What We Do

Our Practice Areas

Aggressive constitutional advocacy from our Temple office, serving Bell County and clients across Texas. We protect rights, defend the innocent at trial, and fight for justice.

First and Second Amendment Rights

We aggressively defend your fundamental freedoms: free speech, peaceful assembly, and the constitutional right to keep and bear arms, including recovering seized firearms and clearing records to restore full rights.

Grisham Franceschina Attorneys-at-Law protects core constitutional rights against government overreach. We represent individuals whose speech, assembly, or lawful firearm possession was infringed in public spaces, during protests, at government meetings, or while carrying openly or concealed under Texas’s permitless carry laws.

Our Second Amendment practice includes:

• Challenges to unlawful restrictions on open or concealed carry, license issues, or permitless carry enforcement

• Defense against arrests or citations for lawfully carrying firearms in public or in vehicles

• Recovery of firearms seized by police after arrests, investigations, or no-charge incidents. We file timely motions under Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Article 18.19 and related provisions to secure their return before destruction, sale, or forfeiture deadlines expire.

• Retaliation and excessive force claims when citizens are targeted for filming police or exercising speech rights

• Assembly and protest cases involving improper dispersal, unlawful arrests, or interference

We also handle expunctions to clear criminal records related to these matters, whether charges were dismissed, resulted in acquittal, or involve unlawful carry convictions from before September 1, 2021 that are now eligible under Texas law (the HB 1927 changes). An expunction can help you pass background checks, exercise your Second Amendment rights without the stigma of an old record, and protect your reputation. Eligibility depends on your record and the facts of your case.

If your rights were violated or your lawfully owned firearm is still in police custody, contact us. Time limits for firearm recovery are strict.

Section 1983 Civil Rights Litigation

We hold law enforcement and government officials accountable when they violate your constitutional rights under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

We file federal civil rights lawsuits against police officers, sheriffs, jail staff, and municipalities for misconduct including excessive force, unlawful arrests, illegal searches, and First Amendment retaliation. Our practice focuses on cases where citizens were harmed by those sworn to protect them.

Typical matters include:

• Excessive force and unreasonable seizures

• False arrest and malicious prosecution

• Retaliation for recording police or exercising free-speech rights

• Monell claims against departments with patterns of unconstitutional conduct

• Qualified immunity fights in federal court

We use body-camera footage, internal affairs records, and expert witnesses to build cases that seek accountability and fair compensation.

Innocent Defense

We are trial attorneys. Innocent Defense is how we practice criminal defense: our mission is to prove innocence and clear your name, and we prepare every case for trial rather than for a plea.

CJ Grisham’s philosophy is simple and unwavering: we defend the innocent. We fight to affirmatively prove innocence and restore our clients’ reputations.

We handle every level of criminal accusation across Texas:

• Municipal and Justice of the Peace Courts

• County Court misdemeanors

• District Court felonies

From minor traffic-related charges to high-stakes felony accusations, we treat every case as a battle to protect an innocent person’s freedom and good name. We challenge every piece of evidence, demand full discovery, and take cases to trial.