Criminal Law

As graffiti mainstreams, will government create processes to sanction permission?

Posted on September 27, 2010
I've been advocating for quite a while on Grits that government begin to identify blank, under-utilized portions of the city landscape - underpasses, concrete drainage areas, even the backside of street signs - and allow street art there on a permission-based basis...

Tribune: Podcast on possible criminal justice budget cuts

Posted on September 27, 2010
From Ben Philpott, here.

SCOTUS Fourth Amendment interpretations ignore history, reasonableness, to undermine rights

Posted on September 24, 2010
Recently I quipped that I considered celebration of the Fourth Amendment "rather like wearing a Kurt Cobain t-shirt, commemorating something that's dead and anachronistic, however laudable or memorable for those of a certain age who could still recall when it was relevant...

What in the world is Craig Watkins thinking?

Posted on September 24, 2010
I'm disappointed in Dallas District Attorney Craig Watkins over what I consider an outright sleazy, false attack on his GOP opponent Danny Clancy. Gromer Jeffers, Jr., a Dallas News columnist whose writing about this race has frequently read like excerpts from Watkins' campaign material, reported that the Watkins campaign sent out a mailer attacking Clancy in a manner that IMO amounts to outright demagoguery:The mailer reads: "Danny Clancy...

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Misconduct Roundup

Posted on September 24, 2010
Several recent stories related to official misconduct and police discipline caught my eye this morning and deserve Grits readers' attention:USA Today: Prosecutors misconduct can tip justice scalesHouston Chronicle: Judge indicted in sex favor case (Sam Kent redux?)Houston Chronicle: Conroe cop under investigation for firing weapon at innocent personAP: Two South Texas policemen charged with pot smugglingDallas News Crime Blog: Deputy who ogled women in showers was earlier suspended for viewing porn on the jobDallas Observer: Female cop files suit against DPD alleging sexual harassment, retaliation Dallas News: Dallas Chief fires six more officers, bringing recent total to 13Dallas News: 3 dozen deputy constables hired despite troubling job historiesSan Antonio Express-News: Record tampering charges urged for Bexar Sheriff's deputy CBS11-TV: Arlington grandmother angry at cop who pulled gun on childTexas Prison Bidness: Court hearing for private prison guard accused of groping immigration detaineeTexas Prison Bidness: Human Rights Watch report details sexual assaults at ICE-contracted detention centersKDFM-TV: Beaumont city council to discuss creating police review boadSoutheast Texas Record: Man sues over Taser use in LufkinKYTX-TV: Beaumont officer found guilty of official oppression Austin Statesman: Controversial shooter in Nathaniel Sanders case fired for drunk driving, seeks reinstatement Galveston Daily News: Civil service, unions 'nightmare' in cost cuttingSt...

Baseball stadium to be constructed near Central Unit in Sugar Land: Will state close the facility?

Posted on September 23, 2010
The city of Sugar Land will build a minor league baseball stadium at the intersection of state highways 90 and 6 near the Department of Criminal Justice's Central Unit, which the city has asked the state to close. State Sen. John Whitmire and others (including your correspondent here on Grits) have identified the Central Unit as one of the most obvious units to target for potential closure in the face of declining inmate numbers and a massive budget shortfall, but TDCJ failed to suggest closing a single facility among its 112 units in its recent Legislative Appropriations Request...

Budget shortfall will frame discussion at next week's Appropriations hearing

Posted on September 23, 2010
Just fyi: A hearing next Wednesday (Sept. 29) of the Criminal Justice Subcommittee of House Appropriations will discuss two interim charges that may interest Grits readers:Interim Charge #1: Monitor the performance of state agencies and institutions, including operating budgets, plans to carry out legislative initiatives, caseload projections, performance measure attainment, implementation of all rider provisions, and any other matter affecting the fiscal condition of the agencies and the state...

A distracting debate over police accidents

Posted on September 22, 2010
In recent years we've witnessed a great deal of demagoguery over "distracted driving" and a push for new, punitive traffic laws to reduce it. Longtime readers know I've found much of this rhetoric unconvincing: "Distracted" driving caused problems long before cell phones or texting, and I see no significant difference between talking on the phone while driving and putting on makeup, eating fast food from a drive-in, fiddling with the GPS, singing along with the radio, disciplining kids in the backseat, thinking about problems at work, or any number of the myriad other distractions drivers face...

