Criminal Law

Will home visits and curfew checks for probationers, parolees fall victim to budget cuts?

Posted on March 14, 2011
The type of home visits and curfew checks for probationers and parolees described in this TV news story from Richland are exactly the type of activities that will likely cease if proposed cuts to local probation departments and TDCJ's parole division are enacted:Ten officers checked six bars and 58 residences with 51 contacts being made with offenders or other household members...

Slow bureaucracy boosting Harris jail crowding; bill would institutionalize delays

Posted on March 14, 2011
A bill by Rep. Debbie Riddle  that's up tomorrow in the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee would extend the stay of misdemeanor defendants booked into the county jail from a maximum of 24 to 36 hours until they receive a probable cause hearing...

Constable layoffs due to budget cuts not necessarily a bad thing

Posted on March 14, 2011
We've already witnessed Dallas constables laid off in the budget cycle last fall, and Harris County Constables in Precincts 2, 4, and 5 are now laying off officers because of the budget crunch. It occurs to me that as counties begin to cut their criminal justice spending in light of declining tax revenues - given their constitutional obligations and the practical necessity of running local jails - it will probably be constables' offices, particularly those which have assumed day-to-day law enforcement functions, that take the biggest hit in the coming round of county budget cuts this fall...

Budget cuts would force police officers, jails to care for mentally ill

Posted on March 13, 2011
This AP story by Sommer Ingram makes the excellent point that budget cuts to mental health services amount to a de facto decision to force police officers and county jails to care for the mentally ill:"We're about to see huge setbacks. I think we're going to get slaughtered," said Leon Evans, chief executive of Bexar County Mental Health Care services...

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$162 million savings from probation, diversion cuts will cost more than twice that in extra incarceration costs

Posted on March 13, 2011
The Texas Tribune's Brandi Grissom has a piece in the New York Times today focused on the consequences of proposed cuts to diversion programs and reentry services for inmates leaving Texas prisons. Texas legislators, looking for ways to plug an estimated $15 billion to $27 billion budget hole, are considering proposals that would cut as much as $162 million from rehabilitation and treatment programs meant to help criminals avoid going back to prison...

Dog on Dog Open-Government Action, the Fiction of the Consensual Police Encounter, and other stories

Posted on March 13, 2011
Here are a few items I ran across recently that deserve Grits readers' attention:Backstory on breaking Austin open government scandalGet the full background on the Austin City Council Open Government Scandal when the Jennifer Peebles at the Texas Watchdog interviews Ken Martin at the Austin Bulldog in a TW podcast...

Failure rates high on the Texas prison guard career ladder

Posted on March 11, 2011
Wednesday I mentioned that RIFs (reductions in force) among Texas prison guards could probably be accomplished through attrition instead of having to do actual "layoffs." Today let's look a little closer at the turnover rate among Texas correctional officers, as described in a report (not online) I received in an open records request from TDCJ called "FY 2010 Agency Turnover by Title...

Possession busts driving increased drug arrests: States tired of footing the bill

Posted on March 11, 2011
Will Texas join a growing number of states adjusting their drug laws to save money and focus criminal justice resources on more serious offenders? If they did, this blog has argued it would save many millions of dollars at both the state and county levels...

Blast from the past: "A sorry mess, indeed"

Posted on March 11, 2011
After I asked someone recently to tell me about "N-Group" prisons, they pointed me to a lengthy, 15-year old story from Texas Monthly by Robert Draper titled, "The Great Texas Prison Mess." I'm not sure I've seen it before but the article is well-named, giving a good perspective on the Ann Richards-era push for "the greatest expansion of prison beds in the history of the free world" and the immediate aftermath...

Skinner case boosts chances for improving state DNA testing statute

Posted on March 10, 2011
I've not had time to give more than passing attention to Hank Skinner's much-remarked victory at the US Supreme Court, allowing federal civil rights lawsuits to seek DNA testing on top of Texas' Ch. 64 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, our DNA testing statute...

Private prison bubble bursting? Empty, speculative jails in Texas

Posted on March 10, 2011
Yesterday I'd written about the ugly finances underlying the all-but-empty Jack Harwell Detention Center in McLennan County, and it made me realize that right now there are quite a few jail and prison facilities out there - many owned by counties - that overbuilt banking on ever-growing inmate populations that haven't materialized and now appear unlikely...

Lives of the Saints: Private Prison Edition

Posted on March 09, 2011
Earning him a nomination, to be certain, for Patron Saint of the Texas Prison Bidness Blog, "Mando" Martinez yesterday filed HB 2589 that reads like a wish list for private prison reform advocates.It requires a public hearing in each commissioner's precinct before counties approve contracts with private prison firms...

Prison guard cuts could come through attrition

Posted on March 09, 2011
If the Legislature orders TDCJ to reduce the number of correctional officers and close prisons, the cuts could probably be managed effectively through attrition with few actual layoffs, according to a report (not online) I received in an open records request from TDCJ called "FY 2010 Agency Turnover by Title...

Rick Perry vs. Sheila Jackson-Lee on expanding the sex-offender registry?

Posted on March 09, 2011
The Houston Chronicle has some breaking news that Grits readers learned two months ago: "The state - which has the second-largest sex offender database in the nation, with 63,000 men and women registered - is balking at the [new federal] requirements, citing unacceptably high costs of implementing the law's provisions...

When fewer inmates is a big problem: Perverse incentives and the McLennan County Jail

Posted on March 09, 2011
A reader forwards me a rather odd article from the Waco Tribune Herald (subscription-only) titled "Inmate decline puzzles officials," that plays the role of apologist for a series of very bad management decisions by the McLennan County Commissioners Court...

