Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> Grits for Breakfast

Criminal Law

: Grits for Breakfast

Chron: Harris DA's new crack pipe policy 'good for justice'

A Houston Chronicle editorial today praises Harris County District Attorney Pat Lykos for her decision to join the rest of the state's large jurisdictions and cease filing state-jail felony cases on defendants found with crack pipes where labs detect traces of drugs. Instead, unless there's more than .01 grams of a controlled substance, crack-pipe possessors will receive only misdemeanor paraphernalia charges. Opined the Chron editorial board ("Fitting the Crime: Focus more on rapists than crack residue," Dec. 29):The change is good for justice ? but also good for our justice system, which has focused too much of its scarce resources on prosecuting low-level addicts instead of more dangerous criminals. Of the 46,000 drug-possession felony cases the county filed last year, a third involved less than a gram of a controlled substance...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on December 29, 2009 (boomark / email).