Criminal Law

Perry names Lubbock Sheriff to parole board

Posted on August 17, 2009
After Governor Perry's last nominee to the parole board was shot down by the Texas Senate, he's made an interim appointment likely to gain easy confirmation in 2011: Lubbock County Sheriff David Gutierrez resigned his post today to take a seat on the parole board...

Dogs especially good at interpreting cues from people

Posted on August 17, 2009
In light of recent critiques of Fort Bend Deputy Keith Pikett's "scent lineups" using bloodhounds, I was interested to see this USA Today story about dogs' ability to pick up subtle cues from their handlers:"Dogs evolved with humans, and a number of studies have suggested they are particularly sensitive to human cues," says psychologist William Roberts of Canada's Dalhousie University...

Probation numbers expanded even more than prisons

Posted on August 16, 2009
Via Doc Berman, I was fascinated by this telling chart, which accompanied an op ed by Charles Blow in yesterday's New York Times, depicting national growth in the four major categories that make up the correctional poppulation over a 25-year stretch: Offenders in prisons, jail, on parole, and on probation (or in Texas statutes, "community supervision")...

Rethinking 'America's Unjust Sex Laws'

Posted on August 16, 2009
Yesterday in the grocery store I noticed the cover story on this week's Economist is a feature on "America's Unjust Sex Laws." Doc Berman recently provided links to the two main stories:Unjust and ineffective America's unjust sex lawsI particularly appreciated the observation that "The registry is a gold mine for lazy journalists...

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Good news for once: Texas among national leaders at reducing incarceration rate

Posted on August 15, 2009
I couldn't find a way to post the graphic, but take a look at the fascinating chart on page 5 of this DOJ Bulletin (pdf) depicting the change in states' incarceration rate per 100,000 residents over the period 200-2007. Only New York reduced its incarceration rate more than Texas...

Harris jail loses doc slot as federal litigation looms

Posted on August 15, 2009
In June of this year, the US Justice Department issued a findings letter to Sheriff Adrian Garcia about the Harris County Jail declaring that "Because of crowding, administrative weaknesses, and resource limits, the Jail does not provide constitutionally adequate care to meet the serious medical needs of detainees with chronic illness...

Evidence mounts against dog handler, scent lineups

Posted on August 14, 2009
Depositions in civil litigation against Fort Bend County dog handler Keith Pikett and his use of "scent lineups" have revealed that the Deputy apparently misled the court in the past about his academic credentials, falsely claiming in a capital murder trial that he had a degree in chemistry from Syracuse...

Friday Texas Bribery Roundup

Posted on August 14, 2009
I continue to be astonished by the large number of bribery cases cropping up around the state, both in and out of the criminal justice arena. Here are several items that recently caught my eye:Old-school police protection racketA Dallas police officer operating a protection racket was convicted of bribery in May, reports Tanya Eiserer, and sentenced to 8 years deferred-adjudication probation with a $1,000 fine after extorting protection payments from a merchant on his beat...

Texan named President of NACDL

Posted on August 14, 2009
Via the Blog of Legal Times, congrats to San Antonio attorney Cynthia Orr on becoming the new President of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. (I've met Ms. Orr previously, though I doubt she'd remember it.)What's more, says the BLT, "The defense lawyers? association has chosen another Texan, Jim Lavine, as its president-elect...

California riots while Texas prisons long ago desegregated

Posted on August 13, 2009
The above photo from the LA Times depicts the aftermath of race riots at a prison unit in Chino, CA:It was the kind of explosive violence threatened throughout the state's 33 prisons, which are packed with nearly twice as many inmates as they were built to hold...

Shipping inmates to other counties won't 'lower' Harris jail population, just scatter it

Posted on August 13, 2009
Given that the Harris County Jail has been overcrowded for years and the feds are about to sue them for failing to meet minimum constitutional standards, I don't have a problem on its face with rookie Democratic Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia's decision to ship more inmates to other counties...

Paddling Preferable to Juvenile Justice System?

Posted on August 12, 2009
Whether to paddle kids is an intensely personal family decision, but as long as it's done formalistically, not in anger, and with parents' permission, I don't have great concern to learn from the Austin Statesman that:Texas is one of only 20 states that still permits corporal punishment...

Anticipated early death and youth crime

Posted on August 12, 2009
From the blog Changing Lives, Changing Minds I found this sad, research-driven commentary by an associate criminology professor from Georgia State on how expectations among youth affect their behavior, particularly their willingness to commit violence, reporting results from surveys and interviews of inner city youth in Atlanta: For these young men, a sense of ?futurelessness? breeds a lack of concern for the consequences of their actions...

Federal judge: Parole board may have improperly labeled thousands as 'sex offenders'

Posted on August 12, 2009
While I was out of town last week, federal District Judge Sam Sparks issued an important ruling criticizing the secretive process by which the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole makes decisions about release conditions for sex offenders. Here's how the story by Mike Ward began in Friday's Austin Statesman:A federal judge on Thursday issued a stern rebuke to state corrections officials for the way they classify some parolees as sex offenders even though the defendants have never been convicted of sex crimes...

Juarez Mayor: Release immigrant criminals to their homes, not at the border

Posted on August 12, 2009
The Juarez Mayor says US deportation policies are making it harder to rein in violent drug cartels in that violence-plagued city. At a high-level border security conference in El Paso, according to the EP Times:Juárez Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz said Tuesday that dumping thousands of U...

