I, NOT the jury.

July 22nd, 2026

Jurors in the state of Texas are paid $20 for their first day of service, and $58 for every subsequent day. This is mandated by state law.

Travis County is going to pay 14 jurors (including two alternates) $26,700 each, or $373,800 total.

Why?

The answer seems to be that they served 460 days on a jury, from August 12, 2024 to July 13, 2026. (Weekends and holidays don’t count.)

But that, by itself, is an unsatisfying answer. The deeper answer goes into a case that I have been covering in the past, but I missed some recent developments.

When last we heard about former Williamson County sheriff Robert Chody and his trial for evidence tampering, the case had been placed “on hold” while the prosecution appealed an unfavorable ruling by the judge that completely borked their case.

Garza’s office appealed the trial court’s ruling. The case then went through multiple court reviews. Ultimately, the Court of Criminal Appeals declined to review the issue on May 14, 2026, which prompted Garza’s office to move to dismiss the cases.

DA Garza’s office filed to dismiss the charges on July 6th, and apparently the case was dismissed on July 13th.

Court records show jurors physically attended five days of court: Jury selection (Aug. 12, 2024), three trial days (Aug. 13-15, 2024) and the July 13 dismissal hearing.

But: even though the trial was “on hold” while the appeals made their way through the system, the jurors were still considered to be sworn jurors.

Beyond the five court days, the jurors’ “public service” appears to have been checking for a call or text, and “maintain[ing] their impartiality” on non-trial days. They were prohibited from discussing the case, learning about those involved, and reading or watching news reports about it; such an instruction doesn’t vanish on weekends and holidays.

So they were “free” to go on with their lives, subject to the usual general restrictions on jurors. But since they were sworn as jurors, and continued to have that obligation, the judge (rightly, I think) ruled that they deserve their daily pay.

By the way…

According to page 61 of Travis County’s fiscal year 2026 budget, the county set aside $698,605 for legally mandated trial jury fees for the fiscal year. It also budgeted $156,749 for grand jury fees.
The jurors’ payout in this case will exhaust more than half of the county’s trial jury budget and exceed prior years’ expenses. The county reported it expended $253,700 for jury fees in FY25 and $246,627 in FY24 for jury fees.

The county can request reimbursement for a substantial portion (but not all) of that money, but it doesn’t sound like that reimbursement is automatic.

I can’t blame the jurors here, or the judge (though KXAN suggests “A plain language reading of the statute suggests jurors are only compensated for going to the courthouse.”) The only person I can see blaming here is DA Garza, who brought a case that was so unsupportable, he got blown out of the water on the third day of trial, and then dragged the case out for close to two years, leaving the defendants in legal limbo.

Posted in Cops, Law, Politics, TCDA, Travis County, WillCo | No Comments »

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#159 in a series)

July 20th, 2026

Elaine Forbes was named the city manager of Sausalito, California three weeks ago.

Last week, she was placed on administrative leave for unspecified reasons.

On Saturday, she was arrested. She was on what is described as a “75-foot yacht” blowing the horn at 5:30 AM.

The yacht was not hers, and according to the owner, she did not have permission to be on board.

She allegedly explained to authorities she was having “a bad morning” and insisted they leave what she claimed was her boat.

…

Forbes’ family has since said she has been experiencing a “mental health crisis” and urged the public not to “rush to judgment” as more details emerge about the stunning incident.

Also:

…Aubrey said he later discovered a large bottle of Grey Goose vodka and a bottle of tequila, full the previous night, were empty.

I hope she gets the help she needs.

Posted in Boats, California Über Alles, Law, Politics | 1 Comment »

Obit watch: July 20, 2026.

July 20th, 2026

It has been a bad few days for sports.

Garfield Sobers, cricket player.

Although initially considered primarily a spin bowler, Sobers, who was known as Garry, swiftly showed himself to be a brilliant batsman as well. He scored 365 runs against Pakistan in 1958 at just 21. It was the highest total in the history of Test matches, the most important games in international cricket. The feat took 10 hours.
Scoring 100 runs in an innings is considered a spectacular performance, while 50 is a great one. Sobers had an average score of 57 runs per innings in his 93 Test matches. He finished his career with 8,032 runs in Tests from 1953 to 1974, a record at the time.
As a bowler, he also excelled. He could bowl both fast balls and slower, spinning balls and get batters out by taking their wickets both ways — an unusual feat in the sport. He took four wickets on his debut and kept them coming throughout his career. He finished with 235 wickets in his 93 Test matches, the sixth-highest career total at the time.

