Criminal Law

Deception detection is weak spot in security, police interrogation techniques

Posted on July 06, 2008
How good are police at judging when suspects lie? Indeed, how good is anybody at detecting deception by other people?Having written yesterday about false confessions, I sat up and took notice when (via Bruce Schneier) I saw this post from Ross Anderson at Light Blue Touch Paper, liveblogging from the Interdisciplinary Workshop on Security and Human Behavior at MIT last month on problems related to deception and computer security...

Schneier: Now's the time to limit CCTV waste and abuse

Posted on July 06, 2008
At the tail end of an excellent article in the UK Guardian on the relative ineffectiveness of surveillance cameras in public spaces ("CCTV doesn't keep us safe, yet the cameras are everywhere," June 26), security consultant Bruce Schneier makes a fascinating (to me) observation about the particular moment we find ourselves inhabiting regarding surveillance camera technology...

Recording police interrogations makes loads of sense

Posted on July 05, 2008
I'm increasingly convinced that recording police interrogations would be a win-win idea for everyone in the process. It would provide a lot more certainty when police obtain confessions that the result will stand up in court, plus it prevents or documents unscrupulous police tactics...

What's the matter with Plano?

Posted on July 05, 2008
Has anybody else noticed the steady stream of ugly law enforcement scandals and allegations of corruption coming out in Plano recently, some of them dating back two decades? Taken together, they paint quite a portrait of the Collin County justice system...

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Justifying Failure: Columnist defends steroid testing high school athletes despite logic and evidence. What about police?

Posted on July 05, 2008
I'm amazed anyone can look at the results from Texas' experiment steroid testing high school athletes - which identified two steroid users out of more than 10,000 tests given - and think the idea was anything but an abominable failure. However, columnist Cedric Golden at the Austin Statesman believes that cost-benefit analysis is just fine ("Steroid problem should be tackled at home, not just with testing," July 3):So Texas taxpayers spent $3 million to expose two steroid users? The $1...

Happy 4th of July

Posted on July 04, 2008
Despite recent complaints about law prof bloggers, the invaluable Law Librarian Blog has as good a roundup of Fourth of July themed reading you could ask for here, here and here.Or if that's too heavy for you, here's a lovely flag-themed pic of American sprinter Allyson Felix taking a victory lap after she won the 200m at the 2005 World Championships, a year after winning the silver medal in the event at the 2004 Olympics in Athens...

US Attorney should prosecute TYC abuse cases Hidalgo DA eschewed

Posted on July 04, 2008
The Texas Youth Commission sex abuse debacle last year left the battered agency languishing in conservatorship after the press revealed that the local DA failed to prosecute allegations that a West Texas State School supervisor sexually assaulted male prisoners under his charge...

Free speech, voting, other rights reinstated for ex-felons; after Heller, why not gun ownership?

Posted on July 03, 2008
In the wake of the Supreme Court's Heller decision ascribing to gun ownership the status of an individual "right," Doc Berman at Sentencing Law and Policy has been wondering whether:the Court's forceful embrace of an individual "right of law-abiding, responsible citizens to use arms in defense of hearth and home" could create huge headaches for federal and state prosecutors in the day-to-day operation of the criminal justice system...

Dallas County turns to traffic fines to cover basic budget

Posted on July 03, 2008
Last year Dallas had to forego a traffic ticket roundup because the county jail was overstuffed and couldn't handle the extra inmates. Now that Dallas County faces a $34 million budget shortfall, however, commissioners suddenly appear more sanguine about jail overcrowding...

Wanted posters hung up around town for police chief

Posted on July 02, 2008
You know things have somehow gone horribly wrong when the local police chief shows up on "Wanted" posters around town. Reports KWTX-TV:A warrant has been issued for former Troy police chief David Seward who failed to show up for a court appearance on June 11 related to a misdemeanor theft charge stemming from the alleged misuse of money seized during an arrest...

How much do eyewitnesses really see?

Posted on July 02, 2008
How much of what an eyewitness "sees" represents inputs from the outside world, and how much of it is constructed by the brain?My layman's grasp of new brain science currently revolutionizing views of human cognition remains spotty at best, but much of what's coming out on the topic appears to have implications for the criminal justice arena...

Bench Slapped

Posted on July 02, 2008
In a notable bench slap yesterday by the US 5th Circuit against the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, a three judge panel wrote that:"The facts before us are a core manifestation of a case where the state failed to provide a full and fair hearing and where such a hearing would bring out facts which, if proven true, support ...

Race and Exonerations

Posted on July 02, 2008
Black folks make up 11% of Texas population but an overwhelming majority of DNA exonerees. Reacting to the Patrick Waller case which continues that trend, Dallas South Blog wonders "Where are the white exonerees?":if justice were blind, wouldn?t Dallas County be freeing more white folks by way of DNA evidence? You know that chick (Justice) is peeking through that blindfold every chance she gets...

College to develop screening processes for vetting old arson cases for bad forensic science

Posted on July 01, 2008
I've become interested lately in the revolution in forensic science related to arson and the slew of past cases based on flawed scientific analysis where people are still sitting in prison. So I was interested to notice the creation of the Arson Screening Project at John Jay College's Center for Modern Forensic Practice (in NYC), which just received a grant to support their work...

