Criminal Law

Prosecutors dissing the Michael Morton Act, and defending it

Posted on May 24, 2013
At the Texas District and County Attorney Association's user forum, see 24th judicial district ADA Terry Breen's embittered critique ofTexas' new mandatory open file policy for prosecutors - he's mad that he may have to give up incriminating as well as exculpatory evidence - followed by a quite reasoned response from forum regular Greg Gilleland which explains in essence why TDCAA supported a "one-sided" open file bill...

Nuther overturned case based on Jonathan Salvador crime lab fiasco

Posted on May 23, 2013
After a brief hiatus in such several weekly "hand-down lists" came and went without the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruling on any more of former DPS crime-lab worker Jonathan Salvador's cases, another one came down yesterday. In "Ex Parte James Antonio Williams," a six year sentence was overturned because evidence in the defendant's case passed through Salvador's seemingly tainted custody...

House amendment on cell-phone location data could get bypassed

Posted on May 23, 2013
Well privacy fans, I hope you enjoyed that pyrrhic victory while it lasted! On Monday, the Texas House of Representatives amended a Senate bill to require law enforcement to get a warrant (with limited emergency and other exceptions) to access detailed cell-phone location data about subscribers, information that some agencies like the Texas Department of Insurance currently get with only a subpoena...

Man bites dog: DAs support reduced drug sentences, but not in Texas

Posted on May 23, 2013
The headline sounded like news from an alternative universe but appears to be (mostly) legit: The Oregon District Attorneys Association came out in support of reducing drug sentences "as a way of curbing the growth of state prisons." Their main concession on drug sentencing was to issue a report (pdf) agreeing that penny-ante pot dealers shouldn't get automatic prison time...

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Perusing the remains: No legal punishment for 17-year old capital murderers, several good bills still alive

Posted on May 22, 2013
There will continue to be no legal punishments on the books in Texas for 17-year old capital murderers after the Texas House of Representatives failed to get to SB 187 by Huffman on last night's floor calendar prior to the midnight deadline. Oops. Guess they'll have to charge them with "regular" murder, then, which still can get the 17-year old 99-life...

Droning On: Senate amendments worsen drone bill

Posted on May 20, 2013
Senate amendments attached last week to Texas' "drone bill" created even more exemptions to criminal and civil penalties for photography by unmanned aircraft. See coverage of the bill from Computer World,  the Austin Statesman, and the Texas Tribune...

Lege leaning toward grand jury transparency

Posted on May 20, 2013
Quick update on a couple of grand-jury transparency bills we've been discussing on Grits this session:On a positive note, Rep. Bryan Hughes' HB 3334 requiring recording of grand-jury witness testimony in addition to defendants cleared the Criminal Justice Committee in the Texas Senate on Friday and still has time to pass...

Minimal raises for TX prison guards

Posted on May 20, 2013
The union representing Texas prison guards, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), issued a press release today complaining that pay hikes for corrections officers are half those given to "other statewide law enforcement" (I presume that's DPS)...

Texas House approves electronic privacy legislation

Posted on May 20, 2013
Great news!A pair of bills backed by the Texas Electronic Privacy Coalition were amended onto a Senate bill in the Texas House of Representatives (SB 1052) - one requiring warrants for police to access cell-phone location data and another instituting a warrant requirement for emails stored with a third party...

Drug policy, politics and civil liberties

Posted on May 19, 2013
A couple of recent drug war items deserve Grits readers' attention.At Texas Monthly, Bill Martin bring us up to speed on the disappointing lack of progress at the Texas Legislature by bills to address low-level drug sentencing that the House leadership refused to release for a floor vote, see "The Policy and Politics of Drug Sentencing...

Nearly 200 Texas LEOs use license-plate-reader location tracking vendor

Posted on May 19, 2013
When George Orwell wrote the novel 1984 he was imagining future totalitarianism dominated by socialist governments. He never considered that technologies of control would be privatized in a capitalist system, but that's seems to be where we're headed...

Budget writers delete fusion-center funding from state budget

Posted on May 16, 2013
Good news: State budget writers eliminated funding for the Department of Public Safety's "fusion center," reported Brenda Bell at the Austin Statesman ("Budget conferees vote not to fund fusion center," May 14), which would make Texas the first state to close one...

Winding down: Handful of reform bills still viable in waning days of Lege

Posted on May 15, 2013
The 83rd Texas Legislature is winding down and there are a handful good criminal justice bills that still have potential to pass this session. The other day Grits had identified five good senate bills which had received unanimous committee recommendations and were eligible to be heard on the House floor...

Inch by inch

Posted on May 15, 2013
"You don't lose your freedom a mile at a time, you lose it an inch at a time."- State Rep. Harold Dutton, speaking today from the Texas House floor

Top Five Things Wrong With Texas' Drone Bill

Posted on May 14, 2013
The road to hell, they say, is paved with good intentions, but apparently airspace will also get you there.Grits admires the good intentions behind Lance Gooden's HB 912, better known around the capitol as the "drone bill," and I readily grant the version produced by the House is superior to earlier ones...

Conference committee rejected higher funding for law-school innocence clinics

Posted on May 13, 2013
Disappointing news this morning on funding for innocence clinics at Texas' four public law schools, an issue your correspondent has been tracking on behalf of the Innocence Project of Texas.The chairmen of the conference committee on the budget overruled the recommendation of their fellow conferees, siding with the House budget giving each clinic $100,000 per year and rejecting the Senate's more generous recommendation to boost the amount to $150K...

