Criminal Law

Light reading: Various corrections topics

Posted on November 02, 2010
A few policy-wonk type publications caught my eye recently that may interest Grits readers, though I don't have time at the moment to post in detail on each of them: Trimming adult corrections budgetsVia Sentencing Law & Policy, check out the Vera Institute's new report on "The continuing fiscal crisis in corrections: Setting a new course...

Candidate: McLennan County on the hook for bonds on privatized jail

Posted on November 01, 2010
I received an interesting press release this weekend from a county judge candidate in Waco regarding alleged misreportage by the local paper, the Tribune-Herald (now paid only, no story available), regarding the financing arrangement for McLennan County's new, mostly empty, privatized jail, repeating many of the critiques of the project's ill-conceived fiscal arrangement voiced frequently on Grits, albeit in shrill campaign rhetoric:FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASERalph Cooper, Candidate for County Judge, Challenges Trib Story about Dallas County Inmates, Alleges Continued Falsification of Facts about the Jail ContractRalph Cooper, Candidate for County Judge of McLennan County, issued a blog post and email blitz this morning in response to the lead article in today?s Waco Tribune-Herald...

'Special Needs Defender' in Lubbock handling mentally ill misdemeanants

Posted on November 01, 2010
In Lubbock, the Avalanche Journal had a story yesterday about the county's Special Needs Defender Office created last year, a public/private hybrid system described thusly ("New screening, special defender's office helps Lubbock County with mentally ill"):while county officials agree more changes are necessary to ensure mentally ill defendants don?t languish in jail, improvements such as specialized screening at the jail and cooperation between the Lubbock Special Needs Defender?s Office, defense attorneys and the probation office have streamlined identifying mentally ill defendants and getting them through the system...

'Bad Jurors': No disclosure

Posted on November 01, 2010
From the Fort Worth Star-Telegram ("Tarrant 'bad-juror list' can be kept private, attorney general says," Oct. 22):The Tarrant County district attorney's office can keep its "bad-juror list" private, the Texas attorney general's office has decided.Assistant Attorney General James Morris agreed with the district attorney's office that the document should be exempt from disclosure because it contains prosecutors' subjective impressions and is used in preparation for trials...

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Governor: Graves cases shows system works (just not Texas')

Posted on November 01, 2010
According to the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal:The release of an innocent man who spent 18 years in prison ? 12 on Texas? death row ? proves the state?s justice system works, Gov. Rick Perry said Friday. ...?I think we have a justice system that is working, and he?s a good example of ? you continue to find errors that were made and clear them up,? Perry said...

Flurry of media surrounding Anthony Graves exoneration

Posted on October 30, 2010
Rounding up coverage of Anthony Graves' exoneration, check out:Houston Chronicle: "First full day as free man finds Graves praying it's not just a dream" as well as "8-year battle to save Graves won by a band of lawyers and students," and "Team overturning Graves case blasts ex-DA"Texas Monthly: "Free at last"Brenham Banner-Press: "Graves having trouble realizing he's a free man " and "Sebesta sticking to original claim: Guilty"MyFox Houston: "Students helped free death row inmate"Austin Chronicle: "Anthony Graves freed"AP: "Freed Texas death row inmate says he never lost hope"Dallas News: "Death case underscores fallibility" KHOU: "DA who convicted man freed from death row: 'Honest mistakes were made'" (in which prosecutor Kelly Siegler declares, "It is prosecutor's responsibility to make sure that they never fabricate evidence, or manipulate witnesses or take advantage of victims...

'What did the TYC whistleblower claim?'

Posted on October 30, 2010
The Statesman's Eric Dexheimer gets to the heart of allegations against TYC by former administrative law judge Chris Koustoubardis in a blog post titled as above. I won't spoil the surprise, go read his account.

San Angelo checkpoint cites mostly economic crimes

Posted on October 30, 2010
DWI checkpoints are supposedly banned in Texas (or at least the legislation which would supposedly authorize them failed to pass in 2009) so I'm not sure how the Sheriff in San Angelo can justify checkpoints for insurance and drivers licenses - "Show me your papers, Comrade!" From the San Angelo Standard Times (Oct...

