Criminal Law

Finally: TYC sex abuse trial begins in West Texas

Posted on April 21, 2010
Five years after the allegations were investigated and three years after the underlying allegations hit the headlines, spurring massive upheaval at the agency, former Texas Youth Commission administrator Ray Brookins' trial finally began yesterday. Here's a report from AP and another from the Odessa American, which also recently published an article on the future of the town of Pyote now that the West Texas State School has closed.

Trooper who shook down motorists sentenced

Posted on April 21, 2010
Kudos to the Texas Department of Public Safety for ferreting out a corrupt trooper in an undercover sting who was shaking down Latino motorists. According to the Houston Chronicle:A former Texas Department of Public Safety trooper was sentenced [Tuesday] to federal prison for stealing money from motorists, particularly Hispanics...

Poverty, lack of transportation cause probation revocation

Posted on April 21, 2010
A reader forwards this ruling from Texas Second Court of Appeals affirming a two-year sentence for a woman for violating her probation terms. What were the violations? She:failed to timely notify her probation officer of an address changefailed to complete anger-control classesfailed to attend the Personal Money Power Program, andfailed to pay required feesThe circumstances around these violations, though, were poverty and a lack of transportation...

Consent to search your car lets police dismantle stereo system

Posted on April 21, 2010
A couple of quick Fourth Amendment items via Liberty and Justice for Y'all:First, the US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that when a driver gave DPS troopers consent to search his vehicle, they were justified in taking out a screwdriver and dismantling his car speakers on the side of the road to look for drugs...

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Southern states looking to Texas for corrections budget solutions

Posted on April 21, 2010
A writer from the Georgia Public Policy Foundation gives Texas credit for "Thinking Outside the Cell." Here's a notable tidbit placing Texas in context with other southern states:Texas is by no means alone in creative corrections system thinking. But it is among few southern states achieving success...

Overcriminalization run amok

Posted on April 21, 2010
Actual headline from WFAA: "Dallas woman faces felony as punishment for pruning."Do you suppose felony charges were the only tool available to keep this 67-year old attorney from pruning the thicket in a greenbelt down the street from her house?

Sex Parte okay in Hood case, say courts

Posted on April 20, 2010
I've written before that that Charles Dean Hood capital murder case at times feels like an optical illusion by M.C. Escher, with more things wrong with the picture from each new angle one examines.Truly it must be one of the strangest legal journeys in Texas history...

Harris jail crowding forces stop to arresting traffic violators

Posted on April 19, 2010
Here's an example illustrating why I opposed Harris County's most recent jail building plan. They're using the jail to incarcerate low-level offenders who aren't a threat to anyone, and as long as jail capacity is available, officials won't change the policies that cause jail overcrowding...

Arizona looking to Texas for prison crowding solutions

Posted on April 19, 2010
With their state facing a budget shortfall and overcrowded prisons, the Arizona Republic published an extended feature profiling Texas' probation reforms that's worth reading in full. Here's a notable excerpt:Legislators [in Texas] began exploring ways to house fewer criminals in state custody and put more in community-based treatment centers where they would be provided with more of the tools to successfully re-enter society...

Federal Prosecutors Along Southwest Border Overwhelmed by Soaring Drug, Immigration Cases

Posted on April 19, 2010
The indispensable Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse just released an excellent analysis of drug cases in the five federal judicial districts along the southwestern border, finding that federal drug prosecutions by US Attorneys' offices in those jurisdictions increased 30% overall in the last 16 months...

Leaving Money on the Table: The Argument for Amnesty in the Driver Responsibility Program

Posted on April 18, 2010
The following was adapted from Grits public comments submitted to DPS regarding the proposed indigency rules for the Driver Responsibility program. The Public Safety Commission will hold a public hearing on the rules April 26.Texas Department of Public Safety staff told the Public Safety Commission in February that they?d revised the proposed Driver Responsibility rules from their more aggressive proposal last September because estimates from the Comptroller?s office suggested the changes would cause a steep decline in revenue...

Ohio passes innocence reforms Texas sacrficed on Voter ID altar

Posted on April 18, 2010
Ohio passed some of the innocence reforms that Texas legislators sacrificed on the altar of Voter ID legislation. According to Steven Weinberg at True/Slant:The law, known as Senate Bill 77 within the 128th General Assembly session, runs 25 pages (at least as printed from my computer)...

California considers abolishing youth prisons, cuts to adult prison staff

Posted on April 18, 2010
Coupla notable items out of California. First, according to the LA Times:despite recent reports by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office, the Little Hoover Commission and the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice calling for the system's closure and the reallocation of its $322...

Eyewitness ID reform remains unfinished business for police, Legislature

Posted on April 17, 2010
While Texas passed a laudable innocence compensation statute last session, most other innocence-related legislation (with the notable exception of state Sen. Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa's bill requiring corroboration for jailhouse informant testimony) died in the House as a result of the end-of-session meltdown over voter ID...

TX Appleseed: Don't put misbehaving schoolkids with criminal ones

Posted on April 16, 2010
With the Senate Criminal Justice Committee preparing to examine school discipline issues at a hearing later this month, Texas Appleseed has produced a timely report titled "School Expulsion: The Path from Lockout to Dropout" (pdf). Here's the meat of the accompanying press release:Public interest law center Texas Appleseed today released a new report documenting the overrepresentation of minority and special education students in expulsions from Texas schools -- particularly for non-criminal Student Code of Conduct violations...

Will public support cuts to prisons during budget crunch?

Posted on April 16, 2010
I've not seen any opinion research on how Texans might prioritize budget cuts next year, but a recent poll in California, which is facing an epic budget crisis, found cutting corrections costs is one of the few reductions supported by the public. According to the San Diego Union-Tribune:The poll asked voters if they would support or oppose cuts in 14 areas of state spending to reduce the budget deficit...

