Criminal Law

Open Thread

Posted on December 04, 2008
I'm on the road for most of the day today, so use this as an open thread while I'm gone to tell me what's on your mind. In particular, I'm interested to know:How, if at all, might the hot and heavy Speaker's race in the Texas House affect criminal justice policy and politics in the 2009 legislative session?Given lean budget times, how likely is the proposed half-billion dollar, 20% raise for TDCJ employees next year? Do readers think the proposed merger between the Texas Youth Commission and the Juvenile Probation Commission will solve the problems at those agencies identified by the Sunset Commission?Hasta mañana.

Austin police face cuts but ignore obvious savings

Posted on December 04, 2008
The City of Austin is looking at budget cuts to public safety items, the Austin Statesman reports, including a proposed $4.7 million slashed from the police department. Predictably, police union officials "predict that response times would increase and that crime rates would surge as the result of further cuts...

'He did it': Eyewitness misidentifications still happening

Posted on December 04, 2008
Dallas has witnessed a large number of exonerated defendants based on DNA evidence, nearly all of whom were convicted because of faulty eyewitness testimony. And if you think that's not still happening, check out this tale told by Texas Lawyer about a crime victim who identified defense counsel as the perpetrator while testifying in court:On Nov...

Texas death row contraband problems not unique

Posted on December 03, 2008
Texans were outraged recently when death row inmates were found in possession of smuggled cell phones, chargers, and related equipment - including one used to call and threaten a prominent state senator - but it could be worse: In Kenya, they recently found a death row inmate with a contraband laptop and modem allowing internet access which he used to perpetrate "an elaborate scam" in the outside world...

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Federal judge: Give back red-light camera ticket money

Posted on December 03, 2008
Are thousands of tickets given to Texas because of red light cameras invalid because vendors weren't properly licensed? A federal judge recently said "Yes," and that should be cause for alarm for cities who're already gleefully spending red light camera income and now may have to give it back...

Lykos brings changes to Harris DA

Posted on December 03, 2008
Two stories about incoming Harris County District Attorney Pat Lykos deserve readers attention:First, she's already consolidating her own leadership team, starting with a new first assistant, Jim Leitner, and also bringing onboard former Judge Roger Bridgwater...

El Paso flooded with drugs for five years while authorities watched

Posted on December 03, 2008
Prof. Alexandra Natapoff argues that widespread use of confidential informants (a.k.a., "snitches") may actually increase crime overall because the tactic encourages police to tolerate crime instead of enforcing the law.That issue was raised this week by an El Paso court case in which a jury just returned RICO convictions for a half-dozen members of the Barrio Azteca gang, providing a rare glimpse into both the drug-running underworld in Juarez's sister city and the well-intentioned but problematic tactics used to investigate high-level drug crimes...

Could Cheney, Gonzales indictments be legit?

Posted on December 02, 2008
The Brownsville Herald on Sunday ran a feature profiling Willacy County DA Juan Angel Guerra ("Guerra bucks the odds," Nov. 30) and his much-ballyhooed prosecution of a private prison company for murder, including indictments of sitting Vice President Dick Cheney and former US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales...

Grits makes ABA Journal's list of top 100 legal blogs

Posted on December 02, 2008
I wanted to say "Thank you" to the editors at the American Bar Association Journal for naming Grits for Breakfast one of their "Blawg 100," their second annual compilation of what the publication's editors consider the nation's top legal blogs. I'm happy to say Grits made the cut last year as well, but the competition is getting stiffer...

Scarce data makes new TXDoT study on red light cameras suspect

Posted on December 02, 2008
I stopped following the red light camera issue closely on Grits after I left ACLU of Texas, primarily because nobody was paying me to track the topic, which involves a lot of local fights and bitter back-room legislative controversies among hardball-playing, money grubbing combatants...

Memories of home ... in jail

Posted on December 02, 2008
Back in the day, many jailers in small Texas towns actually lived in the jail with their families. The Wichita Falls Times Record News has a feature about a Clay County Justice of the Peace whose family was the last to live in the jail when he was a Clay County deputy in 1971 ("Justice recalls life in 1890 jail home," Dec...

Stuff to read while I'm busy

Posted on December 01, 2008
While I'm focused elsewhere today, let me point readers to several stories I'd blog about in more detail if I had more time:Creative sentencingThe Rockwall Herald Banner recently published a column by a local attorney on creative sentencing practices, their benefits and limits...

Tango Blast differs from other 'security threat groups'

Posted on December 01, 2008
Not all prison gangs are created equal.Tanya Eiserer at the Dallas News had a feature yesterday ("Texas Tango Blast gang draws kids with tattoos, loose affiliation rules," Nov. 30) focusing on the rise of the Tango Blast, an alternative to hard-core prison gangs created by Texas prisoners for self-protection which has now become well established and is much larger than traditional "security threat groups" (the bureaucratic euphemism for gangs) in prison...

Report: Travis County among worst in state at updating crime data

Posted on November 30, 2008
An AP report published in the Statesman gives a little more detail on the study described in this Grits post that found major inadequacies in the statewide database maintained by the Department of Public Safety for criminal background checks:Fort Worth-based Imperative Information Group, a company that does background investigations, looked at 562 cases for offenses that ranged from theft by check to capital murder...

Williamson Sheriff honored for mental health unit

Posted on November 30, 2008
One of the keys to diverting mentally ill offenders from jail into treatment on the front end is training law enforcement to handle mental health calls without making the problem worse and directing people to services on the front end instead of waiting for the court to order it later...