Choosing the wrong victim: 5 years for corrupt SA police union treasurer

Posted on October 30, 2010
Here's a case that's flown under the radar: A San Antonio police union official was convicted of embezzling $104,000 from union coffers and received a five year sentence, though the judge retained the option of switching to shock probation within the next six months...

Pardoning the Duke of Duval

Posted on October 30, 2010
Pardon Power has an historical piece on President Harry Truman's pardon of George B. Parr and his later association with alleged election fraud on behalf of Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1948 Texas Senate primary. Well worth a read for those unfamiliar with this particularly sordid piece of South Texas history.

Legislature should limit immunity for sleazebag prosecutors like Charles Sebesta

Posted on October 29, 2010
From the Houston Chronicle: A day after prosecutors dismissed the capital murder charges that sent Anthony Graves to death row in 1994, they accused the district attorney who convicted him of prosecutorial misconduct.?Charles Sebesta handled this case in a way that could best be described as a criminal justice system?s nightmare,? Kelly Siegler declared...

Applying actual science to blood splatter evidence

Posted on October 28, 2010
A recurring theme on this blog has been the lack of actual science behind many so-called forensic "sciences," as highlighted last year in a major study by the National Academy of Sciences, and the need for primary research in many fields where flawed evidence is commonly relied upon in court...

Longview SWAT team raids wrong home

Posted on October 28, 2010
Radley Balko called it "another isolated incident": In Longview, a SWAT team broke down the door of the wrong home last week in an apparent no-knock raid. The News Journal reported that "officers apparently were distracted by 'known suspects' in front of a home...

Housing the homeless ... in jail

Posted on October 28, 2010
I thought this was an interesting money quote from a speaker at a Lubbock City Council meeting on the subject of criminalizing homeless people storing or using camping equipment on public property:?It kind of contradicts statements by City Council members that they do not want to spend taxpayer money housing the homeless? if they end up sending homeless to jail, said Chad Wheeler, pastor of Carpenter?s Church...

Ignorance, paranoia over phony Halloween sex-offender 'threat' more frightening than ghosts and goblins

Posted on October 27, 2010
I wrote last week that I expected more media hype surrounding the phony-baloney non-threat of registered sex offenders assaulting trick-or-treaters on Halloween, and sure enough the stories are rolling in like the tide. Just looking at recent Texas examples, see here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here...

Anthony Graves: Innocent and free after 16 years on death row

Posted on October 27, 2010
Anthony Graves was convicted of capital murder in 1994 and spent the last 16 years on death row, but today walked out of the Burleson County courthouse an innocent man. From the Houston Chronicle:Washington-Burleson County District Attorney Bill Parham dismissed the case after he and his team investigated the case for five months...

When lawyers strike (or not)

Posted on October 26, 2010
I've been debating whether to devote space on Grits to a suggestion from the new blog "Lawyers on Strike" that Texas lawyers "strike" next month to protest Judge Sharon Keller, but I hesitated because Mark Bennett and Scott Greenfield have cataloged most of the critiques I have of the idea from a practical perspective...

Did court illegally order state to pay Sharon Keller's legal bills?

Posted on October 26, 2010
Examiners for the State Commission on Judicial Conduct have filed a motion for rehearing with the three-judge panel that dismissed charges against the Presiding Judge Sharon Keller of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, arguing that the judges should have sent the case back down to the commission for resentencing, reports Chuck Lindell at the Austin Statesman...

New report offers solutions on local jail overcrowding

Posted on October 25, 2010
This notice from the Texas Criminal Justice Coaltion (TCJC) arrived in my Inbox this morning:New TCJC Report Provides Solutions to Address Jail Overcrowding in Texas TCJC proudly announces the release of Costly Confinement & Sensible Solutions: Jail Overcrowding in Texas...

Opportunity costs and the sex-offender registry

Posted on October 25, 2010
In Dallas, manpower shortages caused police to routinely turn away people trying to update their sex-offender registration status, reports Diane Jennings at the Dallas News ("Dallas police 'erred badly' in turning away sex offenders who sought to register," Oct...

