Criminal Law

Statesman: Governor rewards "eyes and ears" that were "blind and deaf"

Posted on March 08, 2008
The Austin Statesman's editorial board found the Governor's appointment of Alfonso Royal as the new TYC chief of staff as odd as I did, editorializing yesterday ("Oversight indeed: Perry rewards aide," March 7) that:Gov. Rick Perry has arranged to have one of his budget aides, Alfonso Royal, named chief of staff of the Texas Youth Commission...

DOJ investigating Harris County Jail

Posted on March 08, 2008
The defining reforms in Texas corrections historically have come about through federal litigation: The famous Ruiz case for our adult prisons, and Morales v. Turman at TYC, constituted the most significant impetus for change at those agencies in the last half century...

Here and there about the blogs

Posted on March 07, 2008
Here are a few items from around the blogosphere that caught my interest today.Robert Guest who had been blogging at I Was the State has a new blog, Dallas Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog, where he'll be spending his time now. Update your blogrolls accordingly...

Stop Digging: US policies enriching Mexican drug cartels

Posted on March 07, 2008
When you find yourself in a hole, the saying goes, the first thing to do is stop digging. But when fighting Mexican drug cartels, US policy over the last several years has been to buy more shovels and hire laborers to make the hole deeper and wider.As Mexican soldiers engage in battles with cartel gunmen south of the border and Congress considers the Bush administration's $1...

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Judge who promoted Prometa defeated at polls

Posted on March 07, 2008
While I've completely dropped the ball covering the dustup over a Collin County judge's questionable experimental sentencing of probationers to use of "Prometa," an anti-addiction medication, Bill Baumbach at the Collin County Observer has been all over it, and has another excellent post and roundup informing us that the judge in question was defeated at the polls on Tuesday...

Bexar deputy's arrest shows police more deserving of steroid investigation than baseball players

Posted on March 07, 2008
As the media continues to rip into Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens over allegations of steroid use, I continue to wonder when the same sort of systematic attention will be paid to steroid use among law enforcement?When I first raised this issue, more than a few people expressed surprise and said they didn't believe it was common...

Against "Link Rot": Using citations in blog posts helps combat decaying usefulness of web links

Posted on March 06, 2008
This post is really for other blog writers, but the rest of y'all mere readers can still check it out if you like:Perhaps it's hubris to propose a uniform blog citation standard. Perhaps the point of blogs is their freedom from conforming to the constraints of other media...

Pew Center on States lauds Texas' 2007 probation reforms

Posted on March 06, 2008
The Pew Center on States had nice things to say about Texas' prison and probation reforms from 2007, citing them as the main reason for the state's high score on it's state report card:As last year's budget deliberations began, Texas was looking at a 17,000-bed shortage of prison space over the next five years...

Immigration and County Jails: Are high costs caused by an unfunded mandate or poor choices by county sheriffs?

Posted on March 06, 2008
A national study confirms a proposition I've contended for some time: That immigration enforcement has placed a huge unfunded mandate on counties, particularly when, for political reasons, Sheriffs choose to expand immigration enforcement duties beyond minimum requirements, as has happened in Austin, Houston, and elsewhere...

Half million Texans disenfranchised from voting in primary elections: Harms democracy and public safety

Posted on March 06, 2008
The extraordinary turnout at Tuesday's elections and the spectacle of 1.1 million Democrats participating in their precinct conventions left the state abuzz, but over at Talk Left, Jeralyn rightly reminds us to remember those who weren't allowed to cast a ballot...

DA who failed to prosecute TYC sex abuse cases won re-election in landslide

Posted on March 05, 2008
Yesterday's elections produced a slew of odd and surprising results, but none more bizarre than this, according to AP:The West Texas district attorney accused of ignoring a graphic and detailed report alleging rampant sexual abuse at a state juvenile jail has won re-election...

Hopeful electoral pattern emerging among GOP leaders on criminal justice reform

Posted on March 05, 2008
First, congratulations to Rep. Jerry Madden for pulling out his primary challenge from a 23-year old neophyte who's main past experience was an internship at the office of the Washington D.C. drug czar. No election result on Tuesday pleased me more.Madden's young opponent ran an energetic and vitriolic campaign, accusing the chairman of being soft on crime for opposing new prison spending and spearheading, with Sen...

Results from selected criminal-justice related TX elections

Posted on March 05, 2008
What an election night! I don't know about y'all, but the precinct convention where I vote was a complete zoo. I left just before midnight, after convincing the group that remained to support the Grits resolutions on TYC and prison diversion, and they were still considering more resolutions when we left...

Central Austin turnout through the roof at my precinct - Don't forget to support corrections resolutions at precinct conventions tonight

Posted on March 04, 2008
When I worked on electoral campaigns professionally, I always voted early so I'd have election day to help out whatever campaign(s) for which I was working.Since I left that profession, though, I've made it a point to always vote on election day proper, partially because I'm a traditionalist (or as Kathy says, a curmudgeon) who's stuck in my ways, but also to gauge turnout, chat with the election workers, and participate in the rituals of the democratic process...

Election Day

Posted on March 04, 2008
Hey, Mr. Police Man, please don't take my stuffIt cost me too much money and it probably ain't enoughTo make it through election dayAnd didn't I hear you sayIt's alright, it's alright, it's alright- Blaze Foley, "Election Day" (popularized by Lyle Lovett)All eyes today are on Texas' primary elections, so here's a roundup of related recent Grits coverage...

Governor appoints TYC chief of staff who never passed on news of Pyote scandal

Posted on March 03, 2008
Whoever is appointed the new executive director at the Texas Youth Commission won't get to choose their own chief of staff. Gov. Perry moved Alphonso Royal today from his slot at the Governor's criminal justice division to the position of chief of staff slot at TYC, reported the Dallas News...

