Criminal Law

Many Texas prisoners released unsupervised

Posted on May 28, 2010
Readers might be interested in several presentations to the newly formed state Reentry Task Force which have been posted online. The Task Force's Housing Workgroup/Discharge Planning Committee meets next Wednesday.A presentation by the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition in April contained these topline tidbits:Total TDCJ releases in 2009 (Prison, State Jail, SAFP) = 72,218Of those released, 32,705 are on a flat discharge and not under supervision54...

When detective work becomes yard work

Posted on May 28, 2010
This item cracked me up, from Raw Story:Like the old song goes, one of these things is not like the other...However, remind a police officer in Corpus Christi, Texas of those famed Cookie Monster lyrics and they're likely to give you an annoyed look.That's because a recently discovered cache of plants, initially pegged by officials speaking to local news as "one of the largest marijuana plant seizures in the police department's history," turned out to be a relatively common prairie flower of little significance...

Jailing parents for truancy

Posted on May 28, 2010
If Texas schools were better, perhaps I'd be more open to the idea of ticketing and jailing kids and their parents for truancy. As it stands, it's hard for me to blame youth for voting with their feet and leaving school early, and I doubt criminal enforcement can do much to change that...

Howdy Mr. Secret Service Man

Posted on May 27, 2010
I'm guessing Victoria, TX will be getting a visit from US Secret Service agents soon after an anti-Obama graffiti spree included "Kill Obama," as seen in this photo from the Victoria Advocate. Also evidenced in the photo: Graff writers don't have the benefit of spell-check...

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Reentry focus of House committee, prison ministry at end of June

Posted on May 27, 2010
The House Corrections Committee will meet in Houston June 30 to focus on reentry issues, meeting in the hearing room for the Harris County Commissioners Court. They'll be discussing their Interim Charge #3:Study current re-entry programs and procedures across the juvenile and adult criminal justice continuum...

Do community college cops really need a SWAT team? Should hall monitors in middle school be next to acquire tactical gear?

Posted on May 27, 2010
From the Houston Chronicle we get this disturbing, bordering on ridiculous news:The Houston Community College Police Department is the subject of several investigations following the firing of at least three officers. Those officers and others still on the force also have raised questions about Police Chief Gregory Cunningham's qualifications for the job, as well as his decision to create a heavily armed tactical unit...

New sentencing blog on the block

Posted on May 27, 2010
Doug Berman turns us onto the new blog SentenceSpeak from the group Families Against Mandatory Minimums. I was particularly interested to read this post quoting Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy on the question of mass incarceration:When a questioner referred to comments Kennedy made in 2004 about America?s exploding prison population, the justice responded:"If you were asked to design a penal system that would win the prize for the worst system, the one you?ve got would at least be runner-up...

Medical marijuana popular among Texans; legalizers outnumber prohibitionists

Posted on May 27, 2010
The Texas Tribune included a question about marijuana legalization in a recent statewide poll. Here are the (to me) somewhat surprising results:These data seem remarkable to me for two reasons. First, those favoring legalizing at least small amounts of pot outnumber outright prohibitionists by a wide margin (42-27)...

TX juvie probation chief may be tapped by Obama to run OJJDP

Posted on May 27, 2010
The publication Youth Today reports that Texas Juvenile Probation Commission chief Vicki Spriggs is the frontrunner among finalists to lead the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention at the US Department of Justice. Here's how Youth Today described Spriggs:Vicki Spriggs, executive director of the Texas Juvenile Probation Commission...

Texas' latest DNA exoneration implicates Houston crime lab

Posted on May 26, 2010
The Houston Chronicle reports on Texas' latest DNA exoneration, this one stemming from a mistaken eyewitness and faulty forensics from the Houston crime lab:A Houston man freed last year after spending 23 years in prison for a rape he did not commit cleared another hurdle Tuesday in his quest to be declared ?actually innocent...

