Criminal Law

Big Love in West Texas

Posted on April 08, 2008
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"I can understand executing a search warrant at the El Dorado polygamist compound to look for a 16 year old girl who phoned in an anonymous complainant about her forcible marriage at 15 to a 50-year old...

Kingsville task force officer convicted of stealing seized drug funds

Posted on April 08, 2008
When Governor Rick Perry eliminated funding for Texas' regional drug task forces two years ago, we heard a string of complaints continuing to this day that his action was in response to "one bad apple" in Tulia, and that others made positive contributions...

Balko interviews Craig Watkins, decries PR blitz on drug task force pork

Posted on April 07, 2008
Two articles by Reason magazine's Radley Balko caught my eye.First, is Dallas District Attorney Craig Watkins America's best prosecutor? It might be a tad early in his career to foist that mantle upon him, but I agree with Balko he should be in the conversation...

Texas prison guard salary ranks 47th among states

Posted on April 07, 2008
I realize the cost of living differs significantly according to geography, but I'm pretty sure Texas don't have the 4th lowest cost of living among states, even though Texas correctional officers are "47th on the nationwide list when it comes to what they're paid...

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Proposed Harris County study will likely predict substantial savings from a public defender office

Posted on April 07, 2008
Considering how much money Harris County spends on its criminal justice system, I'm surprised their commissioners court appears to have barely ever considered the idea of a public defender office, which state Sen. Rodney Ellis has been pushing recently...

When does the adversarial system commence?

Posted on April 06, 2008
Even most non-lawyers know that the United States uses an a adversarial system of justice in both civil and criminal law. Recently in Rothgery v. Gillespie County, the US Supreme Court heard oral arguments regarding the question of precisely when the investigative function of police ends and the adversarial legal system commences - is it upon indictment, at the bail hearing, upon arrest?Doc Berman has used the phrase "comfortable legal fictions" to describe high-minded but empirically erroneous theories undergirding the legal system, and one such fiction is the idea that, under an "adversarial" system, investigation and prosecution of crimes are separate functions...

Trend toward bail, away from personal bonds a major factor in Harris County Jail overcrowding

Posted on April 06, 2008
It's not news that the Harris County jail is overcrowded, so I'm glad to see the Houston Chronicle devoting more attention to the question of "Why?"The Chron today features a story by Mike Tolson about the trend toward requiring bail for low-level defendants, a topic on which Grits has focused extensively in the past...

Not just Texas: CNN finds punishment culture prevalent at juvie lockups nationwide

Posted on April 05, 2008
Reacting to a report that Ohio must pour tens of millions into juvenile detention centers as a result of federal litigation, CNN on Friday presented an excellent, extended feature on sexual and physical abuse at juvenile lockups, citing incidents in Texas but also many other states...

Amarillo re-entry site rejected: If not in an industrial area, where could you place these facilities?

Posted on April 05, 2008
TDCJ is finding it more difficult than you might imagine to give away money. First NIMBYism killed a new treatment center in Austin (supposedly they're looking for a new location), and now another much-needed program has been delayed up in the Golden Spread...

Abolish the Texas Youth Commission?

Posted on April 04, 2008
That could be in the works, according to two articles published today:Youth Commission could face closure, radical change, lawmakers say, Austin StatesmanHouston Senator Whitmire wants to abolish TYC, Houston ChronicleIn addition, though it's not posted yet so this announcement could be premature, I understand the TYC Joint Select Committee will meet again on April 16th, so maybe we'll hear more then about what these proposals might really mean in practice.

On the sunny side of the street: Is it time for an independent evaluation of 'telemedicine'?

Posted on April 04, 2008
Since I've posted quite a bit of critical material about healthcare in Texas prisons over the years, I thought it only fair to share what Correctional Managed Health Care E.D. Alan Hightower told the Senate Criminal Justice Committee yesterday are the three most important improvements at TDCJ healthcare since UTMB and Texas Tech took over the system...