'Overcriminalization and the Importance of Proportionality in Sentencing'

Posted on May 13, 2013
See a bill analysis/policy brief (pdf) with the same title as this post by Vikrant Reddy from the Texas Public Policy Foundation's Center for Effective Justice.

Open-file discovery bill named after Michael Morton soon headed to Governor

Posted on May 13, 2013
Find below the jump a press release from state Sen. Rodney Ellis hailing the passage of the so-called Michael Morton act requiring Texas prosecutors to implement open-file policies.Ellis/Duncan landmark reform revamps Texas? discovery statute for first time in half century(Austin, Texas) The Texas House today passed SB 1611, the Michael Morton Act, landmark reform revamping Texas? discovery statute for the first time since 1965...

Reject bill to make grand juror names permanently secret

Posted on May 12, 2013
The Texas House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee on Monday will hear legislation (SB 834 by Estes) to make grand juror names permanently secret, a measure Grits can hardly believe escaped the Senate and which deserves a swift killing in the House. Grits had blasted the bill earlier on a number of fronts, declaring that:If the grand jury system - which already provides little if any restraint and generally serves as a rubber stamp for whatever decisions prosecutors have already made - becomes a complete secret run by anonymous members whose names will never be released, IMO they should probably just scrap it as farce and a waste of time...

Roundup: Private prisons, primary contests, tech law and privacy

Posted on May 12, 2013
Here are a few odds and ends that haven't made it into full Grits posts but deserve readers' attention:Court of Criminal Appeals races in play in 2014 GOP primary There has been much speculation in political and legal circles this spring that all three Texas Court of Criminal Appeals judges up for reelection in 2014 may retire, which would mean Texas would have open-seat races for every seat and likely a broad field of candidates to choose from in each one...

Report: Deal cut to close two private prisons

Posted on May 11, 2013
Though Grits had heard that the decision over prison closures wouldn't be made until a 9 a.m. meeting of the conference committee on Monday, at which I was told to expect "fireworks," Mike Ward at the Austin Statesman reported today ("Deal reported on plan to close two private prison," May 10) that a deal has been struck...

Open-file bill named for Michael Morton scheduled for Monday floor vote in TX House

Posted on May 11, 2013
The one-sided criminal discovery bill requiring open files of prosecutors - SB 1611 by Duncan/Ellis, the so-called "Michael Morton Act," carried in the House by Rep. Senfronia Thompson - has been set for a vote on the floor of the Texas House of Representatives on Monday...

Hamstrung House: No shortage of good criminal-justice bills but lower chamber never voted on them

Posted on May 11, 2013
Taking stock now that the Texas House has finished considering bills originating in the lower chamber and the 83rd Texas Legislature is winding to a close, a few big-picture observations jump out.First, the Senate has been much more effective than the House at passing bills and tackling major issues, both on criminal-justice matters and generally...

SBs the Texas House should pass immediately

Posted on May 10, 2013
Now that the Texas House of Representatives is through with its last-minute rush of its own legislation, it can get down to considering Senate bills. Here are several reform bills over from the senate that Grits has been tracking which are already in the House Calendars Committee and ready for a vote by the full body...

'Superheroes value their privacy': Warrants for cell-phone tracking bill could get House floor vote late in day

Posted on May 09, 2013
The House rolled through scores of bills yesterday, increasing the possibility that Rep. Bryan Hughes' HB 1608 could get a House floor vote. The legislation was theoretically placed as the second item on the very last calendar for the House to vote out House bills...

Op-ed: Don't needlessly expand local police wiretapping authority

Posted on May 08, 2013
The Houston Chronicle today published an op ed I wrote in opposition to legislation expanding authority of large Texas police departments to perform wiretapping. Grits readers have seen most of the arguments before, but for those interested, see here...

Rough sledding for TDCJ board nominees

Posted on May 07, 2013
The Texas Senate Nominations Committee delayed another Rick Perry nomination to the Texas Board of Criminal Justice after rookie Sen. Sylvia Garcia uncovered during questioning that San Antonio businessman Terrell McCombs had not listed all the businesses he owned on his application, reported the Statesman's Mike Ward...

Wasteful police spending, Big Brother, and prison stories

Posted on May 07, 2013
Here are a few brief items that caught Grits' attention but didn't make it into independent posts:Eliminate waste rather than throw money at new police hiresThe Austin PD is requesting nearly 100 more uniformed officers in the next city budget. As Grits has argued many times, instead of hiring ever-more officers the agency should eliminate waste by requiring burglar alarm companies to implement a verified response system, calling the police only when a crime has actually been committed...

Texas House votes to require warrants for old emails stored with third parties

Posted on May 06, 2013
Great news! This afternoon, Rep. Jon Stickland successfully attached a version of his HB 3164, requiring police to obtain warrants for emails stored with third parties (think cloud computing) older than 180 days, to legislation by Rep. John Frullo, HB 2268...

Charges filed against former Nueces County DA

Posted on May 05, 2013
Charges against Williamson County District Judge Ken Anderson following the court of inquiry in the Michael Morton case aren't the only recent example of a former District Attorney coming under indictment for alleged prosecutorial misconduct. Former Nueces County DA Anna Jimenez - who was appointed to the slot in 2010 by Governor Rick Perry but failed to win re-election - faces charges for allegedly falsifying affidavits in a murder case...

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