Auditor: Dallas DA told of constable allegations in 2008

Posted on May 26, 2010
The County Auditor says Dallas DA Craig Watkins' office was told two years ago about alleged "unreceipted" payments from a towing company to Dallas County constables, reports the Dallas News ("Auditors office says it can prove Dallas DA's office got towing memo in 2008," May 26):The Dallas County auditor's office said Tuesday it has proof that a memo outlining criminal allegations against Constable Jaime Cortes' precinct was hand-delivered to District Attorney Craig Watkins' office in February 2008...

El Paso medical examiner ousted

Posted on May 26, 2010
County commissioners in El Paso on Monday voted 3-1 to fire county medical examiner Paul Shrode after the Ohio Parole board recommended clemency in a capital case because of discrepancies in Shrode's testimony and false credentials on his resume. In Ohio, reports the El Paso Times,Shrode testified that he knew from his autopsy that Nields beat Patricia Newsome in Cincinnati in 1997, left for 15 minutes to six hours, then came back and strangled Newsome...

Dozen Dallas officers disciplined for high-speed chase violations

Posted on May 26, 2010
Given that traffic accidents are the most common cause of on-the-job deaths for police officers, this action by the Dallas PD makes sense even if officers seemingly reflexively chafe at limits on high speed chases. Reported the Dallas News ("More than a dozen police officers disciplined for roles in 2009 chase," May 26):More than a dozen Dallas police officers, including a supervisor, have been disciplined over a lengthy May 2009 high-speed chase of carjacking suspects during rush-hour traffic...

2009 crime data released

Posted on May 25, 2010
The FBI has released crime data for 2009. Overall:Preliminary figures indicate that, as a whole, law enforcement agencies throughout the Nation reported a decrease of 5.5 percent in the number of violent crimes brought to their attention for 2009 when compared with figures reported for 2008...

Whitmire, Patrick suggest seminary inside prison

Posted on May 25, 2010
Reports Mike Ward at the Austin Statesman:After visiting a once-violent Louisiana prison that is now ranked as one of the most tame thanks to a minister-training program, two key state senators today proposed bringing the concept to Texas. The proposal is to locate a religious seminary inside a Texas lockup...

Compensation increased, but reentry transition still rocky for exonerees

Posted on May 24, 2010
The Texas Tribune reports that last week Christopher Scott and Claude Simmons became among the first Texas exonerees to receive compensation under Texas' new statute passed last year. But the story primarily focuses on the six months from the time they were released until compensation came through...

Consultant hired to "assess sexual safety" of TYC youth

Posted on May 24, 2010
From a May 18 message to staff from TYC Executive Director Cherie Townsend:The TYC has entered into an agreement with The Moss Group to assess the sexual safety of youth in all TYC facilities. Andie Moss and her staff and team of consultants are reviewing all of our policies, procedures, and practices on paper and then visiting all facilities over a five-six month period...

SCOTUS to review Hank Skinner case

Posted on May 24, 2010
Radley Balko lets us know that: The Supreme Court has granted certiorari to Hank Skinner, a Texas death row inmate who is trying to get access to DNA evidence that he claims will clear his name. The Court has already ruled that there is no constitutional right to post-conviction DNA testing, but Skinner?s claim is that he?s entitled to the testing under federal civil rights law...

UTMB business in black as hundreds of health workers laid off at state prisons

Posted on May 24, 2010
I'm not sure what to think about the news that UTMB is financially in the black for the first time in years because of state and federal cash infusions following Hurricane Ike. I particularly wonder how that squares with hundreds of recent layoffs in their correctional managed care division? Those two bits of news seem incongruent.

DA convicted of misusing asset forfeiture funds

Posted on May 23, 2010
State Sen. John Whitmire's asset forfeiture reform legislation died last session during the infamous Voter ID meltdown in Texas' House of Representatives, but the conviction of a District Attorney out of Kerrville for misuse of forfeiture funds should put the topic back on the Legislature's radar screen...