End of the Week Roundup

Posted on April 04, 2008
Here are a several diverse news items, all deserving of more extended comment, that I only have time to mention right now:A prison coverup after Hurricane Rita?Reports the Houston Press, "For days after the storm, inmates in Beaumont lived without A/C, electricity or hot meals...

Fifth Circuit apparently taken over by aliens, issues restraint on prosecutors "vouching" for law enforcement

Posted on April 04, 2008
At Deliberations, Anne identifies a beauty of a Fifth Circuit opinion in a Texas case laying down the law regarding what prosecutors can say in closing statements to bolster the credibility of police testimony. She writes:Here's the line you're trying to draw: it's okay in closing argument to suggest what inferences jurors should make from the evidence, but it's not okay to insert your own credibility by vouching for the credibility of a witness...

Bush to sign Second Chance Act!

Posted on April 04, 2008
After many long years in the making, President Bush will finally sign the Second Chance Act on April 9, I learn in an email invite to a D.C. reception commemorating the event that evening. I can't make it, but it's certainly a cause for celebration. According to the Re-Entry Policy Council, the bill:provides critical resources designed to reduce recidivism and increase public safety...

More than you probably wanted to know about Texas Senate prison oversight hearing

Posted on April 04, 2008
For one stop shopping purposes, here are all the links to Grits' coverage of Wednesday's Texas Senate Criminal Justice Committee hearing:Should state break NIMBY logjam thwarting halfway house expansions?Whitmire: Parole board must do a better job explaining decisions to inmates and their familiesAIDS drugs, healthcare for elderly inmates driving TDCJ healthcare costsNew diversion programs ease Texas prison overcrowdingOn the sunny side of the street: Is it time for an independent evaluation of telemedicine?You can go here to view a video archive of the April 2 hearing.

Feds doing everything possible to make immigration crisis worse

Posted on April 04, 2008
First, pure bureaucractic bungling has caused legal immigration to decline by 17% over the last year, AP reports. Imagine - the one federal policy that might actually reduce illegal immigration, and with all the hoopla, the Department of Homeland Security made things worse...

Should state break NIMBY logjam thwarting halfway house expansions?

Posted on April 03, 2008
Should the state require local communities to designate areas where halfway houses would be allowed, make communities that reject halfway houses pay for individual placements, or build halfway houses on existing government property?Those options and more were floated at the Senate Criminal Justice Committee yesterday during testimony by Marc Levin of the Texas Pulbic Policy Foundation...

'Fusion centers' might be scary if they actually work

Posted on April 03, 2008
There are darn good reasons why President Harry Truman in 1947 insisted on a ban in the CIA charter on US intelligence services spying on Americans, but in the wake of 9/11 our nation seems to have largely forgotten them.Still, anyone with the slightest small "l" libertarian streak must surely question the rise of a secretive network of "Fusion Centers," discussed on the front page of yesterday's Washington Post ("Centers tap into personal databases," April 2)...

New diversion programs easing Texas prison overcrowding

Posted on April 03, 2008
Of two Texas Youth Commission facilities transferred to the adult prison system, TDCJ chief Brad Livingston told the Senate Criminal Justice Committee yesterday, the agency has only opened one so far, adding 606 beds, and has no immediate plans to open the second one...

AIDS drugs, healthcare for elderly inmates driving TDCJ medical costs

Posted on April 03, 2008
Here's a mind blowing statistic about health care costs in Texas prisons that came out at yesterday's Senate Criminal Justice Committee hearing: A whopping 48% of TDCJ's total pharmacy budget goes to pay for drugs for inmates with HIV.Chairman Whitmire asked the Correctional Managed Health Care Committee executive director Alan Hightower to compile for him a list of the top ten most expensive inmates in terms of medical costs and their parole status...

Whitmire: Parole board, TDCJ, must do a better job explaining parole decisions to inmates and their families

Posted on April 03, 2008
A significant portion of yesterday's Texas Senate Criminal Justice Committee hearing focused on the parole process, with several interesting points highlighted during the discussion. (Video from the hearing is available online here.)Chairman John Whitmire was in top form, politely but firmly taking TDCJ officials and parole board chair Rissie Owens to task for not doing enough to notify inmates why their parole is denied...