…

Once he began playing more organized cricket, his bowling was honed by the profit motive: A coach would put a shilling on the stumps that bowlers aimed at and give it to young Garry if he knocked it off. “That was a lot of money in the early ’50s, especially for a young boy who was given four cents a day for his lunch,” he wrote in a 2002 memoir, “Garry Sobers: My Autobiography.” “A penny equaled two cents, so a shilling was worth 24 cents. Riches indeed!”

…

Of all of his performances, the one that is perhaps most remembered came in 1968, not for the West Indies but for a club team, Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club, in England. Facing the first of the six balls that make up an “over,” Sobers smacked the ball out of the field of play to score six runs. He did the same on the next five balls as well.
Six balls, six sixes. Perfection. It was the first time in the long history of top-level cricket that it had ever been done.

ESPN.

Hannah Rapp, boxer. She was 26.

Authorities said [a driver – DB] passed two bicyclists, Rapp and her boyfriend, at high speed and with just a foot to spare, causing the boyfriend to raise his arms and yell toward the vehicle, reported KBTX, citing an affidavit.
He then allegedly slammed on his brakes, skidded to a stop, put the vehicle in reverse, and rapidly accelerated backward, striking Rapp and knocking her into the roadway, deputies allege.
The rear hatch of [the driver’s -DB] car was crushed inward, and the rear window was completely shattered, while investigators also found separate skid marks at the scene caused by the vehicle apparently braking and then backing up, the affidavit notes.
[The driver – DB] claimed he heard the cyclists yell and throw their hands up, and, believing they were trying to flag him down, braked hard to come to a stop, according to the affidavit.
He told investigators he started backing up and didn’t see Rapp until the last moment before hitting her.
When asked how fast he was reversing, [the driver] said, “15 miles per hour,” according to the affidavit.
Physical evidence at the scene, including the skid marks and severity of the damage, didn’t match [the driver’s – DB] claims and indicated heavy impact, investigators wrote.

I’m not naming the driver here (though he is named in the article) as I believe he is entitled to the presumption of innocence. However, the Post claims he has a lengthy criminal record.

He has been charged with manslaughter: frankly, given the described circumstances, I would think a murder charge is justified. But I Am Not A Lawyer.

Posted in Cricket, Cycling, IANAL, Law, Obits, Sports | 1 Comment »

For hysterical porpoises.

July 18th, 2026

Lake Travis is currently at 683.94 feet (measured by the Lower Colorado River Authority at Mansfield Dam).

Screenshot

The lake is considered “full” at 681 feet. The top of the Mansfield Dam spillway is at 714 feet, and the actual top of the dam is at 754 feet. So we’ve got a ways to go.

Mostly, I just want to immortalize this for history. The lake hasn’t been this full in six years, and there were a lot of people running around saying it was never going to be full again.

Right now, LCRA has one spillway at the dam open, and plans to open a second spillway around 1 PM local time today. I’m hoping I get a chance to see this, as I drive over the dam a fair amount…

Posted in Hysteria | No Comments »

Obit watch: July 17, 2026.

July 17th, 2026

Brenda Fricker, actress.

Other credits include “A Time to Kill”, “Quatermass” (1979), “The Quatermass Conclusion” (1979), and “Angels in the Outfield”.

I’m a little behind on this, but: Janice McNair, co-founder of the Houston Texans. NFL.com. (Hattip: Lawrence.)

Posted in Movies, NFL, Obits, Sports | 1 Comment »

Obit watch: July 14, 2026.

July 14th, 2026

Sam Neill. Other credits include “Event Horizon”, “The Hunt for Red October”, and “In Cold Blood” (the 1996 mini-series: he was Alvin Dewey).

I have not seen this anywhere else, but Smith and Wesson posted a nice tribute to the late Dr. Roy Jinks on Linkedin.

Posted in Guns, Movies, Obits, Smith and Wesson | No Comments »

Loser update: July 13, 2026.

July 13th, 2026

Major League Baseball is at the all-star break, so I probably owe everyone a loser update.

I haven’t really been keeping up this year because there hasn’t been anyone historically bad this year.

The lowest winning percentages in MLB right now are the Los Angeles Angels and the Kansas City Royals, both 38-59 for a .392 winning percentage. After that, the Colorado Rockies come in at 39-59 for .398. The White Sox are actually on top of their division (50-45, .526).

