Austin, Texas Criminal Attorneys

A sentence of life imprisonment looms for Darius Lovings after the jury found him liable for the death of William Ervin in 2012.

Court heard that Lovings had shot Ervin when the latter stopped to help him while he was pretending to have car trouble.

Austin criminal lawyer Jon Evans had asked the jury to consider that mental health issues have been at play during the incident.

Lovings had told the police after his arrest that he had heard voices.

Aside from Ervin's death, Lovings is also facing charges of robbery and attempted murder.

Ken Anderson, the former District Attorney of Williamson County, was meted with a 10-day jail term after the judge accepted his no-contest plea for the charge of contempt of court.

The charge steamed from the wrongful conviction of Michael Morton who was found guilty for the murder of his wife in 1986 and was sentenced to life imprisonment.

However, in 2011, Morton's conviction was overturned using DNA as proof that he did not kill his wife.

In the light of that development, Anderson, who had prosecuted Morton's case, was scrutinized and was determined to have erred when he withheld evidence which would have been beneficial for Morton's defense.

Aside from the short jail stay, Anderson will also have to give up his license as a lawyer and as part of the plea bargain, he will also be disbarred for five years.

Austin attorney Eric Nichols, however, pointed out that there will be no conviction for Anderson on any criminal charge.

Morton, for his part, said he is more than happy with the result because all he wanted was for Anderson not to practice law anymore to prevent what happened to him from happening to anyone else again.

Anderson was also fined and made to do community service.

A jury found Thomas Trent Atkinson, a man tagged by prosecutors as a pimp, guilty of murdering Alejandro "Alex" Hernandez Jr. and is facing life imprisonment.

Court heard that Hernandez had picked up a sex worker but had later dropped her off when they couldn't agree on her fee.

Hernandez was later found dead. He was beaten and had a gunshot wound on his back.

The jury believed in the witness, the same sex worker whom Hernandez picked up, who said that she had seen Atkinson shoot Hernandez.

Atkinson's lawyer, Keith Lauerman, a criminal attorney in Austin, tried to discredit the woman but prosecutors said her claims were not baseless.

They added that she did not hide who she was to the jurors even admitting her love for Atkinson.

Nicholas Colunga will be spending 14 years in jail for hitting Kylie Doniak while driving intoxicated.

Doniak was among the pedestrians whom Colunga hit when he ignored a red light.

Aside from Doniak, two others were also injured in the incident for which Colunga was also convicted.

The judge ordered for Colunga to serve the sentences of his two other convictions simultaneously.

He also received more than $2,000 fine for all three convictions.

Prosecutors had wanted Colunga to be handed the maximum penalties for all charges but Amber Vasquez Bode, Austin defense attorney representing Colunga, told jurors that a longer stay in prison would make offenders more dangerous once they go back into society.

A plea deal agreement has Broderick Kenyo Smith admitting to manslaughter instead of capital murder in the death of Arlando Maurice Pritchett in 2012.

The plea agreement will have Smith serving just a year in jail for a split sentence of 10 years.

His jail stay will be followed with probation for three years.

Should Smith violate his probation, he could be made to serve the rest of his 10-year sentence.

According to the police, Pritchett had an argument with a cab driver prior to his shooting while Smith admitted that he had been driving a cab during the time of the incident.

Birmingham defense attorney Charles Salvagio said Smith had shot Pritchett because the latter had robbed him.

The bail application of Conrad Barret, who is charged with a hate crime, was denied, something that Barret's lawyer said they have been expecting.

Houston criminal attorney George Parnham said that according to the judge, his 27-year-old client might avoid a criminal conviction. He also poses as a danger to the public.

Barret was charged after he attacked an old, black man; filmed the act and showed it to someone, who turned out to be an arson investigator.

Barrett is looking at more than a 10-year prison term and a fine of more than $200,000 should he get convicted.

William S. Kern, a Baltimore Police instructor, was handed a 60-day jail stay, for shooting Raymond Gray, a police recruit, while they were doing exercises.

Kern, who has been in service for 19 years, told the court during his trial that he had brought a live gun to the exercises and he had accidentally used it instead of the training weapon.

Gray was hit in the head and was blinded in one eye when Kern fired his gun through the window to show the recruits the danger of lingering near the door, the window or the hallway.

Kern said that he brought his gun to the training for the safety of the recruits because the facility where they were having their exercises is not secure.

Baltimore defense attorney Shaun F. Owens had argued for Kern's release saying that his client's eventual dismissal from the service would already be enough of a punishment.

Kern is on a 60-day suspension while the Baltimore Police conducts an investigation within its ranks.

Gray's family, who expressed dissatisfaction with the sentence, has also filed a civil lawsuit in relation to the incident and is being represented by Baltimore litigator A. Dwight Pettit.

David Christopher Cruz was found guilty in the death of an infant, who is still five months shy of turning one years old.

The infant victim, the son of Cruz's girlfriend, was taken off life support a few days after he was brought into the hospital unconscious.

He suffered head injuries, several fractures and had bruises on his body.

Court heard that Cruz was the infant's baby sitter while the mother goes to work.

Cruz told the police that he had hit the baby because he keeps on fussing.

Michael Begovich, a criminal lawyer in San Diego defending for Cruz, said that the baby's mother also has a responsibility in her son's death because she had not consulted a doctor when the baby had an ear infection.

Willie C. Jones will be spending the rest of his life in jail with no chance of parole after the jury convicted him for the death of his daughter.

Before her death, four-year-old Tyasia Phillips, who incurred a head wound, had been connected to a life support after she was severely beaten and burned by the man whom she called dad.

Jones had alleged that his daughter had injured her head when she tried to escape from him.

Augusta attorney Katrell Nash, defending for Jones, appealed to the jury to consider the likelihood that the little girl had gotten the head wound while playing with other kids.

At first, Jones had denied hurting his daughter but later admitted to the crime saying that he had beaten her for her insolence.