Chronicle: JPI report illuminates sources of Harris jail overcrowding

Posted on April 02, 2008
How many times have we seen this headline, "Harris County Jail filled beyond capacity" (April 2), or something similar, in the Houston Chronicle?Too many, for my tastes. Either county officials need to fix overcrowding problems at the jail, or else the Chronicle needs to buy its headline writers a thesaurus...

Sheriffs' use of jail labor ripe for statewide investigation, legislative fix

Posted on April 02, 2008
A pair of recent headlines make me think a statewide audit could be in order regarding how Texas county jails use inmate labor.First, in my hometown of Tyler, Lt. Gary Lile, a former Winnsboro police chief and administrator at the Smith County Jail's low-risk facility, apparently committed suicide after the Texas Rangers launched an investigation into allegations that deputies used inmate labor for personal gain, including gathering scrap metal for resale...

Hyping Harm: Media should welcome, not decry cuts to federal Byrne grant program

Posted on April 02, 2008
Texas law enforcement agencies have already experienced the political tumult from closing down regional drug task forces funded by the federal Byrne grant program, but in states where they still operate, local officials and the media are just starting to realize the jig may be up, with a 2/3 cut scheduled in the next federal budget...

Levin: Assets seized from criminals shouldn't become political slush funds

Posted on April 02, 2008
Little attention is paid to how various jurisdictions spend money generated from asset forfeitures in drug cases, but Marc Levin at the Texas Public Policy Foundations fears they've become "political slush funds," and calls in a short column for their further regulation:The Montgomery County district attorney has spent thousands of dollars in assets seized from criminals on items that have little to do with official prosecutorial duties, including liquor for parties...

Nanny statism not just a local problem

Posted on April 01, 2008
Are a slew of petty municipal ordinances turning the city of Dallas into a "nanny state"? So far, 79% of respondents in an online poll at the Dallas News say "Yes."Dallas police often can't solve the crime problems that really frighten people, like a series of increasingly brazen burglaries in East Dallas, but the city council is busy making up a whole slew of additional "crimes" that divert law enforcement's resources away from more serious offenses ("Some recent laws seen as protecting Dallas residents from themselves," March 28):At the decade's dawn, Dallasites could smoke in restaurants, walk their dogs without carrying a pooper-scooper and stroll through downtown or South Dallas without being monitored by police video cameras...

'Round the blogosphere

Posted on April 01, 2008
Though I'm preoccupied today with other business, I wanted to point readers to a few items elsewhere in the blogosphere that deserve your attention:Litigating eyewitness testimonyFor criminal defense lawyers, check out this new resource on litigating eyewitness identification cases, and also a recap from the Eyewitness ID blog of a conference on the subject in New York...

Dallas think tank believes immigrant criminals deserve greater leniency than citizens

Posted on March 31, 2008
A reader forwards an email from the National Center for Policy Analysis I found rather strange. NCPA is an ultra-conservative think tank in Dallas that only infrequently delves into crime and punishment issues.For an organization that generally supports draconian positions on immigration, though, I was surprised to see NCPA advocating that immigrants convicted of crimes in the United States should receive more lenient sentences compared to citizen offenders...

Wilson's criticisms of Pew study miss mark, ignore contrary research

Posted on March 31, 2008
A reader points me to an article in the LA Times by James Q. Wilson ("Do the time, lower the crime," March 30) responding to the recent study by the Pew Center on the States regarding America's high incarceration rate, which now exceeds one out of every 100 US adults...

Revisionism begins in effort to restore drug task force pork: PR blitz another good reason why Congress should slash Byrne grant funding

Posted on March 30, 2008
The Amarillo Globe News this morning offers a revisionist history of events leading to the closure of drug task forces in the Panhandle and across Texas ("Police: Rethink drug reforms," March 30), arguing that "one bad apple" in the Tulia case shouldn't have cost all drug task forces their funding...

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