Hump-Day Roundup

Posted on September 22, 2010
Here are several items that deserve Grits readers attention:Michigan may axe Driver Responsibility ProgramWhile I was away, the public comment period ended for the new Driver Responsibility Program rules at the Texas Department of Public Safety. The rules could come to the Public Safety Commission for a vote as soon as next month...

Dog scent lineups discredited at TX Court of Criminal Appeals

Posted on September 22, 2010
Outstanding news for those concerned about the use of shoddy forensics in criminal courtrooms: As of today, dog-scent lineups are no longer adequate to secure a criminal conviction in Texas. In a move that long-time court-watchers may find shocking, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals today reversed a murder conviction which had resulted in a 75-year sentence and ordered the defendants acquittal based on the unreliability of dog-scent lineups by Deputy Keith Pikett from Fort Bend County, whose bizarre and unreliable practices are well-known to long-time readers of this blog...

Indigence defense newsletter highlights

Posted on September 21, 2010
While I was away the Task Force on Indigent Defense came out with its quarterly newsletter in August. Here are some highlights:From the Timothy Cole Advisory Panel on Wrongful Convictions: Report and Research. Anyone interesting in the job of chief at Harris County's newly authorized public defender officer has until Friday to turn in their application...

TDCJ budget cut suggestions set agency up to fail

Posted on September 21, 2010
The state budget folk who estimate such things now say Texas' budget shortfall may be a jaw-dropping $21 billion next biennium, exacerbated by the fact that last session legislators only balanced the budget using $14 million in stimulus funding.Which brings us to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's Legislative Appropriations Request (large pdf), which was finalized while I was on vacation...

County indigent defense costs far outpacing inflation

Posted on September 21, 2010
While I was away, most Texas counties approved their annual budgets and one of the big criminal justice growth areas in recent years for many of them has been rising indigent defense costs - a function of increased state regulation and the fact that the number of new cases has continued to rise (inexplicably) despite crime declining across the state...

Vote for me: My work doesn't suck as much as it used to

Posted on September 21, 2010
In an endorsement of Democrat Keith Hampton, the Dallas News says Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Michael "Keasler concedes that the court has a poor reputation, but he says the quality of its work has improved drastically in recent years, bringing it into 'the mainstream' nationally...

Blog interviews with Whitmire, Ellis

Posted on September 21, 2010
Charles Kuffner at Off the Kuff recently posted interviews (audio only) with Texas Senate Criminal Justice Committee Chairman John Whitmire and state Sen. Rodney Ellis, two Democratic leaders on criminal justice topics. Interested readers may want to give them a listen...

Reining in bad cops in Dallas: A good start but an intractable situation

Posted on September 20, 2010
An unwritten rule among many police officers and agencies is that suspects who run from the cops get a beating, which is what happened recently in Dallas according to dash-cam video which showed officers "beating motorcyclist Andrew Joseph Collins with a baton and fists as he appears to be giving up after a brief, high-speed chase through southern Dallas...

Resources wasted on harsh punishments, registration for low-risk 'sex offenders'

Posted on September 20, 2010
While I was away Jordan Smith at the Austin Chronicle published an excellent story on wasted law enforcement resources devoted to Texas' sprawling sex-offender registration program. Here's a notable excerpt:The original idea for increasing penalties and restrictions, and for creating the public registry, was that harsh punishment and the public branding of offenders would enhance public safety ? saving children, especially, from falling victim to sexual predators...

You've been warned: Final Keller appeal up today

Posted on September 20, 2010
The special court of review evaluating the State Commission on Judicial Conduct's warning of Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Sharon Keller will be held this afternoon at 1:30 at the Texas Supreme Court here in Austin, I learned from the Texas Moratorium Network...

Keller appeal marked by byzantine legal debates

Posted on September 20, 2010
This afternoon I attended Sharon Keller's appellate hearing mentioned earlier today on Grits, and I must say I don't envy the three justices charged with deciding the obscure, narrow legal issues before them. The legal arguments were so byzantine nobody seemed to completely grok how all the different rules and statutes worked together, and it seemed to me the simplest solution might be for the court to remand the case back to the State Commission on Judicial Conduct for the equivalent of re-sentencing...

