Criminal Law

More disapprobation for Shanda Perkins nomination to parole board

Posted on May 06, 2009
I'm not the only one, apparently, dissatisfied with Shanda Perkins' nomination for the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole. Harold Cook at Letters from Texas vents that: Yesterday, the nomination of Dr. Bryan Shaw came up, to continue as one of three commissioners over the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality...

Senate should reject anti-sex toy activist for parole board

Posted on May 05, 2009
The nomination of Shanda Perkins to the parole board - the anti-sex-toy activist chosen by Governor Rick Perry to make decisions about releasing prisoners - comes up tomorrow afternoon in the Senate Nominations Committee. See prior Grits posts for more background:Governor appoints anti-sex toy crusader to parole boardNomination of anti-sex toy activist to parole board draws more criticismPerkins' push for harsh enforcement of petty vice laws against her neighbors in Johnson County ultimately resulted in Texas' law banning sex toys being overturned by federal courts...

Auditor: TYC not processing abuse complaints quickly enough

Posted on May 05, 2009
The State Auditor's Office today issued a followup report on the Texas Youth Commission's compliance with reforms mandated in 2007. While the SAO found the agency had implemented 72% of reforms suggested in its 2007 audit, they identified several shortcomings:- TYC did not competitively bid 11 contracts totaling $19...

DPS Colonel ousted

Posted on May 05, 2009
Another nasty black eye for Texas law enforcement: The interim top cop at the Texas Department of Public Safety, Col. Stanley Clark, resigned abruptly over allegations of sexual harassment.It's hard to ignore how the decision to force out long-time DPS Col...

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Needle exchange, treatment and redemption

Posted on May 05, 2009
Local-control needle exchange legislation, SB 188, sounds like it's in pretty good shape from what I heard of the Texas House Public Health Committee hearing this morning. Rep. Ruth McLendon laid out the bill with an emotional story of personally going into her own district in East San Antonio to distribute needles with a volunteer group (presumably illegally!) and meeting a young man whose family she knew who later went voluntarily into drug treatment...

A Big Idea for Texas Monthly: Slash Texas' prison system

Posted on May 05, 2009
I neglected to mention that Texas Monthly published a short blurb I wrote in their May "Ideas" issue - the one with Joel Osteen on the cover - touting "82 various and visionary ideas for how to make Texas a better place (Better than it already is, of course, which is pretty darn good)...

Texas considers eliminating LWOP for juvies, two steps ahead of SCOTUS

Posted on May 04, 2009
Amazingly, for once Texas appears to be ahead of the curve regarding reforms to capital sentencing, with the state Legislature poised to potentially eliminate life without parole entirely for juveniles, even as the US Supreme Court has decided to consider whether to ban the practice for juveniles in non-murder cases...

Declining Houston crime doesn't justify politicized rhetoric

Posted on May 04, 2009
Crime in Houston is substantially down, reports the Houston Chronicle's Bradley Olson ("Houston crime is down but not the fear of it," May 4), but demagoguery by media and politicians about crime is on the rise:In the words of a statistician, the decrease in criminality appears to have an inverse relationship, at least for now, with political rhetoric on crime, which has ramped up in recent months...

Company associated with chair of white-collar crime panel subject of fraud investigation

Posted on May 04, 2009
Man alive! You can't make up ironies like this one:The chair of the White Collar Crime Subcommittee of the Texas House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee is affiliated with a company that's been accused of securities fraud by state and federal white-collar crime investigators, Texas Monthly's Nate Blakeslee reports...

Collin County prosecutors could let CCA off the hook for ethical morass in Charles Hood case

Posted on May 04, 2009
National CBS News last evening covered the Charles Dean Hood case, in which a Collin County prosecutor and judge conducted a secret romantic affair during Hood's capital murder trial. (The judge was later appointed by then-Governor Bush to serve on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals with 8 of the 9 current members who now must decide whether to give Hood a retrial because of her misconduct...

Needle exchange bill reaches milestone tomorrow

Posted on May 04, 2009
Legislation to authorize local-control needle exchange programs will reach a milestone tomorrow when SB 188 finally receives a hearing in the House Public Health committee. The previous chair, Dianne Delisi, had singlehandedly blocked the bill in 2007 after a bipartisan supermajority of senators approved it...

Oh, THOSE assets: Judge Keller not so poor after all

Posted on May 03, 2009
After pleading poverty and asking the state to pay for her defense counsel in removal proceedings by the Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct, Court of Criminal Appeals Presiding Judge Sharon Keller has revealed $2.4 million in assets she previously had not disclosed in her state ethics filings...

Sharon Keller: Out by 2010?

Posted on May 03, 2009
I just put up a reader poll in the sidebar posing the question, "Will Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Presiding Judge Sharon Keller keep her job through the end of the year?" Possible answers are "Yes," "No, she'll be impeached," No, she'll be removed by the Commission on Judicial Conduct," or "No, she'll resign...

The testilying 'Bushmen'

Posted on May 03, 2009
At the Dallas News, Tanya Eiserer had an excellent story this week ("Dallas police officer's testimony may taint dozens of cases," May 2) about Sgt. Randy Sundquist, a Dallas police officer officially branded a liar and banned from testifying in court after an administrative judge overturned his firing in the mid-'90s...

Sex parte: Coverup of judicial tryst tests CCA's ethical mettle

Posted on May 02, 2009
March and April were both memorably bad months for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, with the Commission on Judicial Conduct initiating removal proceedings against Presiding Judge Sharon Keller followed by the House of Representatives considering a resolution to impeach her...

