Criminal Law

Media gearing up for Sharon Keller ethics trial spectacle

Posted on August 05, 2009
Everybody's gearing up for Court of Criminal Appeals Presiding Judge Sharon Keller's ethics trial in San Antonio later this month. First Texas Monthly published an extended feature and today the Wall Street Journal Law Blog has a post "pregaming" the trial, which begins August 17...

Waiting list for in-prison treatment gone for first time ever

Posted on August 05, 2009
The Austin Statesman reports on an important milestone in Texas' efforts to reduce prison overcrowding by expanding treatment and diversion programs ("After 15 years, waiting list ends for prison drug treatment programs," Aug. 5):For the first time since the Texas prison system's substance-abuse treatment programs began nearly 15 years ago, amid controversy over their cost and effectiveness, programs have no waiting list, prison officials said Tuesday...

Report details Bexar jail days, indigence costs by judge

Posted on August 04, 2009
The Planning and Resource Management Team at the Bexar County Budget Division recently performed an analysis (which I obtained with an open records request) of court caseloads and costs by judge titled the "Bexar County Judicial Management Report." About 35% of misdemeanor court costs and 40% of felony district court costs stem from paying for indigent defense...

Texas Innocence Project vetting dog-scent lineup cases

Posted on August 03, 2009
Time magazine picked up on the story about Fort Bend County Sheriff's Deputy Keith Pikett and his questionable "scent lineups" ("Dogs and the scent of a crime: Science or shaky evidence?," Aug. 3), noting that my former employers at the Innocence Project of Texas are vetting dozens of his old cases to prepare for an upcoming report:In mid-August, the Innocence Project of Texas plans to unveil a detailed study focusing primarily on the extensive work of one Texas dog handler whose use of scent-ID techniques is under fire in the federal courts...

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Bernie Madoff, Jeff Blackburn and me

Posted on August 03, 2009
Friday was my final day on the job as Policy Director at the Innocence Project of Texas, with the end coming because a grant ended prematurely when the JEHT foundation was bankrupted by the Bernie Madoff scandal on Wall Street.(I'm not the only person in in a similar situation thanks to Bernie Madoff: The Texas Criminal Justice Coalition was forced to make layoffs recently for the same reason, with victims including my friend Isela Gutierrez, their juvenile justice advocate, according to an announncement sent out by email last week...

'TYC boosts education opportunities'

Posted on August 03, 2009
The title to this post is the headline from an August 1 Abilene Reporter-News story that described the Texas Youth Commission's new "educational improvement plan." Here are some of the salient details:This fall, the education improvement plan will be implemented, which officials hope will result in better services, better performance by the youth, and more career opportunities for those who are released...

An Hour for Mourning: Maggie Lee Henson, 1996-2009

Posted on August 03, 2009
Maggie Lee Henson, 1996 - 2009I wanted to take an off-topic moment to convey here my sorrowful condolences to my brother John and his family: My niece Maggie Lee Henson was pronounced dead last night at 6:30 p.m., three weeks after a terrible bus accident that also claimed the life of another boy from their church, First Baptist in Shereveport, LA (where John is an assistant pastor)...

Disconnects in debate over Houston crime and policing policy

Posted on August 03, 2009
Here's an odd disconnect in recent media coverage about the relationship between the number of police officers on patrol in Houston and crime rates in America's fourth largest city:When the Obama Administration denied Houston's request for 240 new officers under the COPS grant program (discussed on Grits here and here), Houston Mayor Bill White said, "We were told that Houston did not receive funding because our city budget is not distressed and our crime rates have gone down to the lowest levels in decades...

Total spent on homeless "frequent fliers" better spent oustide of jail

Posted on August 02, 2009
An excellent story by Kim Horner at the Dallas News tallies up the cost of dealing with the homeless in Dallas County, which comes to $73 million annually in publiic and private dollars, half of it for less than 1,000 "frequent fliers." Here's how it begins:Dallas County taxpayers spend about $50 million a year sheltering, treating and jailing the homeless...

