John Helms

Dallas, TX / June 14, 2019 / -- Unless the defendant has given up the right to appeal as part of a plea bargain, a criminal defendant in Texas has the right to appeal to the court of appeals for the region serving the county where the trial court was located. For example, cases from Collin, Dallas, Grayson, Hunt, Kaufman, and Rockwall Counties are appealed to the Fifth Court of Appeals in Dal...

Dallas, TX / June 5, 2019 / -- If you have been charged with a federal crime, you should expect your case to be very different from a state criminal case. In many cases, being charged with a federal offense means you should expect to face tougher penalties if you’re convicted. However, there are other differences you should know about which are just important. Here are a few ways in which a ...

Dallas, TX / April 5, 2019 / -- This March, a video emerged and went viral of a white man named Austin Shuffield repeatedly punching a black woman with his fist in a parking lot in the Deep Ellum area of Dallas.  The video is violent and difficult to watch.  Mr. Shuffield was originally charged with misdemeanor assault, but the charge was upgraded to felony assault because, at least at one po...

Dallas Criminal Defense News - Dallas, TX / March 13, 2019 / -- As a criminal defense lawyer in Dallas, I am very troubled by the sentencing of Paul Manafort. According to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, he should have received a sentence of at least 19 years.  The 47-month sentence he received was roughly an 80 percent downward departure from the Sentencing Guidelines—a breathtaking depa...

In December 2018, President Trump signed into law the First Step Act, which mostly involves prison reform, but also includes some sentencing reform provisions.   The key provision of the First Step Act that relates to sentencing reform concerns the “safety valve” provision of the federal drug trafficking laws.  The safety valve allows a court to sentence a person below the mandatory minimum ...

I read with interest a recent opinion piece in the New York Times called, “Yes, Jury Selection Is As Racist As You Think.  Now We Have Proof,” by Professor Ronald Wright of Wake Forest University Law School. The premise of the article is that African-Americans are removed from criminal jury panels at a greater rate than whites because they are more often the subject of “strikes,” also known a...

Federal Finch Smuggling Defense Lawyer in Dallas, Texas On December 12, 2018, an airline passenger was detained and arrested by US Customs and Border Protection for trying to smuggle 70 South American finches into the United States.  The birds were packed inside hair curlers and taken on a flight from Georgetown, Guyana to Kennedy Airport in New York.  The smuggler now faces substantial fine...

Voting is one of the most fundamental American rights. Normally, most people don’t really think about voting unless an election is approaching. Arguably, voting fraud wasn’t on many people’s radar until recently, when it became something of an issue in the last presidential election. In recent years, there have been news headlines about cases of voter fraud. In some instances, people have bee...

Dallas Criminal Defense Attorney and Former Federal Prosecutor John Helms has been a trial lawyer for more than 20 years and is uniquely positioned to evaluate cases from both sides– ensuring the best possible outcome for his clients. Law Enforcement Is Not “Smearing” Botham Jean. There is no doubt that the shooting of Botham Jean by an off-duty Dallas Police officer and his resulting death ...

What happens if drug traffickers threaten to harm a person’s family if the person does not transport drugs for the traffickers?  What if the trafficker threatens to kill the defendant right then and there if the defendant does not do as he is told and transport drugs?  The law that applies to federal drug trafficking and distribution cases in Dallas, Fort Worth, Plano, and Sherman, Texas reco...