Criminal Law

How the Grinch stole clemency: Christmastime pardons trivialize process

Posted on December 08, 2010
Our pal P.S. Ruckman over at Pardon Power pointed me to his terrific piece on George H.W. Bush's pardon of Houston-born basketball great Charles "Tex" Harrison, the first black player named an "All-American" and a long-time star and coach of the Harlem Globetrotters who'd been convicted of marijuana possession in 1965...

MADD sounding quite reasonable on mandatory driver license suspensions

Posted on December 07, 2010
The Lubbock Avalanche Journal reports that Mothers Against Drunk Driving dislikes legislation filed by state Sen. Jane Nelson that would permanently suspend drivers licenses for second-time DWI offenders:?I don?t think this bill is going anywhere,? Bill Lewis, public policy liaison for the Texas office of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, said in an interview...

'Round the blogosphere

Posted on December 07, 2010
Each of these blogs contains excellent, recent posts on various topics covered frequently on Grits. Check them out: Defending PeopleThe Defense RestsLiberty and Justice for Y'allGamso for the DefenseAlso, check out this notable recent power point presentation (pdf) from the Texas Public Policy Foundation's Marc Levin titled "Thinking Outside the Cell: Ten Truths About Texas Criminal Justice...

Amnesty program for DPS surcharge will begin in January

Posted on December 07, 2010
I was told yesterday by a source at the Department of Public Safety that the new Amnesty program for the Driver Responsibility Surcharge will roll out sometime in January to coincide with tax season. No word on how long the Amnesty period will last, but drivers who want to use income-tax return money to make their Amnesty payment should file their returns as early as possible...

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'Nuther empty jail, built on spec, can't find contract prisoners

Posted on December 07, 2010
Another speculative county jail facility, this time in Bell County, can't find contract prisoners to fill it now that the project is complete, reports a local TV station:More than $5 million has gone into remodeling a Bell County jail that remains vacant and may not have a need for inmates for at least two years...

'Listen up,' deaf people: A cop is shouting at you

Posted on December 07, 2010
The Austin Chronicle's Jordan Smith has a good article this week on problematic interactions between local cops and the deaf community. The central, featured story stems from an incident in 2009, when a "24-year-old found herself in trouble with the Austin Police Department ? booked into jail for resisting arrest, a charge punishable by up to a year in jail ? because she could not hear Officer Steven Willis yelling at her to stop as she walked along a North Austin sidewalk with her girlfriend, Ceci Bermudez...

Federal suit filed to declare TX Driver Responsibility surcharge unconstitutional

Posted on December 06, 2010
If the Legislature doesn't abolish the Driver Responsibility Surcharge, might federal courts intervene to scrap the program? Reports the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:Mimi Coffey wants to scrap Texas' Driver Responsibility Program.If she doesn't accomplish the task first, the Texas Legislature appears poised to do so...

Activist Texas Supreme Court ruling neuters government accountability

Posted on December 06, 2010
The Texas Supreme Court has issued a terrible decision  making secret state employees' birthdays, a move that essentially eliminates the ability of reporters and other outside investigators to distinguish them from others with the same name in public documents...

Criminals in Lubbock pause for Tech football games

Posted on November 26, 2010
Crime in Lubbock declines 14% when Texas Tech plays football, reports the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. Further, for the period examined, "Tech?s 2008 upset of then-No. 1 Texas correlated with the sharpest drop in calls ? more than 25 percent fewer calls than the average for the 7 to 11 p...

Thanksgiving Day Open Thread

Posted on November 25, 2010
Hope y'all are having a great holiday. Here's a story from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram on the Thanksgiving meal in Texas prisons and similar story about today's menu at the Harris County Jail. Even so, "at the Harris County Jail, the gustatory delights of Thanksgiving will recede as swiftly as they arrived...

Pre-Thanksgiving Roundup

Posted on November 24, 2010
Here are a few odds and ends I don't have time to write about today but which may interest Grits readers:The Politics of BailSteven Kreytak at the Austin Statesman had a pretty good story this week on the issue of personal bonds, contrasting anecdotal complaints with systemic issues arguing for their more frequent use...

Tough talk on Texas prison system

Posted on November 24, 2010
Monday afternoon I attended a packed lecture at the UT Law School by Robert Perkinson, author of the book Texas Tough: The Rise of America's Prison Empire. UT has put three blog posts online by Michele Deitch, Jorge Renaud, and Mary Crouter reacting to the book...