DPS commander coached law-enforcement witnesses, says 5th Circuit opinion

Posted on July 31, 2009
In an opinion (pdf) issued Wednesday, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court's ruling that the DPS Commander in charge of the department's Training Academy improperly coached Harris County Sheriff's deputies before their depositions in a Sec...

Corrections second behind Medicaid in sources of state budget growth

Posted on July 30, 2009
A new report (pdf) by the Vera Institute says 22 states have cut funding for corrections because of the current economic crisis. Here's the abstract:States across the United States are facing the worst fiscal crisis in years. All but two states are dealing with budget deficits, and spending is being cut across the board...

Bexar DA stepping into probation department urinalysis fiasco

Posted on July 30, 2009
I've been critical of Bexar County DA Susan Reed in the past, so I've got to give the devil her due. ;) According to Greg Harman writing the San Antonio Currentthe DA?s office has stopped prosecuting probationers solely on the results of an initial dirty urinalysis...

New Harris DWI 'diversion' plan causes more problems than it solves

Posted on July 30, 2009
Harris County DA Pat Lykos yesterday rolled out a highly punitive and possibly illegal "diversion" program for first-time DWI cases, leaving the Houston-area legal blogosphere abuzz. See the actual plan (pdf) and initial analysis from criminal defense attorneys Mark Bennett, Paul Kennedy and Murray Newman; here's the Houston Chronicle's coverage...

ACLU: Pregnant probationers can't be singled out

Posted on July 30, 2009
Lawrence Gist has a notable piece on a friend of the court brief submitted to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals by the ACLU regarding whether pregnant probationers whose urinalysis tests positive for drug use can be singled out for harsher punishment because of their medical condition:The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Texas today filed a friend-of-the-court brief in a case involving the unfair incarceration of a pregnant woman who violated her probation...

Neuroscience and the law, now and going forward

Posted on July 29, 2009
Via The Situationist, check out this excellent 10-minute interview with Stanford law prof Hank Greeley regarding an issue that's increasingly interested me as a result working as Policy Director for the Innocence Project of Texas: The intersection between law and modern neuroscience...

Are false confessions 'coerced' or persuaded?

Posted on July 29, 2009
A segment titled "Could Someone Make You Confess to a Crime You Didn't Commit?" by reporter Erin Moriarty on CBS News' 48-Hours Mystery last night featured two prominent Austin cases among other examples of false confessions, noting that "One quarter of those exonerated by DNA test results actually confessed to the crime of which they were convicted...

Texas shortchanged on COPS grant funding

Posted on July 29, 2009
Since Governor Perry has been disdainful of federal stimulus funds, one supposes he won't be too unhappy that Texas got stiffed on the Department of Justice's COPS hiring grants for new police officers. Though Texas makes up 7.87% of the population nationally, we received just 3...

Stephen Colbert on Tazing Great Grandma

Posted on July 28, 2009
Stephen Colbert last night had an hilarious segment on the Travis County Deputy Constable who tazed a 72-year old great grandmother at a traffic stop. The whole piece is funny but the schtick about the Austin great grandmother kicks in about at about 2...

From Time Out to Hard Time: Young Children in the Adult Criminal Justice System

Posted on July 28, 2009
The headline of this post is the title of a new study (pdf) by Michele Deitch and some of her students at the UT-Austin LBJ School about very young offenders (

New public defender responsible for Texas capital writs

Posted on July 28, 2009
Though this blog doesn't focus much on death penalty issues, arguably the most significant achievement in the 81st Texas Legislature regarding indigent defense was the creation of a new Office of Capital Writs, described thusly in the Houston Chronicle by Lise Olsen ("State to handle capital appeals," July 27):Texas, which executes more convicts than any other state in the nation, will open its first capital defense office next year to manage appeals for death row inmates after years of reports that appointed private attorneys repeatedly botched the job...

