Texas Lawyer Loses Appeal Over Drug Trafficking Conviction

A former Texas lawyer known as the “DWI Dude” lost his appeal to undo multiple criminal convictions stemming from his representation of US and Colombian drug traffickers, after the Fifth Circuit rejected more than a dozen challenges to the jury’s verdict.

There was sufficient evidence to sustain his convictions and otherwise no error in the proceedings, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit said in an unpublished decision Monday.

James Morris Balagia challenged, among other things, the trial court’s jury instruction on “deliberate ignorance.” Although the court said that the circumstances that might necessitate such an instruction are ...