Annals of law (part 4 of a series).

Ron Reynolds is a state representative from Fort Bend county in Texas.

Rep. Reynolds is also a lawyer.

Rep. Reynolds is also out of jail now, having posted $5,000 bail.

“Prithee, good sir,” you ask. “What was Rep. Reynolds charged with?”

Good question. After all, it is not unheard of for state lawmakers to be arrested for one reason or another; DWI, picking up hookers, carrying unlicensed firearms, etc. (There was a famous incident some years back – I can’t find the details now – where a state rep had his cousin shoot him. I can’t remember why they thought this was a good plan at the time, but both ended up in jail.)

But Rep. Reynolds is a special and interesting case. You see, he was arrested and charged with barratry.

“Barratry? Is that anything like piracy?”

No. According to the Law.com legal dictionary, “barratry” is the practice of “creating legal business by stirring up disputes and quarrels”. Now, I’ve heard of lawyers being charged with barratry before, but generally in the context of bar association proceedings and as sort of a side accusation. I’ve never heard of a lawyer actually being arrested on criminal charges of barratry; I’m sure it must have happened elsewhere, but a quick Google search did not turn up any other examples. One source I found states that nobody has ever been able to find an example of a successful criminal prosecution for barratry in Texas.

I did find:

  1. Apparently, barratry in Texas is a misdemeanor on the first offense, and a felony on subsequent offenses.
  2. A group of Dallas area lawyers are challenging the barratry law on First and Fourteenth Amendment grounds. Apparently, it interferes with their ability to gather information about misdemeanor defendants and send them solicitations.

“What are you in for, son?”
“Barratry.”
And they all moved away from me there on the Group W bench…

Edited to add: Found the guy I was thinking of who had his cousin shoot him: state Rep Mike Martin.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 25th, 2012 at 1:14 pm and is filed under Clippings, Law. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

2 Responses to “Annals of law (part 4 of a series).”

  1. LinkSwarm for April 27, 2012 « Lawrence Person's BattleSwarm Blog says:
    April 27, 2012 at 6:12 pm

    […] Democratic State Representative Ron Reynolds charge with barratry, which seems to be “a lawyer being a dick just to get business.” The fact that Reynolds […]

  2. “You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena!” watch. « Whipped Cream Difficulties says:
    May 30, 2012 at 1:15 pm

    […] ETA2: “In 2010, he ran as a Democrat while under indictment for barratry, a charge that later was dropped.” Ah, barratry. […]