Criminal Law

Education vs. Prisons

Posted on July 23, 2010
A construction I've seen quite frequently recently during budget debates at all levels of government has been how to relatively prioritize jails and prisons vs. schools. KLTV out of Tyler has a story titled "New jails vs. new schools an ongoing battle" (7/22), in which members of the commissioners court declared one reason they don't want to take jail bonds to voters is the likelihood that Tyler ISD will put additional bonds on the November ballot and voters would choose schools over a jail...

Commissioners sending a message on Smith County Jail

Posted on July 22, 2010
Judging from statements in this KLTV-Tyler story, you can already count 3 of 5 votes on the Smith County Commissioners Court who are sold on bypassing voters to expand the county jail. "Commissioners say after four defeats, the jail's need for growth is so important, they are considering certificates of obligation," reported the TV station...

Driver responsibility program up for debate in House, not Senate

Posted on July 22, 2010
I neglected to mention that new Texas Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Chairman Tommy Williams canceled the August 3 hearing that would have included discussion of the Driver Responsibility Program, though I understand the DRP had nothing to do with the cancellation...

Harris DA Pat Lykos describes detox center idea

Posted on July 22, 2010
In response to a query from Grits, Harris County DA Pat Lykos emailed me today with a little more detail on the idea she proposed at the House Corrections Committee hearing last month to create detox centers where police could take intoxicated people instead of jail...

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Parking case study: Promoting obedience to law through less enforcement, greater facility

Posted on July 22, 2010
A story by Marty Toohey in the Austin Statesman ("Parking pay stations bring in more cash for Austin," July 22) shows how the goals of law enforcement may sometimes be better met by facilitating legal behavior than simply punishing the illegal. The article opens:A year after Austin started replacing its worn-out parking meters with new pay stations, the city says it is issuing significantly fewer tickets while collecting more money...

New shenanigans on arson investigation at forensic commission

Posted on July 21, 2010
Barry Scheck of the national Innocence Project and Todd Willingham's cousin have an op ed in the Houston Chronicle accusing Forensic Science Commission Chair and Williamson County DA John Bradley of more shenanigans aiming to prevent a re-assessment of science in old arson cases...

More backstory on Keller public warning

Posted on July 21, 2010
Rick Casey at the Houston Chronicle has some new detail on the behind the scenes machinations at the State Judicial Conduct Commission over Presiding Judge Sharon Keller's public warning. For starters, he says:During the closed-door session in which the 13-member commission debated what sanction it should give Sharon Keller, presiding judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, one non-lawyer member of the commission opined that Keller should be commended for saving the state money by blocking the appeal...

UK urged to embrace restorative justice for juvie corrections

Posted on July 20, 2010
An important new report out of the U.K. could signal the start of a widespread shift toward use of "restorative justice" techniques in juvenile law, modeled on a program in Northern Ireland. According to this source:A landmark report has called for the introduction of restorative justice across England and Wales to halve the current number of juveniles in custody...

Clear Grits: Texas Tough

Posted on July 20, 2010
As I focus elsewhere today, let me share a few links with y'all that have been backing up on my to-blog list:Deaf man could be next Texas exonereeThe next Dallas-based exoneree could turn out to be a deaf man convicted of sexual assault whose "confession came during 18 hours of questioning and included admissions to fictitious crimes made up by investigators to test his credibility...

Yesterday's graffiti is today's art and tomorrow's economic growth

Posted on July 20, 2010
An exhibit in San Diego incorporating the work of famous former(?) graffiti artists into prominent public spaces around the city brings up a question I've raised previously: "Maybe it's time society started to view graffiti artists not as mere lawbreakers but as creative, marketable human capital? Perhaps it would be smarter to spend public resources not to maximally punish graffiti, but to identify emerging artists and invest in their development?" By 2016, according to a prominent recent study, 1 in 12 Texas jobs will be in the creative sector, which is the fastest growing sector of the economy...

Cornyn votes 'no' on Kagan

Posted on July 20, 2010
The Senate Judiciary Committee today voted to approve the US Supreme Court nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan, but Texas Senator John Cornyn voted against her. Learning of the vote at Sentencing Law & Policy, I left this disappointed comment:I'm embarrassed by my own Sen...

Free Market Privacy Response to Red-Light Cameras, License Plate Readers

Posted on July 19, 2010
A commenter pointed out this commercial spray-on product that defeats red-light camera technology and likely also those pesky new License Plate Readers starting to be used around the state. See a story from Austin's KXAN-TV about the unintended spawning of this new technology and economic market by the expansion of police surveillance apparatus in public spaces...

Terms 'liberal' and 'conservative' have lost all meaning

Posted on July 19, 2010
The Texas Tribune published a "partisanship" ranking of Texas House members, ranking them 1-150 from the most "liberal" to the most "conservative." In response, Paul Burka posted about the methodology behind creating the list, and I left this observation in the comments:?Liberal? and ?conservative? are both terms that have lost all meaning, or rather their meanings today derive purely from the mind of the beholder...

UTMB won't lay off as many prison dentists, but other RIFs stand

Posted on July 19, 2010
UTMB won't be laying off quite as many people in their correctional managed care division as previously reported, restoring dental care to previous levels. (Nurses, especially R.N.s, were the other big category affected.) A reader informed me of the news, which was confirmed when I contacted UTMB's Raul Reyes who declined to respond verbally but later emailed me this written statement:In response to a projected shortfall of $65M?$105M within UTMB?s Correctional Managed Care budget, a reduction in force within the CMC program will take place as scheduled, Wednesday, July 21...