Name names, please

Posted on September 19, 2010
Michael Landauer at the Dallas News wrote a telling post reacting to Jeff Blackburn's lament on Grits while I was gone about why eyewitness ID reforms, which seem obvious to anyone paying attention, can't seem to gain traction. He declares that:Candidate interviews have been interesting this year in a very unexpected way...

Dallas constables' traffic units on chopping block thanks to budget crisis

Posted on September 18, 2010
In the bloated, over-funded arena of criminal justice, budget crises may frequently succeed in forcing politicians to focus on public policy over special interests where rational arguments have failed. Such is the case with constables' offices in Dallas County, where commissioners will likely vote Monday to eliminate 80 positions devoted to traffic enforcement...

Airport security, Kurt Cobain, and the Fourth Amendment

Posted on September 18, 2010
Yesterday Kathy and I flew back into the United States from what turned out to be a wonderful, much-needed and delightfully relaxing vacation - London, Berlin, visiting friends in a national park in northern Germany, then to Barcelona for 9 days of sun, surf, and sightseeing...

Spelman: Austin police soak up too much of local budget

Posted on September 18, 2010
Thanks to Austin City Councilmember Bill Spelman for making a point that our capital city media have been loathe to acknowledge over the last decade, as reported in the Austin Chronicle:"Over the last 10 years, public safety spending per person, in real terms, has gone up by nearly 50 percent since the year 2000," a 45% increase from $365 to $529...

Scandalous state of city jails unlikely to change anytime soon

Posted on September 17, 2010
Brandi Grissom at the Texas Tribune reports that "Since 2005, 66 people have died" in municipal jails that are unregulated by the State Commission on Jail Standards, 40% by suicide. She quotes a warning fromJames McLaughlin, the executive director and general counsel of the Texas Police Chiefs Association, [who] says city jails are so small and inmates stay there for such short periods of time that it would be unrealistic to apply county jail standards to municipal facilities...

Forensic Science Commission wants to hear from arson experts, rebuffs Bradley

Posted on September 17, 2010
I just rolled back into Austin this afternoon, still a little jet lagged, to find that the Todd Willingham saga at the Texas Forensic Science Commission has continued to heat up in my absence. Chairman and Williamson County DA John Bradley was snubbed by his fellow commission members, who insisted on hearing from experts hired by the state before rejecting their conclusions out of hand in a draft prepared by Bradley and commission staff...

Progress and Its Discontents- Or, What I Learned From An Article in Texas Monthly

Posted on September 13, 2010
Hey, everybody. Jeff Blackburn here. I hope a good week was had by all. I sincerely appreciated all of the comments to my last post. I avoided answering them individually because it seemed better to let folks argue it out with each other. As far as I can tell, that approach stimulated discussion-which is pretty much the point, right? Many thanks...

Key Report, Articles, and New Coalition Update

Posted on September 09, 2010
Hi everyone, it?s Ana, hope you?re all having a great day.I received a notice today that an important report has been posted on TDCJ?s website. During Texas? 2009 state legislative session, lawmakers passed H.B. 1711, relating to requiring the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to establish a comprehensive reentry and reintegration plan for offenders released or discharged from a correctional facility...

Busy Day For Criminal Justice

Posted on September 07, 2010
Good Morning Everyone, It?s Ana Yáñez-Correa again, and as I gear up for a busy morning in this rainy weather, I just wanted to keep readers apprised of a couple of important hearings today: The Texas Judicial Council the Office of Court Administration (OCA) will present its Legislative Appropriations Request for fiscal years 2012 and 2013 to the Budget, Planning and Policy Division of the Governor's Office and to the Legislative Budget Board...

The Coming Crisis in Indigent Defense

Posted on September 06, 2010
Jeff Blackburn here. Thanks for the comments, both on- and off-the wall, to my guest entry last week. I appreciated them all very much. I?m sorry for not getting back here sooner- I got way too busy last week. Besides, I figure lengthy absences from guest bloggers will help us all get what we know we want: the timely return of Mr...

Why so few DWIs in Berlin? Public transport

Posted on September 02, 2010
I'm writing from Berlin, which I'm finding to be just a fabulous city, but while I'm waiting on the missus this morning I thought I'd share with Grits readers a conversation I had yesterday with a German cop about DWIs.There's a LOT of drinking in Berlin, where locals and tourists alike definitely enjoy their beer, generally a half-liter at a time...

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