What My Lawyer Didn't Tell Me, But I Wish He Had - Part 1

Welcome to the wonderful world of things you wish you had known. Criminal law is becoming more and more complex with every passing day. Whether it be by Congress, the state legislature, or the local city council, more and more laws are passed that affect those accused of crimes. In fact, there are so many "collateral consequences" to even the most routine crimes (such as DWI), that a lawyer may find himself spending more time explaining those consequences than the actual direct consequences of being found guilty of the charged offense. There is more to know about crime than just how long you can potentially spend in jail. A good attorney can explain these collateral consequences to you up front so that you don't find out "What my lawyer didn't tell me, but I wish he did."

Some of the things we will talk about in this series are rather run-of-the-mill. I'm sure that at some point I will discuss driver's license suspensions for DWI. That is the most common collateral consequence of a crime of which I am aware. But today we are going to talk about gangs, and we are going to move out of criminal court and into civil court.

Did you know that a combination or criminal street gang that continuously or regularly associates in gang activities is a public nuisance? That's right, and continuously and regularly doesn't mean quite what you think either. It means engaging in gang activity just a mere 5 times over a 12 month period. Also, if you own or are responsible for property that is used in gang activity, this could be a nuisance. Why is this important? Because a public nuisance is subject to an injunction by a civil court. That means a local resident can sue you in civil court and seek an injunction against you. No big deal right? Only if you obey the injunction. If you violate a temporary or permanent injunction for this, you are subject to civil contempt. That includes a fine between $1000 and $10,000 and between 1 and 30 days in jail, or a combination of both. Plus don't forget you'll probably have to pay the other side's attorney's fees.

How does this affect you? If you are like my client who owns rental property in an "urban renewal" area of town (which is code for run down), and gangs frequent that property, you could face the consequences set out above.

Say you hang out with some friends who get into trouble with gangs. Then you get picked up with one of them for criminal trespass. You get a cheap lawyer to plead you out to time served so you can get out of jail. Under the right circumstances, this could lead to you being subject to this civil injunction for public nuisance. If you violate that injunction, you could be subject to up to a $10,000 fine. That's the same fine amount for a felony offense.

This is just one example of collateral consequences to activity that most do not know about. This can be found in the Texas Civil Practice & Remedies Code Section 125, Subchapter D: Membership in Criminal Street Gang.

Comments

[Mark Bennett]

Shawn,

Good point. Gideon and I started a discussion in May about what information clients should get (or demand) from their lawyers:

http://www.bennettandbennett.com/blog/2007/05/client-manifesto.html