Non-DNA cases the future of innocence in Dallas, but Bexar stuck in the past

Posted on May 23, 2010
Now that the Dallas DA's conviction Integrity Unit has mostly vetted the old DNA samples, they're starting to look through possible innocence cases in cases without DNA, which are much more numerous but also harder to definitively prove. Here's how the story in the Dallas News by Jennifer Emily opens ("Dallas County district attorney's conviction integrity unit to focus on non-DNA cases," May 23):It's been almost a year since the last DNA exoneree walked out of a Dallas County courtroom and into the world as a free man...

Graff writer beaten by inmates at TYC's Evins Unit: Chooses isolation

Posted on May 22, 2010
Jeremy Roebuck at the McAllen Monitor has the sad story of a teen convicted of a felony graffiti offense who was sent to TYC then victimized by inmates with more serious criminal histories ("DOJ: Youth prison continues to improve conditions for inmates," May 21)...

Officer death contradicts Houston PD claims that all its cops wear seatbelts

Posted on May 21, 2010
Reports the Houston Chronicle: "The Houston police officer who died Wednesday after crashing his patrol unit hit speeds of 90 mph and was not wearing a seat belt as he attempted to catch up to a chase of a suspected car thief, HPD Chief Charles McClelland said...

Sheep, goats and trolls: An observation regarding the Houston Chronicle comment section

Posted on May 21, 2010
A blind prisoner with a history of mental illness died after he threw urine on a guard at a TDCJ medical facility and an extraction team removed him from his cell. The news story doesn't describe his injuries or say whether they were caused by the extraction team...

Roundup: Short takes on big topics

Posted on May 20, 2010
Here are a few items that may interest Grits readers:The mounting crisis in indigent defenseAccording to Brandi Grissom at the Texas Tribune, "Texas is reaching a crisis point, putting itself at risk of a civil rights lawsuit ? or worse, a total meltdown of the criminal justice system ? because it so severely shortchanges the system designed to ensure impoverished accused criminals get adequate legal representation, advocates told a Senate committee last week...

Which prison health employees getting the axe at UTMB?

Posted on May 20, 2010
Here's a little more detail from a FAQ on UTMB's home page explaining which medical staff at Texas prisons are getting the axe:? What is the breakdown of the reduction in force by position types? Jobs affected: 133 registered nurses; 56 medical assistants; 47 facility clinical associates; 43 administrative staff; 33 dentists; 19 dental assistants; 15 dental hygienists; 5 human development consultants; 4 vocational nurses; 3 patient care technicians; 2 physicians; 1 optometrist; 1 mid?level practitioner; and 1 clinical associate...

Raising funds for art and music in juvie detention

Posted on May 19, 2010
This fundraiser for arts and music programs at Travis County juvenile detention may interest Grits readers. Via KXAN:The cool, spring-like colors fall down the canvas like rain streaking a window - an exquisite piece of art worthy of any collector's wall...

Prosecuting the pointless

Posted on May 19, 2010
I was interested to read this discussion string from the state prosecutors' association regarding bicycle traffic stops. The original poster wanted to know if results from searches at those stops might be suppressed and was told the evidence should get in...

Study: Ugly defendants more likely convicted, get more prison time

Posted on May 19, 2010
Reports CBS News: "According to a Cornell University study, unattractive defendants are 22 percent more likely to be convicted than good-looking ones. And the unattractive also get slapped with harsher sentences - an average of 22 months longer in prison...

Layoffs hit UTMB prison healthcare

Posted on May 19, 2010
Reports the Statesman's Mike Ward:More than 300 prison medical staff members will get layoff notices beginning today in a budget-cutting step some fear could imperil care to thousands of Texas prisoners and land the state back in court.The announcement is expected to ramp up concerns over a growing state budget crisis ? and how Texas can continue to pay for a massive prison health care system that gobbles tens of millions of additional taxpayer dollars each year...

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