and surveys Texas court decisions regarding life settlements.

In February 2012, in a case called Edwards Aquifer Authority v. Day, the Texas Supreme Court held that landowners hold property rights to the groundwater beneath their land and that a regulatory restriction on groundwater use could constitute a taking of private property. The decision provoked strong reactions, both positive and negative, throughout the world of water law, for it signaled the possibility of severe restrictions on groundwater use regulation. This Article considers the deeper issue that confronted the Texas Supreme Court, and that has confronted other courts across the country: how should the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment, and parallel clauses of state constitutions, apply to groundwater use regulation? Initially, this Article explains why this issue is exceedingly and increasingly important. It then reviews all of the groundwater/takings decisions from federal and state courts in the United States. Finally, this Article considers the implications of foundational property theories for the application of takings doctrine to groundwater use. The analysis leads to several key conclusions. Most importantly, it undermines arguments for granting groundwater use rights and heightened protection against regulatory limitations. Recently, litigants and commentators skeptical of government regulatory authority have widely advanced those arguments. But they find little support in past groundwater/takings case law, and no property theory justifies adopting such an approach. That does not mean that groundwater use rights should not qualify for constitutional protection. Despite some recent arguments to the contrary, such treatment is grounded in precedent and is entirely compatible with sensible groundwater management. This Article therefore concludes that the application of a relatively mainstream version of takings doctrine, which treats groundwater rights as property but allows substantial government regulation of groundwater use, is both the most traditional and the most theoretically justifiable approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the review of the decision of several cases in United States sentencing several Mexicans guilty. It focuses on the suit filed by Mexico against the United States in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in reference to the case Leal Garcia v.Texas. It informs about the memorandum issued by the then president of United States George W. Bush for satisfying the laws and regulations of the ICJ.

The article looks at the drawbacks of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision on the case involving the Cleburne, Texas and Cleburne Living Center Inc. It explains that the Court's decision to invalidate a zoning ordinance that discriminated mentally retarded persons was criticized by legal experts since the Court never applied the Equal Protection Clause for invalidation. It also notes that the focus on remedial legislative actions was risky since these reforms could be short-lived and misapplied.

In Environmental Conservation Organization v. City of Dallas, the Fifth Circuit creates obstacles for environmental citizen suits by imposing a "realistic prospect" standard for the mootness test. The realistic prospect standard shifts the burden of proof in a mootness test from the defendant to the citizen group filing suit, requiring the citizen group to prove that there is a "realistic prospect" that a defendant will continue to violate the statute in question. This Note argues that the Fifth Circuit erred in its decision to impose the "realistic prospect" standard and also in its application of the standard to the facts of that case. This Note concludes that the Fifth Circuit's decision exacerbates existing ambiguity in the Clean Water Act's citizen suit provision and could ultimately undermine the utility of citizen suits as supplemental enforcement mechanisms within the field of environmental law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Standards of review should be the appellate court's first consideration when it reviews the trial court decision on appeal. Yet, so often it is ignored or misused. This article seeks to explore the history of modern-day standards of review and the policy reasons for their creation. It uses empirical data collected from two sample jurisdictions, California and Texas, to identify ways that courts ignore, confuse, and misuse standards of review. The purpose of this article is to illustrate how standards of review are supposed to work in theory, demonstrate how they are often abused in practice, and encourage judges and appellate practitioners to recognize and confront problems that arise with the use of standards of review. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented which explains the legal case of San Antonio Independent School District v. the Rodriguez in San Antonio, Texas. It provides an opportunity for Texas' Supreme Court to remove, or at least ameliorate, wealth-based barriers to equal educational opportunities, but rejected the plaintiffs' claims. It also highlights the effort of the state legislature to address the problems underlying the Rodriguez litigation over the last 35 years.

The article focuses on one of the pivotal failures of the legal system that convicted Cesar Alberto Fierro, and the 1996 decision of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals that upheld the conviction. Furthermore, it provides a concise overview of the factual and procedural history of the case leading from the Motion to Suppress hearing and at the trial which resulted in Fierro's conviction and the imposition of the death penalty.

Although recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions regarding the death penalty (e.g., Atkins v. Virginia, 2002) have renewed interest in mental health issues, one topic that has not received much attention recently is the ongoing use of expert testimony to support claims that defendants represent a "continuing threat to society." In this article, we (a) review prior research relevant to determining the accuracy of clinical predictions that capital defendants will commit future acts of criminal violence; (b) summarize new data from current and former death row inmates in Texas that bolster the claim that such predictions are gross overestimates of risk; and (c) review extant research addressing the potential utility of various risk assessment instruments that increasingly are being used to reinforce clinical predictions in capital trials. Despite significant recent advances in the field of risk assessment, clinical assertions that a defendant is likely to commit future violent acts appear to be highly inaccurate and ethically questionable at best. Moreover, available research offers little support for the claim that the accuracy of these predictions will be appreciably improved by relying on more structured risk assessment measures that have some demonstrated predictive validity in other contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Archival data from cases adjudicated by jury in El Paso and Bexar County, Texas, were used to test whether a similarity-leniency effect, an out-group punitiveness effect, or a black sheep effect (BSE; J. M. Marques, V. Y.. Yzerbyt, & J. P. Leyens, 1988) influenced jury decisions. Defendant ethnicity, jury ethnic composition, and strength of evidence against the defendant were coded for 418 closed noncapital, felony cases to test their impact on trial verdicts and sentence lengths. Results indicated complex relations exist among juror and defendant characteristics and their influence on trial outcomes. No support was found for any of the theoretical models as predictors of jury decision-making. Strength of evidence was the most influential variable for both verdicts and length of sentences. Case strength, defendant ethnicity, and jury composition were related to sentence lengths. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports on the landmark decision by the Court of Civil Appeals regarding the case involving the challenge of I. H. Harvey to the state ban on interracial boxing in Texas. Verdict of the court; Basis for the ruling that favors the plaintiff; Significance of the court decision on the inception of equality and the end of segregation in boxing.