The Guessing Game

Posted on May 02, 2009
Watching an old movie with the missus this evening, this line made me laugh out loud:"Without the facts, the science of criminal investigation is nothing more than a guessing game."- Inspector Clouseau, The Pink Panther, "A Shot in the Dark," 1964Indeed...

40% of Criminal Jurisprudence bills boost criminal penalties

Posted on May 01, 2009
As has probably been the case every legislative session in living memory, bills boosting criminal penalties account for a lion's share of legislation coming out of the Texas House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee this year. According to Emily Ramshaw at the Dallas News ("Texas legislature cranking out a variety of stiffer penalties for obscure crimes," May 1), "Of the more than 100 bills the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee has endorsed this session, roughly 40 percent strengthen penalties for crimes or tighten restrictions on criminal offenders...

TDCJ closing visitation this weekend over swine flu

Posted on May 01, 2009
This notice has been place at the top of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice website regarding visitation this weekend:As a preventive measure, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice is canceling visitation at all facilities for the weekend of May 2 ? 3, 2009...

BS claim of the day: 'Justice doesn't have anything to do with revenue'

Posted on April 30, 2009
Arlington, TX was the lead example in a USA Today story about cities and counties boosting reliance on traffic ticket and fine revenue to raise money during the economic downturn ("Courts trying to nail fine dodgers," April 29):Spurred on by tight budgets and long lists of delinquents, courts across the USA are stepping up efforts to catch fine-dodgers who, combined, owe hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid fines...

Houston crime lab only reported prosecution friendly evidence

Posted on April 30, 2009
New evidence in a Houston case may or may not exonerate a man convicted of rape, the Houston Chronicle reports ("Houston man likely to be freed after 22 years," April 30), but it definitely exposed egregious misconduct by Houston crime lab personnel:A Harris County man who spent 22 years in prison for a rape that forensic tests now indicate he did not commit is expected to be freed Thursday...

Federal judge may reverse ruling on TYC firings

Posted on April 30, 2009
According to Emily Ramshaw at the Dallas News:A U.S. district judge should overturn his ruling that the Texas Youth Commission improperly terminated two longtime employees after the agency's sexual abuse scandal, a federal magistrate has ruled.Two weeks ago, Judge Orlando Garcia of San Antonio said the TYC erred when it forced Patricia Logterman and Corinne Alvarez-Sanders to resign or be terminated in mid-2007...

Johnnie Lindsey, Dallas DA, tell exoneration story on daytime TV

Posted on April 30, 2009
Go here to see a clip of DNA exoneree Johnnie Lindsey, Dallas District Attorney Craig Watkins, Lindsey's attorney Michelle Moore and Lindsey's fiance' appearing this morning on the daytime TV show, The View. (N.b., It made me download special software to watch the clip on ABC's site...

While I'm out ...

Posted on April 29, 2009
Just a few odds and ends before I head out the door for the day:Dallas DNAI wanted to watch and review the new TV show Dallas DNA, which premiered last night, but apparently we don't get the Investigation Discovery channel in Austin. It's focused on the efforts of the Dallas District Attorney's Conviction Integrity Unit and appears to feature quite a few people I've personally gotten to meet over the last year working for the Innocence Project of Texas...

Should it be a felony to steal a $35 goat?

Posted on April 29, 2009
A senate bill being heard today in the Texas House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee - SB 1163 by Seliger - to me is a classic case study of how the road to hell (or at least bad public policy) is frequently paved with good intentions.Sen. Seliger's bill would make it a felony to steal a single goat, sheep, swine or any other type of livestock, no matter what its value...

Impeaching Sharon Keller: First Lege discussions on removing Court of Criminal Appeals' Presiding Judge

Posted on April 28, 2009
For the first time in 34 years last night, the Legislature heard an impeachment resolution regarding a sitting judge - Presiding Judge Sharon Keller of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. I couldn't attend but am listening to the hearing online this morning...

Repaying Debts: Child support, victim restitution should be top priorities for offender payments

Posted on April 28, 2009
After I wrote recently about a slew of bills increasing fees for probationers, Carl Reynolds from Texas' Office of Court Administration pointed out a recent report from his shop in conjunction with Dr. Tony Fabelo of the Council of State Governments' Justice Center titled "Repaying Debts" that addresses these and other closely related subjects...

Newspapers endorse compensation for false convictions

Posted on April 28, 2009
Two major daily newspapers today urged the Texas Senate to approve legislation improving compensation for exonerated defendants.Austin Statesman: Compensation for unjust convictions in TexasDallas News: Exonerees deserve better compensationThe Statesman argued that the bill:could actually save the state money by preventing lawsuits and avoiding large settlements and legal fees...

Improving criminal justice data

Posted on April 27, 2009
A couple of GOP senators want Texas criminal justice data improved:The House Public Safety Committee today will hear SB 777 by Sen. Steve Ogden that requires DPS and local agencies to gather statistical information about outcomes in Texas DWI cases - how many are dismissed, how many plead to lesser charges, etc...

Keller impeachent proceedings begin today

Posted on April 27, 2009
I didn't think we'd see this during the 81st Texas Legislature, but the impeachment resolution for Presiding Judge Sharon Keller of the Court of Criminal Appeals will be heard this afternoon in the Texas House Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence Commitee...

Exposing judicial misconduct on right-to-counsel

Posted on April 27, 2009
Following up on sentiments expressed in this thought provoking post, Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association chief Mark Bennett issued this message to Harris County criminal court judges who aren't following the law regarding bail and the right to counsel:Dear Harris County judges: The following is a non-exhaustive list of conduct, engaged in by you or your staffs, that is likely to get you grieved: Telling defendants, ?If you don?t hire a lawyer, you?re going to come back every day and stay until 11:30 until you hire a lawyer...

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