The evisceration of habeas corpus in American jurisprudence

Posted on October 25, 2010
Let me point readers to a fascinating academic review by American University Prof. Steven Vladek of a book I just ordered today online: Habeas Corpus: From England to Empire, by Paul Halliday. Here's a excerpt describing the impressive primary research behind Halliday's project:There is relatively little in the Constitution?s drafting history or ratification debates to illuminate the meaning of ?the Privilege of the writ of Habeas Corpus...

'The Correctionists'

Posted on October 25, 2010
Governing magazine named Texas state Sen. John Whitmire and Rep. Jerry Madden 2010 Public Officials of the Year to honor their work to create new diversion programs that staved off new prison construction. See interviews with both men here and an accompanying editorial titled "The Cost of Blind Justice...

Curfew enforcement: 'Breaking the cycle of crime' or just another money grab?

Posted on October 25, 2010
Corpus Christi will begin charging juveniles arrested for more serious crimes with curfew violations in municipal court, whereas previously when juveniles were charged with other offenses, police hadn't bothered to write the Class C citations. Reports the Caller Times:[Corpus Christi Police Cmdr...

TDCJ offers bogus argument to conceal info on lethal injection drug

Posted on October 23, 2010
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice is making an incredibly disingenuous, bogus argument to try to conceal whether they have sufficient quantities of a drug used in lethal injections to continue Texas' historic pace on executions, reports the Dallas News Crime Blog:Patricia Fleming, assistant general counsel for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, said in a letter to Attorney General Greg Abbott that prison employees are under "a substantial threat of physical harm...

Reducing 'chemical restraint' of TYC youth

Posted on October 23, 2010
Reacting to an excellent recent investigative article published in Youth Today, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram has a story on TYC's recent decision to reduce use of psychotropic drugs among the youth in their care. The story opens:Anti-psychotic drugs meant to treat mental illness were being used instead as chemical restraints on youths incarcerated in Texas Youth Commission facilities, Commissioner Scott Fisher said...

For every false conviction, a guilty perpetrator goes free

Posted on October 22, 2010
A reminder out of Dallas that for every innocent person falsely convicted, a guilty person goes free to victimize others. From AP:A convicted child molester linked to the crime that sent an innocent deaf man to prison in Texas was indicted Thursday in two similar cases involving sexual assaults on children...

'Reining in Overcriminalization' (federal edition)

Posted on October 21, 2010
On average, the US Congress creates 56 new federal crimes per year, and many of them are written broadly with no "mens rea" requirement that the offender knowingly engaged in illegal activity, according to testimony last month before the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security on the subject of "Reining in Overcriminalization," video of which has been posted on the subcommittee's website...

Which blog scooped the Houston Chronicle on Harris County Sheriff firings?

Posted on October 21, 2010
I can understand Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia wanting to bring in his own command staff, but he's coming under fire after the man he put in charge of Internal Affairs was fired for sexual harassment, his personnel director was let go for incompetence, and the major who hired the personnel director (allegedly the major's close friend) resigned after he was found by Internal Affairs to have engaged in "behavior contrary to good order...

Inside Books benefit

Posted on October 21, 2010
For those of y'all in Austin, the group Inside Books will hold a benefit tomorrow, Friday Oct. 22, and has announced a "work party" in November. Here are the details, received this afternoon via email:"SWEETHEARTS OF THE PRISON RODEO" FILM SCREENING + MUSIC BY BAD BLOOD AND DAVID ISRAEL! Friday October 22nd- 3121 E...

Finally! Indigence, Amnesty rules approved for Driver Responsibility Program

Posted on October 21, 2010
On this blog I more frequently play the role of critic than cheerleader, I told the Public Safety Commission today during their public comment period, but this morning I showed up at the commission's monthly meeting with pom poms (figuratively) in hand to praise them for approving the new Indigence and Amnesty rules for the Driver Responsibility Program on their consent agenda...

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