.300 is the cutoff for Wikipedia’s historical list of worst MLB teams. I’m going to say: we’re probably not going to see anybody really bad this year.

But maybe we’ll get lucky in the upcoming NFL season.

Posted in Loser, Sports | No Comments »

Random notes: July 12, 2026.

July 12th, 2026

A catch-all for several things:

Happy 46th anniversary of Disco Demolition Night! I think I may have used this before, but it has been a minute I believe:

Obit watch: Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina). NYT. WP (archived). Lawrence.

You know, for a movie that is often called one of the worst movies to win the Academy Award for Best Picture1…”The Greatest Show On Earth” is actually pretty swell. Is it better than “High Noon”? I don’t know that you can make a head-to-head comparison, but I thought “Show” was much more fun. And sometimes that’s what you want out of a movie: fun. (And I say this as a person with conflicted views about circuses.)

While we were watching it, I mentioned that Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus had gone out of business in 2017. I went to double-check my dates…and ran into an interesting philosophical question.

While RB&BB closed in 2017, they restarted in 2023 according to Wikipedia. But: the new shows do not have clowns, animals, or a ringmaster.

Which raises the question: if you don’t have animals, clowns, or a ringmaster, are you still Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus? Heck, are you even still a circus at all?

The long version of the Lucille Ball story from IMDB.

We all know that Jimmy Stewart was one of the greats, but he’s brilliant in this. Especially since he spends the entire film in clown makeup, for reasons.

And how many movies can you think of that have a love…pentagon? Brad is in love with Holly, who loves him. But she takes up with The Great Sebastian, who returns her affections (though, honestly, it seems like The Great Sebastian would return the affections of anything female). He also has a past with Angel, who also falls for Brad, but is claimed by the pathologically jealous elephant trainer Klaus. (I wonder if this is patient zero for the evil elephant trainer in fiction. See also.)

This film is listed among The 100 Most Amusingly Bad Moves Ever Made in Golden Raspberry Award founder John Wilson’s book “The Official Razzie® Movie Guide.”

John Wilson should go eat a bowl of something disgusting.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in History, Movies, Obits, Politics, Sports | 3 Comments »

Obit watch: July 11, 2026.

July 11th, 2026

Antoinette Bower, actress. Other credits include “The Starlost”, “The F.B.I.”, “Mission: Impossible”…

…and three episodes of “Mannix”. (“Deadfall“, parts 1 and 2, season 1, episodes 17 and 18. She was “Gail Mason”. “Shadow of a Man“, season 2, episode 16. She was “Barbara Sanderson”.)

Randolph Mantooth. NYT

The pair took paramedic classes, where they learned how to insert an IV, and trained with the fire department. Cinader wanted the show to be funny but told his actors that “when the [station alarm sounds], funny is left at the door. You are now a professional,” Mantooth noted. “We never got away from that.”
He added: “We never went home with Johnny Gage, we never went home with Roy DeSoto, we didn’t hear about Johnny Gage’s drunk father beating his mother. Who cared about that? [The show] was about the job.”

While that may be technically correct, there was certainly a lot of discussion of Roy DeSoto’s home life and Johnny Gage’s dating life. Their personal lives were not complete ciphers.

After “Emergency!,” Mr. Mantooth was an advocate for emergency medical workers, speaking at firefighter and paramedic symposiums across the country. He was given an award by the International Association of Fire Chiefs in 2022 honoring his work to promote the profession.

…

He and Tighe had the same agent, shared a motor home during the entire run of their show and became great friends. The series ended, Mantooth said, because his and Tighe’s original seven-year contracts had expired, Tighe didn’t want to continue and Mantooth didn’t want to go on without him.
When Mantooth raced home in 1978 to find his ranch in the Lobo Canyon area of Agoura Hills engulfed in flames, Tighe was already there, trying to get the animals safely off the property. Tighe later served as the best man at Mantooth’s 2002 wedding to actress Kristen Connors.

…

In his TV Academy Foundation interview, Mantooth got emotional talking about how in the ’70s he was saved by paramedics who figured out he had carbon monoxide poisoning caused by a malfunctioning house furnace and how other emergency personnel brought his sister back from the dead after she was injured in a car accident in the ’80s.
“Do I respect paramedics? Do I respect firefighters?” he asked. “There’s a debt I owe them that I probably can’t ever pay back. But I’m gonna try.”

Other credits include “Walker, Texas Ranger”, “Battlestar Galactica” (1979), and “The Bold Ones: The Senator” (the two-part episode “A Continual Roar of Musketry”: as I’ve noted before, Harlan Ellison praised this episode highly in one of the “Glass Teat” essays).