Drug war a flop, say Mexican, US officials

Posted on November 30, 2008
Hard to say what effect such things have on public policy, though it's certainly evidence of the erosion of consensus among elites around the drug war, but from the Los Angeles Times, we see reference to a new analysis from well-credentialed sources telling us:The United States' war on drugs has failed and will continue to do so as long as it emphasizes law enforcement and neglects the problem of consumption, a Washington think tank says in a report co-chaired by a former president of Mexico...

Lonely voice in the wilderness demands end to overcriminalization

Posted on November 30, 2008
I've cracked wise before at the notion that Texas has labeled 2,324 separate acts "felonies" in state law, including eleven involving oysters. Tack on perhaps 3-4,000 more misdemeanors and countless municipal ordinances and county regulations and we really are living in a bizarre period characterized by a phenomenon I've labeled "overcriminalization" - using the law enforcement machinery of the state to manage social problems like mental illness, addiction, business regulation, and a wide range of disputes that in generations past would have been considered civil matters...

Exonerees face difficult re-entry task

Posted on November 27, 2008
With the passage of the federal Second Chance Act and numerous state and local re-entry initiatives for felons, the problem of long-time prisoners needing help to successfully get back on their feet and become productive citizens when they get out has received more focus than any time in recent memory...

Happy Thanksgiving: Go Longhorns, OK State!

Posted on November 27, 2008
I'm taking a couple of days away from the blog to spend with the family and root for Oklahoma State full-time between now and the Bedlam game Saturday. ;)Since this blog is all about justice, I'm naturally highly outraged at the idea that the Oklahoma Sooners might jump past my beloved Longhorns to play in the Big 12 Championship game after the Horns whipped them 45-35 on a neutral site...

Justice system ill equipped to handle mental illness

Posted on November 27, 2008
In the San Angelo Standard Times, a mother tells the tragic story of her son's mental illness and ultimate suicide, including numerous run ins with the law along the way. Lisa Hatch and her husband were both law enforcement officers, but that didn't stop the hand of fate from dealing their family this terrible blow...

Embezzling charges at TDCJ parole

Posted on November 26, 2008
TDCJ has had a bad stretch of luck lately regarding alleged employee corruption, most recently not in the prison system but among parole staff, the SA Express News reported last week (11-20):A former employee of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice was arrested in San Antonio this week on charges of embezzling more than $100,000 while she worked for the parole division...

Counties that agree to judicial emergency plans must be prepared to give up court space

Posted on November 26, 2008
Jeff Rambin at Tyler Appeals writes:I checked out the Interim Report of the Task Force to Ensure Judicial Readiness in Times of Emergency. Basically, it calls for counties to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Supreme Court of Texas. If you sign up, you promise to provide facilities for nearby counties when they're out of commission...

McLennan County private jail deal creates perverse incentives

Posted on November 26, 2008
After high interest rates had earlier caused delays, the McLennan County Commissioners Court this week approved issuing bonds to construct a new jail that will be operated by a private contractor, the Waco Tribune Herald reports ("McLennan County Commissioners Court approves bond sale for new jail," Nov...

DPS crime database too shoddy for thorough background checks

Posted on November 25, 2008
Crime data maintained by the Texas Department of Public Safety is so shoddy that it's unreliable for performing background checks and gives the public a "false sense of security," according to an article in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram ("Texas DPS criminal databases missing thousands of records," Nov...

Hot button SCOTUS cases subject of HLR analyses

Posted on November 25, 2008
In case you're short on holiday reading over the Thanksgiving weekend, via Doc Berman the just-published Harvard Law Review has several analyses of recent US Supreme Court cases from the last term, including notable topics we've discussed here on Grits:Eighth Amendment ? Death Penalty ? Lethal Injection Drug Protocol: Baze v...

Sheriffs privatizing border web cams

Posted on November 25, 2008
Gov. Perry's first stab at his much-ballyhooed border webcams didn't pan out so well, but he and the Texas Border Sheriff's Coalition are back for another try, this time with a private sector partner who's attempting to profit from the venture by selling advertising...

CCA Follies: 'They who have put out the people?s eyes, reproach them of their blindness'

Posted on November 25, 2008
While I've been focused elsewhere, the notorious Charles Hood case - in which the DA and prosecutor admitted 18 years after the fact they were carrying on an affair prior to and during the defendants' capital murder trial - has taken a new, odd twist, with the Court of Criminal Appeals seemingly searching for any possible excuse not to delve too deeply into the extramarital indiscretions of their former colleague, Verla Sue Hollland...

Stingy Bush pardons more often favor Texans

Posted on November 25, 2008
President Bush issued 14 pardons yesterday, including for three Texans, and commuted two more sentences on drug convictions. That makes him the stingiest among modern Presidents regarding clemency. At 171 total, he's pardoned less than half the number of people as Bill Clinton during his two terms, with a disproportionate number of those coming from Texas...

Can TYC make juveniles register as sex offenders?

Posted on November 24, 2008
From the Dallas News Crime Blog:The Tarrant County District Attorney's office is asking the state Attorney General whether the Texas Youth Commission can make juveniles register as sex offenders. The DA's question to the AG: "Does TYC have the authority under § 87...

New Homeland Security chief must reduce waiting lists for legal immigration

Posted on November 24, 2008
With an incoming President who's the son of an immigrant, it's hard not to wonder what the new administration will do on immigration reform, not to mention when Congress might take up the matter.As we watch the transition team for President-elect Barack Obama forming, the most telling immigration-related appointment so far has been that of Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, who will likely head the Department of Homeland Security - a thankless task that includes authority over US immigration enforcement...

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