Texas 2010 NIJ grants

Posted on November 24, 2010
Now that the federal FY 2010 has come and gone, here's an account of grants given to Texas recipients in the last year from the National Institute of Justice, compiled from this source:City of Austin, Forensic DNA Backlog Reduction Program: $182,097 Houston PD Crime Lab, Forensic DNA Backlog Reduction Program: $1,143,339 Bexar County, Forensic DNA Backlog Reduction Program: $127,119 State of Texas, Forensic DNA Backlog Reduction Program: $2,401320 Tarrant County, Forensic DNA Backlog Reduction Program: $280,892 University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth, Forensic DNA Backlog Reduction Program:  $785,138 Harris County, Genetic Markers Associated With Sudden Unexplained Death or Sudden Infant Death: $254,521 UNT Health Science Center at Fort Worth, Addressing Quality and Quantity; the Role of DNA Repair and Whole Genome Amplification in Forensically Relevant Samples: Center at Fort Worth      $363,613 Harris County, Independent Validation Test of Microscopic Analysis of Saw Marks in Bone: $26,409 Harris County: Gunshot Residue in a Non-Firearm-Related Detainee Population:      $88,837 Sam Houston State University, Development and Quantitative Evaluation of Steganalysis and Digital Forgery Detection System: $331,056 Southwest Research Institute, Reducing Uncertainty of Quantifying the Burning Rate of Upholstered Furniture: $497,688 Texas A&M Research Foundation, Development and Validation of Standard Operating Procedures for Measuring Microbial Populations for Estimating a Postmortem Interval: $476,348 University of North Texas Health Science Center At Fort Worth, The University of North Texas Center for Human Identification Project: Using DNA Technology to Identify the Missing: $2,808,508 City of Austin, Police Department Forensic Science Improvement Program: $175,000 City of Fort Worth, Coverdell Forensic Science Improvement Grant Program: $129,590 City of Lancaster, Lancaster Police Department Regional Crime Lab: $169,558 El Paso County Sheriff's Office, Paul Coverdell Forensic 2010 Grant: $175,000 State of Texas, Coverdell Forensic Science Improvement Grant for Crime Laboratories: $1,828,254 Tarrant County, Histology Backlog Reduction Program: $67,136 Texas State University, Project Identification: Developing Accurate Identification Criteria for Hispanic Individuals: $151,325 Sheriff's Association of Texas, 1033 Program Support: $4,609,496 Sheriff's Association of Texas, Advancing Criminal Justice Policy, Practice and Technology ? Evaluation of Low-Cost Aviation Options for Law Enforcement: $485,146I may have missed a couple but those are the ones I identified where money came to Texas...

Disputing the premise behind mental health courts

Posted on November 23, 2010
Doug Berman pointed out an academic article titled "Theorizing Mental Health Courts" by E. Lea Johnston that builds on ideas discussed on Grits last year in response to research by Jennifer Skeem. The thesis is that mental health courts were created on a false premise:Mental health court proponents appear to embrace a brand of therapeutic rehabilitation based on two propositions...

Drug case reaks of judicial bias, misconduct

Posted on November 23, 2010
In a tale somewhat reminiscent of the Tulia debacle, NPR has a story out of Clarksville, TX of a politicized drug prosecution that a local judge tried to continue even after the Attorney General moved to dismiss. See:Civil rights, judicial bias surround Texas drug caseInvestigating bias on the benchBest fact bite in the story: The search warrant wasn't signed until after the local Sheriff, with the DA in tow in full body armor, had already executed an armed raid and search...

Splitting hairs at the IRS over taxing compensation for false convictions

Posted on November 22, 2010
A tax lawyer warns that the IRS ruling mentioned last week may not completely end the requirement that wrongfully convicted people pay taxes on state compensation. Robert Wood argues that "this IRS ruling says only that a victim of wrongful imprisonment who 'suffered physical injuries and physical sickness while incarcerated' can exclude his recovery from taxes and can structure it just like other physical injury victims...

Texas will run out of lethal injection drug in March

Posted on November 22, 2010
The Austin Statesman reports that "Texas has enough lethal drugs on hand to execute 39 condemned criminals, but all doses of one key drug in its inventory expire in March, a situation that could delay executions unless additional supplies are found, state officials revealed Friday...

Bosque County jail vote leaves commissioners seeking alternatives

Posted on November 22, 2010
I failed to mention one key election result from tiny Bosque County, where voters this month voted down a jail expansion despite condemnation in annual inspections by the Texas Commission on Jail Standards. According to the Waco Tribune Herald ("Bosque County officials regrouping after voters turn down jail bond," Nov...

Will county cost cutting doom empty, speculative jail in Waco?