Smith County Commissioners may bypass voters on new jail debt

Posted on July 18, 2010
Figuring three strikes and you're out on voter-approved jail bonds, the Smith County commissioners court is considering issuing "certificates of obligation" (non-voter approved debt) to expand the jail in my hometown, albeit a smaller expansion than previously proposed...

You've Been Warned: Keller gets wrist slap from Judicial Conduct Commission but vows to appeal

Posted on July 17, 2010
Presiding Judge Sharon Keller of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals yesterday received a "public warning" from the State Commission on Judicial Conduct, but the panel did not recommend her removal. See their decision (pdf). A public warning may seem weak, but it's not the exoneration Keller was looking for and is particularly unusual for such a highly placed jurist...

Draconian solutions fail to lower Dallas' uninsured rate

Posted on July 17, 2010
One reason I'm glad to see the proposed new rules for the Driver Responsibility Program is I've become utterly sick of phony, disingenuous non-solutions like the DRP being proposed for the problem of uninsured drivers. The issue has been around forever, voters are frustrated and edgy about it and because everyone drives, everyone's got a strong opinion...

Obama Recovery Act money financing license plate readers Texas told feds were illegal here

Posted on July 16, 2010
The use by municipalities of license plate readers for traffic enforcement seems strange and premature to me and I don't quite understand why it's considered legal. Reports Forrest Wilder at the Texas Observer:license plate readers have only caught on in the U...

Chair leaves Senate Committee just before scheduled DRP hearing

Posted on July 16, 2010
Who knows what this will mean in practice for the Driver Responsibility program, which presumably is still scheduled to be discussed before the Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Committee on August 3, or for that matter the array of other issues facing the committee, but Sen...

Erasing the 'last vestige' of police as neutral truth seekers

Posted on July 16, 2010
The Texas criminal defense blawgosphere has done itself proud regarding the story of Houston PD's new, probably illegal policy that their officers can't speak to defense counsel without prosecutors' permission.Murray Newman first broke the story on July 1 at Life at the Harris County Criminal Justice Center, publishing the actual memo text, as I'd noted a couple of weeks ago...

Amnesty, Indigence programs make it into surcharge rules; 'incentive' program not immediately implemented

Posted on July 16, 2010
Finally we see the new, proposed rule changes to the Driver Responsibility surcharge, and at first blush they look pretty good compared to what the agency had suggested before, though the "Incentive" program regrettably won't be immediately implemented...

What does it take to get a bad cop fired in civil service cities?

Posted on July 14, 2010
What in God's name does it take to get a bad cop fired in towns where arbitrators can trump police management decisions?Do you remember the case in San Marcos a couple of years back when the police officer pulled over a couple rushing their dog to the emergency vet and let the animal die while he kept them there on the side of the road, telling them, "It's a dog, okay ...

FBI catches bad cop but lets cartel have M-16s, body armor

Posted on July 14, 2010
A case of police corruption in South Texas raises a curious scenario, as reported by Jeremy Roebuck at the McAllen Monitor ("Feds: Pharr police officer sold weapons to drug cartels," July 13):A Pharr police officer arrested last week was working as a middleman for Mexican drug traffickers seeking military-grade weapons, the FBI said Monday...

TCJC on reentry, DWI, veterans in the justice system

Posted on July 14, 2010
There were several recent items of interest in the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition's most recent newsletter, including an announcement of the publication of their long-awaited Texas "Reentry Guide." Here's the full contents of their 7/14 e-newsletter...

Questions you can't ask a probationer in Fort Worth

Posted on July 13, 2010
Liberty and Justice for Y'all alerts us to a potentially momentous decision out of Fort Worth's Second Court of Appeals which found that probationers retain their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, a decision which likely contradicts the day-to-day practices of probation departments statewide...

Tuesday morning roundup

Posted on July 13, 2010
Here are a few disparate items that caught my attention which probably deserve more detailed discussion, but I thought I'd at least point them out for readers who're interested:Austin crime lab target of whistleblower allegationsIn Austin, Travis County DA Rosemary Lehmberg forwarded allegations of misconduct at the APD crime lab to the state Forensic Science Commission for investigation after a former employee alleged a supervisor helped staffers cheat on competency tests...

Speculative Lubbock jail opens with no prisoners to fill it

Posted on July 12, 2010
On Wednesday, Lubbock County will celebrate the opening of a new 1,500 bed jail with a ribbon cutting, but county taxpayers might want to show up and turn the event into a good old fashioned tarring and feathering of all the elected officials responsible for this white elephant...

Timeline on upcoming Driver Responsibility rules, hearings

Posted on July 12, 2010
The next couple of months are shaping up to be important ones regarding proposed reforms to Texas' Driver Responsibility program. I'd already mentioned that the new DPS rules will be released this week, and the Texas Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Committee will meet in Plano on August 3 to "Review the possible increase in number of unlicensed and uninsured drivers resulting from license suspensions or indigence resulting from drivers' inability to pay Driver Responsibility surcharges in light of new Department of Public Safety rules...

Media discussion on eliminating state jails lacks nuance

Posted on July 11, 2010
Coupla more stories on the possibility of revamping state jails to become more like intermediate sanctions facilities for probationers instead of little min-prisons:McReynolds advocating state jail changes, Lufkin Daily News, July 11Texas jails: Fine-tune and fund, don't scrap, Austin American Statesman, July 8 The second piece is an unsigned staff editorial from the Statesman that somewhat confusedly advocates against something no one has suggested...

CCA judicial education grants as much about patronage as pedagogy

Posted on July 10, 2010
After the Texas Tribune praised Judge Sharon Keller for grantmaking by the Texas Task Force on Indigent Defense while she was chair, yesterday I mentioned in reaction that "a little-discussed 2009 report from the state auditor lamented that the CCA 'lacks formal, written policies and procedures for awarding and administering grants...

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