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

Criminal Law

: Grits for Breakfast

Predictable as Bluebonnets in Spring: Biennial March of the 'Enhancements' Begins Anew

While I'm pleased to see some key innocence-related legislation up in tomorrow's House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee, I'm dismayed if unsurprised to see several so-called, Orwellian-termed "enhancement" bills (i.e., legislation creating new crimes or penalties, and/or increasing existing ones) also made the cut for the committee's first substantive hearing. (Last session, at least 40% of bills assigned to that committee increased criminal penalties, and the parole board counted 59 new felonies created by the 81st Legislature, bringing the total to 2,383.) Dozens more new crimes and penalty hikes have been proposed this session as well. Indeed, there will be too many over the course of the session for me to do this every week, but just por ejemplo, here are summaries of the three enhancement bills the committee will consider tomorrow:HB 99 by Trey Martinez-Fischer would increase the penalty for DWI from a Class B to a Class A if the driver's blood alcohol content is above ...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on February 21, 2011 (boomark / email).