Peter Van Norden, actor. Other credits include “The New Odd Couple”, “Hardcastle and McCormick”, and “Madman of the People”.

Posted in 1970s, Obits, TV | No Comments »

Obit watch: July 9, 2026.

July 9th, 2026

Bonnie Tyler. NYT.

Things I did not know, sort of in order of surprise:

  • Jim Steinman wrote “Total Eclipse of the Heart”.
  • He wrote it for Meat Loaf.
  • As part of a vampire musical.

After seeing Meat Loaf singing on TV, she told Muff Winwood, a producer at the label, that she should work with Mr. Steinman, who wrote all the tracks on Meat Loaf’s blockbuster 1977 debut album, “Bat Out of Hell,” including the hits “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” and “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad.”
“Muff looked at me like I was barmy and told me that Jim would never do it,’” Ms. Tyler later recalled. “‘I just want you to ask him,’ I said.”
Intrigued by her voice, Mr. Steinman invited her to his apartment in Manhattan to run through “Total Eclipse of the Heart” — which, he told her, he had originally written for an unfinished musical about the vampire Nosferatu.
With its rock-opera bombast bordering on the Wagnerian, the song seemed like a natural fit for Meat Loaf. But “around the time we were recording,” Ms. Tyler later told The Guardian, “Meat Loaf had lost his voice.”

…

The accompanying video, extravagant even by 1980s standards, was shot in a former asylum in Surrey, England. Conjuring a mood of gothic horror with ninjas, half-clad football players and altar boys with glowing eyes mixed in — “turn around, bright eyes,” indeed — it seemed to play once an hour on MTV, at the height of that network’s influence.

Posted in Music, Obits | 1 Comment »

Obit watch: July 8, 2026.

July 8th, 2026

Louise Lasser.

Other credits include “McCloud”, “Medical Center”, and “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation”.

Joby Baker.

When Pearl Harbor was bombed on Dec. 7, 1941, Baker escaped injury in the immediate aftermath when the house he was living in was hit by friendly fire. He and his stepmother quickly left the islands, taking the RMS Aquitania with thousands of other evacuees to San Francisco, he recalled in 2022.

Other credits include “12 O’Clock High” (the series), OG “Dragnet”, “Run, Joe, Run”…

…and “Mannix”. (“The Sound of Darkness“, season 3, episode 10. He was “Rudy Marin”.)

Posted in 1970s, Mannix, Obits, TV | 1 Comment »

Nothing says…

July 5th, 2026

…”Happy 250th birthday, America!” like getting your photo taken with a person in a beaver costume.

(I respect Ben Franklin, but he was wrong about symbols. The bald eagle was absolutely the right choice for the United States. If you had to pick a second choice, the beaver would be the one: industrious, useful, and capable of violence if crossed. The wild turkey is useless, unless it comes out of a bottle.)

Posted in Mammals, Photography | 2 Comments »

Obit watch: July 1, 2026.

July 1st, 2026

Victor Willis, of the Village People.

And, since we’re coming up on America250!, a tribute to one branch of the armed services:

Thing I did not know:

From 1978 to 1982, Willis was married to Phylicia Ayers-Allen, now Phylicia Rashad, who played Clair Huxtable on The Cosby Show. On Nov. 17, 2007, Willis married Karen Huff, a lawyer and entertainment exec.

Posted in Music, Obits | 1 Comment »

Sixteen.

July 1st, 2026

Happy Bobby Bonilla Day!

For the 16th straight year, the Mets are paying Bonilla $1.19 million on July 1 due to one of the most bizarre deals in sports history.

Please celebrate responsibly.

Posted in Sports | No Comments »

Legal update.

June 30th, 2026

Carl Rinsch was sentenced yesterday. He was convicted last year of defrauding Netflix of $11 million for a series he never completed. (Previously. Previously.)

30 months (or 2 1/2 years) in prison. Which works out to $4,400,000 a year for the money he stole.

Would I do time, in what will probably be a white-collar resort prison, for $4,400,000 a year? Certainly not, as there are things I value more. But I can see that the tradeoff might work for some folks.

Also: “…$638,000 on two mattresses”. How do you spend $319,000 on a mattress? Not from those Internet mattress people for sure.

“…plus another $295,000 on luxury bedding and linens”. What is this I can’t even.

Posted in Law | No Comments »

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