Judges express 'no confidence' in Bexar probation chief

Posted on August 12, 2009
While Bexar County District Judges will have the final say, a majority of misdemeanor court judges issued a no-confidence vote yesterday for Bexar probation director Bill Fitzgerald. Reported the San Antonio Express News ("Misdemeanor judges vote to fire probation chief," Aug...

States slashing prison costs, closing units

Posted on August 11, 2009
At least 23 states cut prison spending in their most recent legislative session, reports Stateline.org:The national recession is taking its toll on what had been one of the fastest-growing areas of state government spending: prisons. Even though state corrections budgets have ballooned in the past two decades amid a surging U...

Did Austin police commit crime in 'bait car' episode?

Posted on August 11, 2009
I wrote the other day about the Austin PD's "bait car" program in which they left a vehicle with the windows down and the keys in the ignition for several days in a residential neighborhood to entice thieves. In the comments to that post, an alert reader pointed to this page on the Austin Police Department website that claims, "Leaving your key in an unattended motor vehicle is a crime in Texas" (#7)...

NPR on Texas' probation reforms

Posted on August 11, 2009
Texas House Corrections Committee Chairman Jerry Madden and I were both interviewed for a story on NPR's "Marketplace" that ran this morning. Not much new here for regular Grits readers, of course, but I'm glad to see Texas' de-incarceration reforms getting national play.

Public transport, less restrictive zoning would reduce DWI

Posted on August 11, 2009
There's been lots of discussion lately about DWI enforcement, with Harris County implementing a new so-called "diversion" program that really diverts more people to jail and Dallas preparing to expand its "no refusal" blood draw program full-time in September...

TCJC seeks volunteer help with inmate correspondence

Posted on August 11, 2009
After recently losing grant funds and employees in the aftermath of the Madoff scandal, the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition is looking for volunteers to help manage and respond to inmate correspondence. Here's a description (pdf) sent to me by their executive director, Ana Yañez Correa: TCJC seeking volunteers to assist with inmate correspondence...

Mentally ill offenders strain juveile system

Posted on August 10, 2009
The title of this post is the headline of an informative New York Times article published today by Solomon Moore on the impact of mentally ill offenders in the juvenile system, including quotes from a Texas Youth Commission psychiatrist. Here's an excerpt:As cash-starved states slash mental health programs in communities and schools, they are increasingly relying on the juvenile corrections system to handle a generation of young offenders with psychiatric disorders...

Judges have tools to reduce Harris jail overcrowding, if they'll use them

Posted on August 10, 2009
An excellent op ed by attorney Rob Fickman appeared in yesterday's Houston Chronicle (rightly) blaming Harris County judges for jail overcrowding. He provides specific suggestions for how judges must change their behavior if the county hopes to solve the problem without building a new jail that voters don't want:?Judges setting bonds must remember that the people they are setting bond for are, whether they believe it or not, presumed innocent...

Border security and the drug war: Corruption mounts, resources stretched

Posted on August 10, 2009
Here are several interesting items I noticed this morning related to the drug war and the politics of border enforcement:AP: Border corruption on the riseThe Associated Press says law-enforcement corruption on the US side is increasing. Said Mexican President Felipe Calderon:"To get drugs into the United States the one you need to corrupt is the American authority, the American customs, the American police ? not the Mexican...

Houston swamped with warrants for petty offenses

Posted on August 10, 2009
I was interested for a number of reasons to see a story in today's Houston Chronicle by Renee Lee titled "Wanted: Residents with 1.7 million warrants," which opens thusly:Nearly 2 million warrants worth more than $340 million are outstanding in the Houston area, and in most cases they're not for hard-core criminals...

Suspending drivers licenses for 'economic crimes' problematic here and abroad

Posted on August 09, 2009
After proposing a new amnesty program last week for Texas' so-called "Driver Responsibility" surcharge, I was interested to see via the blog Pardon Power that the President of South Korea plans to pardon 1.5 million people for "economic crimes," and "in particular people who earn a living by driving but have had their drivers' license suspended," according to the Korea Herald...

Are 'bait cars' manufacturing crime?

Posted on August 09, 2009
I realize crime is declining, but is it really so rare that police have to manufacture crimes instead of investigating those that are reported? I missed this story when it came out a couple of weeks ago, but the Austin Statesman had an interesting piece about Austin PD's "bait car" program, where the agency leaves a vehicle filled with surveillance equipment parked out in the open with the windows down and the keys in it...

Texas Ranger withheld evidence in sex abuse case, says Texas Monthly

Posted on August 09, 2009
Having just returned from Smith County on some sad business, I was pleased to discover that Texas Monthly is staying on top of an unraveling child sex-abuse case out of Mineola, most recently reporting that a Texas Ranger investigating the case allegedly withheld critical evidence...

'Nuther exoneration implicates Houston PD crime lab

Posted on August 08, 2009
While I was away from the blog this week, Texas saw its 42nd DNA exoneration, this time out of Houston - another case stemming from flawed analyses from the Houston PD crime lab. Here's the New York Times' description:It was a scene replayed with alarming frequency in Texas: a 46-year-old man walked out of prison here Friday afternoon after spending 23 years behind bars for a sex crime that the evidence suggests he did not commit...

Petition for new 'driver responsibility' rules filed today

Posted on August 05, 2009
I've got to leave town this morning and blogging will be light for the next few days. But I wanted to let readers know that the last thing I'll be doing before rolling northward on I-35 will be to file a petition for rulemaking with the new Executive Director of the Texas Department of Public Safety requesting amendments to DPS rules governing the so-called "Driver Responsibility" surcharge...

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