Coverage of juvenile-justice merger briefing

Posted on March 09, 2011
Yesterday's briefing on the proposed merger of the Texas Youth Commission and the Juvenile Probation Commission was adequately covered by the MSM, so I'll let others do the heavy lifting:Texas TribuneDallas Morning NewsAustin StatesmanLone Star ReportToday's House Corrections Committee hearing, which will be streamed online here starting at 2 pm, will undoubtedly flesh all this out more detail when they hear Chairman Madden's HB 1915.

Cutting "perks" won't achieve budget reductions required at TDCJ

Posted on March 08, 2011
Mike Ward at the Austin Statesman has a story on the practical application of a theme that state Rep. Jerry Madden has been promoting - "cutting perks not people" at TDCJ - that, despite my great respect for the Corrections Committee Chairman, to me seems like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic...

Charles Sebesta's career as a police trainer

Posted on March 08, 2011
Working off a lead she garnered from the comments of a Grits post, she informs me via email, Houston Chronicle columnist Lisa Falkenberg offers up a terrific piece of reporting on Charles Sebesta, the District Attorney accused of prosecutorial misconduct by the US 5th Circuit and a special prosecutor, Kelly Siegler, in Anthony Graves' wrongful capital murder conviction...

Whitmire: 'Ticketing Students at School Teaches the Wrong Lesson'

Posted on March 08, 2011
State Senator John Whitmire's staff forwarded me the following op ed by the Senate Criminal Justice Coalition Chairman that deserves Grits readers' attention.It sounds ridiculous on its face: Young children ticketed at school for disrupting class, marking on a wall with pencil, using a cuss word, scuffling on school grounds, and misbehaving on a school bus...

Legislation in Senate committee would overhaul Task Force on Indigent Defense

Posted on March 08, 2011
State Sen. Rodney Ellis has a substantive bill up today in the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, SB 170, which I'm told would implement recommendations from the legislative working group of the Task Force on Indigent Defense - basically overhauling and renaming the agency...

Oppose legislation that could prevent reporting police misconduct, bloat budget

Posted on March 08, 2011
There's a bill up in House Criminal Jurisprudence today, HB 41 by Rep. Jose Menendez, that would create a new state jail felony for making false allegations that a police officer engaged in felonious conduct, upping the charge from a Class B misdemeanor...

Nominations Chair: Bradley appointment as forensic chair looks doomed as Rs join opposition

Posted on March 07, 2011
Peggy Fikac at the Houston Chronicle quotes Texas Senate Nominations Chairman Bob Deuell on the waning prospects for Williamson County DA John Bradley's confirmation by the Senate as Forensic Science Commission Chairman."The Democrats are not going to vote for him, and there are two Republicans that are not," said Senate Nominations Committee Chairman Bob Deuell, R-Greenville...

Briefing on TYC-TJPC merger Tuesday

Posted on March 07, 2011
Those looking forward to learning more about the proposed merger between the Texas Youth Commission and the Juvenile Probation Commission, here's the event for you, at least before we get to the big hearing on Wednesday. Via email press release:Special media briefing tomorrow on TYC/Juvenile Justice Reform with Chairman Madden and Advocates   Who: Rep...

Report: Whites more likely to be freed on bond than minorities in Harris County

Posted on March 06, 2011
An article in the Houston Chronicle today hits on familiar themes to Grits readers, discussing a new report from Houston Ministers Against Crime, a group of politically connected black ministers, and the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition analyzing pretrial detention patterns by race...

El Paso adult probation broke, nearly can't make payroll, may seek state bailout

Posted on March 05, 2011
There's a remarkable story developing in El Paso at the West Texas CSCD, according to a local TV station. The local probation department is broke, and in December came within 48 hours of not making its payroll. The probation chief has been sent on vacation pending his retirement in May, but it's not clear if the budget shortfall is due to mismanagement or structural financial problems...

Exonerees prevail in compensation suit vs. Comptroller

Posted on March 05, 2011
The State Supreme Court sided with exonerees in a lawsuit against the state Comptroller, who had disapproved portions of their compensation for false convictions because they were on probation or parole when falsely convicted of a different crime and revoked over the false allegations...

Bill to merge juvenile justice agencies up next week

Posted on March 05, 2011
Big hearing on Wednesday on the juvenile justice front: The House Corrections Committee will hear Chairman Jerry Madden's HB 1915, "Relating to abolishing the Texas Youth Commission and the Texas Juvenile Probation Commission and transferring the powers and duties of those agencies to the newly created Texas Juvenile Justice Department and to the functions of the independent ombudsman for the Texas Youth Commission...

Police arguments against recording interrogations allow fear to impede self-interest

Posted on March 04, 2011
Some law enforcement interests, to me, inexplicably, have come out against legislation carried by Rep. Pete Gallego and Sen. Rodney Ellis requiring police to record interrogations in serious violent crimes. The DAs are split - some want interrogations recorded because for them it's more and better evidence - but police unions and a handful of law-enforcement agencies have been adamant against the legislation...

Austin City Council flaunts Open Meetings, Public Information Acts

Posted on March 04, 2011
The Austin City Council not only for years has been violating the Open Meetings Act through a "walking quorum" - with the Mayor meeting one-on-one or one-on-two before council meetings to deliberate instead of discussing city business publicly - it turns out they've got a secret texting system where they immediately delete conversations in order to intentionally subvert the Public Information Act...

Newspapers don't like John Bradley, and now Galveston jail inmates can read about it

Posted on March 03, 2011
Here are a few quick items that would merit more attention if I had time today:Houston's latest DNA exonereeTexas latest DNA exoneration came out of Houston this week involving a man who spent 17 years incarcerated after being falsely convicted for kidnapping and rape...

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