Things we take for granted: Mexico may transition to public trials

Posted on March 03, 2008
There are Constitutional guarantees we take for granted in this country - like the right to a public trial and the right to have evidence of alleged crimes produced publicly in court - that make an enormous difference in improving the integrity of the American justice system...

SXSW features new "Tulia" documentary

Posted on March 03, 2008
The Tulia drug sting happened nearly nine years ago, but the reverberations from events in that small Texas town continue to ripple through the nation's psyche, both politically and increasingly, culturally. Though Halle Berry's feature-film version has been put on hold by her pregnancy, I received word yesterday via press release that the drug sting in Tulia, TX will be the focus of a new film - this one a documentary - released at the South by Southwest film festival next week...

Against Despair: Is it time for a 21st-century reinvention of the WPA?

Posted on March 02, 2008
If you've traveled extensively around Texas, you've noticed that many of the nicest spots in the state have been adorned with beautiful buildings, stone fences and walkways built in the 1930s by laborers employed by Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration (WPA)...

Immigration, Trade, and Presidential Politics

Posted on March 01, 2008
A slightly off-topic aside in the face of the looming presidential primary:The Republicans don't want immigration. Now the Democrats don't want trade.Somebody tell me: Who do I vote for if I support free markets for BOTH trade and labor? Is it only possible to elect someone with an isolationist foreign policy in the 2008 presidential election? I used to think this was parody:South Park - Blame Canada - More free videos are hereOTOH, on this matter perhaps we should blame Ohio...

Felony rap for stealing copper wire hasn't stopped thefts

Posted on February 29, 2008
Laws increasing criminal penalties tend to be a one-way ratchet; they only get harsher, they're seldom reduced.An example that will likely be with us for a while is the new law making theft of metal wire a state jail felony - one of House Criminal Jurisprudence Chairman Aaron Peña's many pet enhancements last session...

CCA upholds 5-year sentence for central cop in Dallas fake drug scandal

Posted on February 29, 2008
Thirty-nine people wrongfully convicted in Dallas County have been freed from Texas prisons since the turn of the century, and while DNA exonerations grab more headlines these days, 24 of them were set up in drug cases by a mendacious informant and allegedly corrupt police officers using fake drugs...

What is money laundering? SCOTUS to rule whether merely concealing cash is the same as laundering it

Posted on February 29, 2008
A Texas case before the US Supreme Court last week, Cuellar v. US, in which SCOTUS will determine what activities the government must prove to charge someone with "money laundering," had its oral arguments this week before the Wise 9. The feds would like the term to be broadly interpreted to include merely concealing money, but some of the Justices weren't so sure...

Heads vs. Feds on the South Plains: Is it time to seriously debate legalizing marijuana?

Posted on February 29, 2008
It's a debate that's happening in the heartland, but not on the campaign trail.Lubbock locals filled the Allen theater at Texas Tech recently to hear a debate billed as "Heads vs. Feds," featuring an editor from High Times magazine, of all places, and an ex-DEA offical...

Rick Reed top choice in Travis County DA's race

Posted on February 28, 2008
As primary day approaches, I wanted to tell readers in Austin and Travis County - especially since several people have asked me, including three today! - that I'm voting for Rick Reed to replace Ronnie Earle as the Travis County District Attorney. (I meant to post this last weekend, but came down ill; I apologize to Reed for my tardiness...

TYC conservator closes Sheffield Boot Camp

Posted on February 28, 2008
For once TYC employees heard about a facility closure straight from the horse's mouth instead of reading that they lost their jobs in the newspaper. Here's an excerpt from Richard Nedelkoff's email to TYC employees notifying them of the decision to close the Sheffield Unit in West Texas:I want to let you know that today, I was in Sheffield to announce the closure of the Sheffield Boot Camp...

We're Biggest! But Are We Overcompensating?

Posted on February 28, 2008
Biggest heads and biggest hearts, biggest various body parts,Let's sing another stupid Texas song!- The Austin Lounge Lizards "Stupid Texas Song"Doc Berman brings word that Texas now officially has the largest state prison population in the country, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts, after California's inmate total declined last year...

Good stuff from Texas legal blogs

Posted on February 28, 2008
I was down with the flu over the weekend and the early part of the week, and am just beginning to get back on my feet. Thankfully the rest of the blogosphere chugs right along, even when Grits' posting is slow. Here are a few interesting tidbits I noticed this week from around Texas' legal blogosphere:First, let me point to a new (to me) blog worthy of readers' attention: The Fifth Circuit Blog, covering, just as the title says, the federal 5th Circuit Court of Appeals based in New Orleans, of which Texas is a part...

The new sentencing data are here!

Posted on February 28, 2008
To borrow from Steve Martin, "The new sentencing data are here! The new sentencing data are here!OK, so perhaps readers won't be scurrying to search for their name like Martin in "The Jerk," eager to see it in print because it means "I'm somebody now," but Doc Berman brings word that the FY 2006 federal sentencing data are now online, and for data geeks it provides some interesting annual fodder:2007 Annual Report and Sourcebook: The 2007 Annual Report presents an overview of major Commission activities and accomplishments for fiscal year 2006...

Exonerated man faces difficulties adjusting to free world life

Posted on February 27, 2008
Charles Chatman was released last month from a Texas prison after doing 27 years for a crime he did not commit. But the Carrollton Leader ("Wrongfully convicted prisoner relocates to Carrollton," Feb. 26) reports that things haven't been so easy once he got out, or as he put it, since he was "dumped back into society":After Chatman was free, he felt lost, Chatman said...

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