Tracking evidence-based probation practices in Travis County

Posted on July 28, 2009
Over the weekend I ran across this fine piece of journalism from the May/June issue of the Texas Association of Counties County magazine describing the details of Travis County's efforts to implement "evidence based" practices at its probation department...

California must reduce inmate numbers to achieve budget savings

Posted on July 27, 2009
Proposals to cut prison costs in the face of a massive budget crisis generated blowback for California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last week after he suggested releasing some inmates from the state's bloated lockups to save money and comply with federal court mandates...

Do COPS hiring grants make sense in a lousy economy?

Posted on July 27, 2009
According to The Crime Report, the Obama Administration is just about ready to roll out its 21st Century version of Bill Clinton's COPS program, where the feds subsidize local law enforcement payrolls in order to hire more officers, with local taxpayers picking up the tab after three years:The Justice Department expects to announce within two weeks grants to hire about 5,000 local police officers nationwide under a $1 billion program in the new federal economic stimulus law, says Dave Buchanan, acting director of the federal COPS Office...

UA lab workers in Bexar allegedly took bribes but no one reported crimes

Posted on July 26, 2009
Apparently the private lab providing urinalysis services to the Bexar probation department has more problems than just a shocking number of false positives; a couple of lab workers have been accused of taking bribes in exchange for false negatives, but nobody thought to inform police or prosecutors about the corruption and fraud...

Madden to chair crimjust committee for National Conference of State Legislatures

Posted on July 26, 2009
This is a well-deserved honor, IMO, and puts state Rep. Jerry Madden, a prominent, mainstream Texas criminal justice reformer, in a nationally prominent spot where he both promote the approaches used in Texas more widely and learn more about what's being done in other states...

Should officers who use drugs, lie to investigators, remain on police force?

Posted on July 26, 2009
This is not a Texas case but the difficulties faced by the Boston PD in disciplining bad cops comes up again and again in the Lone Star State, particularly in agencies whose employment policies are governed by Texas' civil service code. Here are the opening lines to a Boston Globe editorial about the local PD's weak response to an egregious corruption case ("Too easy on rogue cops," July 9):BOSTON POLICE Commissioner Edward Davis sent a weak message on police misconduct last week -- all the more so because it was timed to generate minimal publicity...

Falsifying jail records punished inconsistently by Nueces Sherff

Posted on July 26, 2009
Not every case of falsifying government documents is created equal, apparently. According to an investigation by the Corpus Christi Caller Times ("Sheriff's deputies disciplined," July 26):Four guards were discovered to have falsified logs at the Nueces County Jail on Sept...

Stronger probation praised in drug court setting

Posted on July 26, 2009
An item in yesterday's SA Express News featured coverage of the most recent graduating class in a San Antonio drug court ("Drug court participants celebrate new sobriety," July 25):Drug courts ? intensive probation programs that focus on nonviolent offenders with addiction problems ? have been in existence around the country for two decades and in Bexar County since 2001, said County Court-at-Law No...

Dallas jail improved but still struggling

Posted on July 25, 2009
Kevin Krause at the Dallas News Crime Blog has a several informative blog posts (the first two based on internal, linked memos) that deserve attention from anyone watching the saga surrounding Dallas jail administration:Dallas County lawyers get majority of jail lawsuits thrown outDallas County jail guards may have to stay on past their shiftsDallas County jail guard arrested for having sex with inmate

Can "czar" help Harris jail overcrowding?

Posted on July 25, 2009
In the wake of a harsh findings letter from the US Justice Department that could presage federal litigation, Harris County has created a jail "czar" position which will be held by former District Judge Caprice Cosper. But whatever she's able to accomplish won't stop the Harris Jail population from expanding in the near term, as evidenced by the county seeking more contract beds in Jefferson County (Beaumont)...

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