Comments on the Texas Supreme Court's ruling in "Miller v. HCA," the case in which a Houston jury had awarded real and punitive damages to a Texas couple whose 23-week, infant was resuscitated over the parents' objections. Case background; Absolution of the Hospital and its parent corporation Columbia HCA from any legal liability in the case.

Focuses on the litigation of intellectual property disputes in Texas State Court. Jurisdiction to the federal district courts in cases arising under the patent laws; Types of intellectual property cases; Rule for application of res judicata principles between competing suits.

This article discusses the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court that the Texas capital sentencing statute did not violate the Eighth Amendment rights of petitioner Dorsie Lee Johnson, Jr. The Eighth Amendment requires the level of punishment for a crime to be directly proportional to a defendant's moral culpability. Under the Amendment, the jury must be able to consider fully all of a defendant's preferred mitigating evidence as it related to his moral culpability. The Amendment to the Constitution provides that excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. To protect against the risk of arbitrary and capricious death penalty sentences, the Court concluded that the Amendment requires states to channel the discretion of sentencing juries through appropriate statutory schemes. In response to the evolving capital punishment jurisprudence of the Court, Texas adopted a unique capital sentencing scheme. The scheme limited the application of capital punishment to intentional and knowing murders committed in six situations. The statute instructed the sentencer to answer three special issues to determine whether the defendant should be sentenced to death.

This article examines the effect of the Supreme Court's abortion rulings on hospital abortion policies in Texas. Broadening impact theory necessarily entails study of the effects of the court's actions when, in the process of invalidating laws and redefining rights, it opens the floodgates to new developments in the private social and economic sectors. In this view, the court is seen as a catalyst for social change in that it removes obstacles to innovation. While this theme is mentioned in both the general court literature and the impact literature, there are no systematic empirical studies which map the broader parameters of possible impact. An opportunity to analyze this broader and more indirect type of impact was provided by the Supreme Court's abortion decision in Roe v. Wade in 1973. In the post Roe period, the analysis showed a strong shift toward liberalized abortion policies. Hospital resources and decision-makers' attitudes toward the Roe decision were most predictive of policy innovation in the post-Roe period. The opinion of the court variable and the opinion of the Roe decision were shown to be independently related to and predictive of policy impact. It is not unwarranted to conclude that the Roe decision opened the floodgate of social change.

To determine the influence of expert testimony regarding the general unreliability of eyewitnesses, a two-phase study was conducted. In the first phase, 24 community residents served as jurors on four six-person juries. A burglary case was tried in 120 District Court, El Paso, Texas. Two juries heard all the evidence including the expert testimony of a psychologist and the other two heard all of the testimony except that of the psychologist. During the second phase, 24 student jurors constituting four six-person juries viewed a videotape of the trial. Two of these juries saw the entire proceeding from the first phase including the expert testimony and the remaining two saw all but the expert testimony. All juries acquitted the defendant; however, those who heard the expert testimony significantly lowered their judgments of the accuracy and reliability of eyewitness identification as well as its overall importance to the trial. Further, those juries that heard the expert testimony spent a significantly longer time discussing eyewitness identification as well as other relevant evidence. No differences between community residents and college student juries were obtained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the lawsuit Rains v. State. In this murder case, the defendant testified that he shot the deceased in self-defense. To substantiate this plea, he displayed a knife, which he claimed belonged to the deceased and that he picked it up after the deceased had fallen. The State, then, offered the testimony of some of the grand jurors that the defendant was asked during the grand jury investigation whether he had seen any weapon near the deceased at the time of the killing and that the defendant answered that he had not. Thereupon the defendant offered to rebut this impeaching evidence by showing by one witness that he, the defendant, stated the morning after the homicide that he had picked up a knife near the deceased and would show it to the witness sometime. The trial court refused to allow into evidence this proffered testimony and found the defendant guilty of murder. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals upheld the ruling of the trial court by affirming the judgment. It held that since the defendant had made the statement to the witness subsequent to his being charged with the murder he had a motive to fabricate; that witnesses may not rebut impeaching evidence of contradictory statements by evidence of other consistent statements when such consistent statements were made after such a motive existed.