Posted on November 22, 2010
In Waco, a jail built on spec remains less-than-half full, and the local newspaper is fretting that trends toward greater use of diversion programs may reduce demand for McLennan County Jail beds. Reported the Waco Tribune Herald ("Programs to reduce inmates could affect McLennan County jail," Nov 21, subscription only):State trends are leaning less toward brick-and-mortar jails to solve inmate overcrowding, but local officials are confident the county?s new detention center will eventually reach capacity, with or without programs to divert low-level offenders out of the system...

DPS chases concentrated near border

Posted on November 21, 2010
The Texas Tribune and the San Antonio Express News teamed up to analyze nearly 5,000 high-speed chases by DPS troopers. "Statewide, DPS chases resulted in 1,300 accidents, 780 injuries to troopers, other officers, suspects and bystanders, 28 deaths and an estimated $8...

Sunset report on Texas youth prisons, juvenile probation: TYC costs per youth too high

Posted on November 21, 2010
The Sunset Commission issued its 39-page Staff Report (pdf) on the Texas Youth Commission and Juvenile Probation Commission on Friday. See MSM reports here, here, and here. Last session, the Sunset Commission suggested merging TYC and TJPC, the report reminds us, but the Lege chose not to do so...

Counties upset DPS doesn't share more asset forfeiture income from I-40

Posted on November 21, 2010
An article in the Amarillo Globe News says the Department of Public Safety often takes cases to federal court to get a bigger portion of the assets seized and cut out local District Attorneys. Reports the Globe-News ("Cashing In: Who benefits the most from seized currency?" Nov...

Harris judges reduce number of needlessly jailed drug probationers

Posted on November 20, 2010
Giving credit where it's due, it appears judges in Harris County (Houston) have begun changing their collective sentencing practices regarding first offense less-than-a-gram drug cases, going by their Nov. 1 jail population data reported (pdf) to the Texas Commission on Jail Standards...

Increased Harris County Jail costs, inmate numbers third highest in nation over last decade

Posted on November 19, 2010
The blog Hair Balls from the Houston Press says that "In an era when locking fewer people up and spending less on jails seems to make sense and is rapidly becoming en vogue, Harris County was increasing its spending and putting more folks behind bars than nearly any other populous county in the country, according to a recent study by the Pew Charitable Trust...

2,383 and counting ... how many new felonies from the 72nd Texas Legislature?

Posted on November 18, 2010
Regular readers will recall that the 81st Legislature created 59 new felonies in 2009, according to the Parole Board's biennial "Offense Severity List," bringing the total number of separate felonious acts identified in Texas criminal law to 2,383. This comment string from an Atlantic Monthly blog reminded me of that fact and made me wonder, how many new felonies do you think Texas will create in 2011? Leave your guesses in the comments...

Opposition to red-light cameras at Legislature and ballot box

Posted on November 18, 2010
Houston turned off its red-light cameras this week as a result of its recent plebiscite, leading the Dallas News to wonder in this story published today whether other cities may follow suit with their own elections banning the cameras. So far, the anti-red light camera faction is 3 for 3 in Texas, with College Station, Houston, and Baytown voters Further, says the News, "Legislators in Austin, who almost passed a statewide camera ban in 2009, have pledged to take up the issue again next year...

DA's Association: 'Juice ain't worth the squeeze' on DWI license suspensions

Posted on November 18, 2010
The Austin Statesman earlier this week, reporting in conjunction with KVUE-TV, published a pair of articles (see here and here, and also KVUE's story) on the rise of occupational licenses for people with administrative license suspensions for DWI and other offenses...

Exonerees won't pay taxes on state awards

Posted on November 17, 2010
Thanks to a new IRS ruling, exonerees who receive compensation from the state won't pay federal taxes on their awards. Reports NPR:Some former inmates who were wrongly convicted say they feel twice cheated ? first for being imprisoned and then again when the government that locked them up taxed them on the money they were paid to make amends...

Event: 'Texas prison system at a crossroads'

Posted on November 17, 2010
I was invited to speak on Friday at an event at the UT-Austin School of Social Work sponsored by the group Grassroots Leadership, so I thought I'd share the details here in cases any readers want to attend:WHAT: The Texas prison system is at a crossroads: Where do we go from here? Please join us for a TEACH-IN with experts on the issue...

Solutions for Texas' "Overdose Crisis"

Posted on November 17, 2010
A new briefing paper (pdf) from the Drug Policy Alliance hones in on Texas drug overdoses, pointing out that, "Between 1999 and 2007, overdose deaths increased by more than 250 percent. Statewide, accidental poisoning (most commonly due to drug overdose) is the third-leading cause of injuryrelated death in Texas, behind car crashes and suicide...

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