More Detail on Tim Cole Tragedy

Posted on July 01, 2008
Updating an earlier post, I wanted to point readers to excellent coverage out of West Texas of the state's first posthumous DNA exoneration: Tim Cole in Lubbock, who DNA cleared nearly a decade after he died in prison serving time for a rape he didn't commit...

Debating DWI breath test accuracy from 'The Defense Perspective'

Posted on July 01, 2008
According to Houston attorney Mark Bennett, there are only two times when you should refuse a breathalyzer test at a traffic stop: When you're guilty and when you're innocent. The reason innocent people should refuse, he says, is the machine's high error rate (up to 25%) and the risk of a false positive...

NYPD to require written consent for traffic and home searches

Posted on July 01, 2008
Grits' coverage on the topic of "consent search" reforms - i.e., requiring written or recorded consent for warrantless police searches - pretty much petered out with the veto by Governor Perry of legislation requiring it in 2005. The following session, Perry's renewed veto threat kept the bill from even getting a hearing, though several dozen departments statewide enacted policies of their own accord...

Dallas Public Defender purge raises legal and policy concerns

Posted on July 01, 2008
Several readers emailed recently to say the axe continues to fall around the Dallas Public Defender's office in the wake of top PD Brad Lollar's forced resignation. I don't know the total body county and won't name names out of courtesy to those who lost their jobs, but the purge has now gone well beyond Brad Lollar...

Fair death penalty administration and proposed Golden State innocence reforms

Posted on June 30, 2008
Since I've been writing more than usual in the last few days about the death penalty, innocence cases, and intersections between the two, it's worth pointing readers to a new report by the California Commision on the Fair Administration of Justice, a study group created to analyze the ramification of recent innocence cases regarding flaws in the justice system in the nation's most populous state...

Why not test DNA to corroborate capital innocence claim?

Posted on June 30, 2008
After more than 30 Texas exonerations based on DNA evidence in recent years, I can't understand how Grayson County prosecutors could even consider opposing DNA testing of old evidence before they put a defendant to death this summer who's claiming actual innocence...

Does the death penalty deter murder? How about gun control?

Posted on June 30, 2008
Two researchers whose work on death penalty deterrence was misapplied by opposing US Supreme Court Justices in a recent death penalty ruling teamed up today for a Washington Post editorial to clear up the confusion ("A death penalty puzzle," June 30)...

Death row exoneration show flaws in sex offender registration concept

Posted on June 30, 2008
While we're on the subject of botched capital murder cases in Plano, I'd be remiss not to mention another recent exoneration from death row - Michael Blair, who was convicted of raping Ashley Estell in a case that spawned Texas' sex offender registration laws...

Courts won't examine alleged judicial and prosecutor misconduct in Charles Hood capital murder case

Posted on June 30, 2008
The execution for Charles Hood has been re-scheduled for September, but there's still little indication that the courts will look into allegations of serious judicial and prosecutorial misconduct before he's executed. The prosecutor and the judge in this case allegedly were having an affair during his capital murder trial...

Should states' anti-drunk driving campaign shift to civil side of the courthouse?

Posted on June 29, 2008
More on the question of whether criminal law enforcement is the best way to reduce drunk driving:The missus just read yesterday's post describing the legal blawgger debate over whether DWI should be criminalized, coming up with what I thought was a clever solution...

Scheme to finance county jail with immigration detainees puts future Montgomery County finances at risk

Posted on June 29, 2008
Texas counties hoping that federal immigration detention dollars will subsidize local jail building need to pay closer attention to what's happening in national politics, where both presidential candidates strongly support comprehensive immigration reform...

Hearing sought in Lubbock for posthumous exoneration based on DNA

Posted on June 29, 2008
The wave of DNA exonerations continues around the state at an impressive clip, but the latest instance comes too late to bring justice for the wrongly convicted man. A Lubbock man convicted of rape in 1986 died in prison while serving the sentence for an apparent wrongful conviction...

DWI: A social problem masquerading as a crime wave?

Posted on June 28, 2008
A fascinating discussion is underway in the legal blawgosphere regarding DWI, the threat it creates, and whether criminal sanctions are an appropriate response.Our pal Mark Bennett in Houston began the fray with a discussion of when it's appropriate to refuse a breathalyzer test, concluding there are only two circumstances when you should say "No": When you're guilty, and when you're innocent...

CPS Chief Abandons Ship; 14-day hearing transcrips from Polygamist Roundup now online

Posted on June 27, 2008
In the wake of the botched Great Eldorado Polygamist Roundup, the head of Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, Cary Cockerell, has announced he would retire at the end of the summer. Some legislative committee needs to hold a hearing before he leaves and get Mr...

New local websites explain "what to expect from jail"

Posted on June 27, 2008
The group Jailmedia has put up several new websites have gone up that include firsthand accounts about various aspects of jail life in Texas' largest county jails: Harris County Jail Dallas County Jail Bexar County Jail Tarrant County Jail Why not Austin or El Paso, one wonders? Perhaps down the line...

Delay in Waller's DNA testing kept innocent man in prison, let guilty one go free

Posted on June 27, 2008
It turns out that the actual rapist for whose 1992 crime Patrick Waller was wrongly convicted went free earlier this year because former Dallas District Attorney Bill Hill delayed DNA testing for too long. According to the Dallas News, Waller's defense attorney said prosecutors under Mr...

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