Forensic commission's Willingham committee meeting in secret

Posted on April 16, 2010
Committee meetings of the Forensic Science Commission are being held in secret, including a committee evaluating the Todd Willingham arson investigation which met yesterday. Death penalty activist Scott Cobb emailed FSC coordinator Leigh Tomlin to ask:I heard your voice mail that the Complaint Screening Committee and the Investigative Committee on the Willingham/Willis Case held meetings yesterday in Dallas...

'Absolutely irresponsible': Okies boosting criminal penalties but can't house inmates they've got

Posted on April 16, 2010
Oklahoma prison officials are calling out their Legislature for continuing to boost criminal penalties at a time when prisons are jam-packed and understaffed. Reports Tulsa World ("State corrections officer staffing historically low," April 16):Board [of Corrections] member Robert Rainey said the board's suggestions on ways to save money have not been accepted by lawmakers...

Harris deputies form Caucasian officers group

Posted on April 16, 2010
This is so stupid I hate to bring it up, but a disgruntled Harris County Sheriff's deputy has launched a new organization he's dubbed the Caucasian Law Enforcement Association, which hopes to compete for membership with the Harris County Deputies Organization and black and Latino officer groups, even seeking authority for payroll deductions...

Fortress America, meet the Texas capitol: Metal detectors, xrays coming at entrances

Posted on April 15, 2010
So a problem presents itself: After an argument with a state Senate staffer, an angry constituent went outside the building and fired off his gun.The solution by the state: Put metal detectors at the capitol entrances. The state Preservation Board signed off on that move yesterday, with Gov...

Counting inmates in census skews legislative, county district drawing

Posted on April 15, 2010
Maryland this week took the remarkable step of requiring that inmates be counted at their home addresses instead of the county in which they're imprisoned for purposes of legislative redistricting after the 2010 census. Good for them.Several Texas' legislative districts would look significantly different if prisoners were counted in the census as being from their home county instead of the one in which they're incarcerated...

Missouri may join list of states reducing inmate numbers, closing prisons

Posted on April 14, 2010
I've argued that to cut 5% or more from Texas' prison budget would require additional policy changes to reduce inmate populations, not just slashing prison or community supervision budgets. So I was interested to see Missouri's Legislature considering policy reforms to reduce its prison expenses...

Texas Private Prisons Map

Posted on April 14, 2010
From the blog Texas Prison Bidness, see their new Texas Private Prisons Map.The new map gives readers a chance to see which private prison corporations operate the most prisons in Texas. The map also includes contact information for each facility, and the "facility pages" and "company pages" will track all our upcoming posts related to scandals and news involving specific private prison companies and their facilities...

Public hearing set for April 26 on Driver Responsiblity rules

Posted on April 14, 2010
The details of the Public Safety Commission's public hearing on their Driver Responsibility rules have been announced, received via email: AGENDA Public Safety Commission Meeting April 26, 2010, 3:00 p. m. ? 7:00 p.m. Senate Committee Hearing Room E1...

Tracking criminal justice spending in federal stimulus grants

Posted on April 14, 2010
Until his newspaper inquired, says the Statesman's Laylan Copelin, the Governor's Criminal Justice Division "ignored state law and his own executive order that require all state agencies and institutions of higher education to be 'accountable and transparent' by posting their stimulus spending reports on their Web sites...

Nagy lauded for strong probation reforms in Travis County

Posted on April 14, 2010
Bernice Yeung at Miller-McCune new service has a profile of Travis County probation director Geraldine Nagy, featuring strong probation reforms in her department which have become a national model ("New Conditions of Probation," April 13). Here's a taste from the story:Within her first year, Nagy had launched what was initially dubbed the Travis County Experiment, an ambitious effort to integrate evidence-based practices into every aspect of the county?s probation department...

Competency restoration often best performed on outpatient basis

Posted on April 13, 2010
Dallas County is experimenting with outpatient competency restoration for some mentally ill people charged with misdemeanors, rather than hold them all in the county jail until space opens up at the state hospital. Reports Jennifer Emily at the Dallas News ("Program for mentally ill offenders offers compassion in court," April 12):Nonviolent mentally ill defendants can now seek treatment to regain competency ? the ability to help their attorneys with their defense ? on an outpatient basis instead of waiting four to six months in the Dallas County Jail for a bed at a state hospital where they are stabilized enough to assist in their cases...

'Going it alone'

Posted on April 13, 2010
Go read the Texas Tribune's Reeve Hamilton's story on pro se litigants and the functional challenges they pose to a court system designed to service attorneys. Here are a few tidbits that jumped out at me:"The Bexar County Civil District Courts saw 1,639 pro se litigants in March alone ? approximately 31 per day...

Reynosa filling in MSM gaps in drug-violence coverage via Twitter

Posted on April 13, 2010
Here's the first example I've seen of local government in a violence-racked Mexican border town using social networking to fill in gaps in media coverage. According to the Houston Chronicle ("Drug-fueled triangle of death engulfs Rio Grande region," April 12):With the traditional media gagged by gangster threats and officials' desire to downplay events, common citizens have largely taken to reporting on the violence on their own though You Tube, Twitter and blog postings...

'Faith-based row' program earns Governor's volunteer award

Posted on April 13, 2010
This is interesting; from a press release reprinted in the Huntsville Item:The G4 Faith Based Row, a program launched in the Wynne Unit in Huntsville, received the Governor?s 2010 Criminal Justice Volunteer Service Award in recognition of its dedication to ministering to offenders incarcerated within the Texas Department of Criminal Justice [last week]...

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