Criminal Law

Texas At-Risk Youth Services Project

Posted on February 03, 2011
I just noticed a document from the Legislative Budget Board's website titled "Texas At-Risk Youth Services Project," (pdf), a report to the 82nd Texas Legislature dated January 2011, the Introduction to which begins as follows:The Texas At-Risk Youth Services Project (ARYSP) is an interim research project directed by the Criminal Justice Data Analysis Team of the Legislative Budget Board (LBB)...

Dozens of new crimes proposed at the Lege: Will LBB man up and assign them fiscal notes?

Posted on February 03, 2011
Our buddy Shannon Edmonds from the Texas District and County Attorneys Association checks in this afternoon via email with this news:As of the end of business on Wednesday, Feb. 2, 1,702 bills have been filed (or roughly 25% of the eventual total, based upon recent history)...

Technical revocations still awfully high after much-vaunted probation reforms

Posted on February 02, 2011
Most of Texas' large counties save two saw their number of annual probation revocations decline or remain flat between 2005 to 2010, according to a December report on the state diversion programs (pdf) from TDCJ to state leadership. But somehow Bexar and Collin continued to send much greater numbers of revoked probationers to TDCJ in the wake of Texas' 2007 probation reforms, increasing their total revocations by 62...

Bigger priority on vehicle burglaries: Solving crimes or harsher punishments?

Posted on February 01, 2011
Brandi Grissom at the Texas Tribune reports that the proposed House and Senate budgets both would zero out funds for the Texas Automobile Burglary and Theft Prevention Authority, despite exceptional, on-the-ground results since its inception in auto-theft cases, as depicted in this chart:That said, here's the real tradeoff facing the Legislature on the Authority's funding that Grissom didn't mention: Police chiefs and many legislators - led by Reps Debbie Riddle and Vicki Truitt - want to increase the penalty for burglary of a vehicle (that's stealing items from a vehicle, not auto theft) to a state-jail felony on the first offense...

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Adios to Texas State Law Library? Legal collections statewide feeling budget pinch

Posted on February 01, 2011
The Texas State Law Library would have its funding eliminated entirely under both the House and Senate proposed budgets and its 13 employees all would be let go, at a savings of about $1.1 million per year. Our pal Carl Reynolds from the Office of Court Administration told me he's particularly worried about this suggested cut; at my request, he sent along this summary of the State Law Library's role:The State Law Library provides a combination of materials and services not easily obtained elsewhere...

TYC youth art at the capitol

Posted on February 01, 2011
Via press release from the Texas Youth Commission:An exhibition of artwork created by youth in the Texas Youth Commission will open Wednesday, Feb. 2, in the South Gallery of the Capitol Extension.  Sponsored by Rep. Ruth McClendon of San Antonio, ?Youth Art at the Capitol? will feature the artwork and trade crafts of more than 30 students from TYC secure facilities, halfway houses, parole and contract care programs...

Blockbuster Senate Finance hearing later this month

Posted on February 01, 2011
All the various Texas state agencies dealing with criminal justice are busily preparing for a February 21 hearing of the Senate Finance Committee (see the agenda here). This will be the first, big public discussion by senators of the implications of proposed tight-times budgets on the state's criminal justice system, and should give us more insight into how legislators are likely to react to various agency recommendations...

Risks, rewards of inmate labor and the Thirteenth Amendment

Posted on January 31, 2011
I noticed several recent articles about the use of prisoner labor (both from TDCJ and local jails) to do free work for municipalities, a policy that sounds good on its face but in practice is a two-edged sword, with added security concerns, staffing requirements, a greater risk of escape, and potential displacement of free world workers...

TAC lists unfunded mandates to counties from proposed House budget

Posted on January 30, 2011
A friend forwarded me a summary from the Texas Association of Counties regarding unfunded mandates from the proposed draft House budget, which I've uploaded to Google Documents. (I've always felt an affinity for TAC, since my grandfather W.D. Henson was one of its founders and their first president...

TDCJ reduced spending on prisoner food 13.5% since 2009

Posted on January 30, 2011
Here's a little-discussed budget cut that the Texas Department of Criminal Justice has already implemented over the last couple of years which I was unaware of before seeing it in the recently released analyses of the proposed House and Senate Budgets (available from LBB):Food for Persons - Wards of State:Expended 2009: $106,601,431Estimated 2010: $100,702,356Budgeted 2011: $92,236,867(Data from p...

Dribs and Drabs: Taking Out the Trash

Posted on January 29, 2011
Let me just wipe the slate of a number of items that would merit more bloggerly attention if I had time to focus on them. First, there are good, recent posts up at a number of Texas legal blogs on topics I haven't been covering:The Defense RestsDefending PeopleRobert Guest Liberty and Justice for Y'allAlso, Scott Greenfield at Simple Justice had a recent review of our pal Rev...

Might budget crisis prompt rethinking of prostitution punishments?

Posted on January 29, 2011
Texas Watchdog says Texas could save $8 million per year by incarcerating fewer prostitutes, joining the overwhelming majority of other states that don't treat the offense as a felony, even after multiple offenses. Their post reacted to an excellent KHOU piece on using strong probation through a specialty court to divert repeat prostitutes from prison, and more generally, the life...

Budget cuts would separate church from state (prisons): Chaplains on the chopping block

Posted on January 29, 2011
I was forwarded an email from our friend Emmett Solomons, the former head chaplain at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice who now runs the Restorative Justice Ministries Network, sounding the alarm about the House and Senate budgets both zeroing out all funding for TDCJ chaplains...

Giving props to an unsung hero

Posted on January 28, 2011
Michele Mallin, the rape victim whose incorrect identification of Timothy Cole mistakenly sent him to prison, has been an unsung hero, to my mind, for the way she's handled the aftermath of that horrible revelation. Her error was unintentional; she never meant to frame Tim Cole...

'Six Impossible Things': Do you believe in a conservative, rational, and smaller corrections budget?

Posted on January 28, 2011
Today in Texas, state and county government directly supervises around one in 22 adults in prison, in jail, on probation or on parole. Being "tuff on crime" is part of the state's self-promoted persona, one which has garnered bipartisan consensus for decades in support of political and policy decisions that took a "money is no object" approach to crime and punishment...

Roundup: Ugly spectacles, alternative solutions

Posted on January 27, 2011
While I'm focused today on work someone is actually paying me for, here are several items that merit Grits readers' attention:Failure to disclose exculpatory evidence caused another wrongful convictionIn Dallas, a fellow named Larry Sims is about to be released after 25 years in prison after it was revealed that prosecutors failed to disclose exculpatory biological evidence...

Mental health cuts by state would shift costs to local jails, emergency rooms

Posted on January 26, 2011
A story in the Austin Statesman by Andrea Ball focuses on the effects of proposed budget cuts to mental health services on the criminal justice system, noting that "Austin Travis County Integral Care, which provided psychiatric services to about 16,800 people last year, is expecting to lose funding for about 2,500 people each year...

TYC bracing for big budget cuts

Posted on January 26, 2011
The following email was sent out last week to TYC staff from executive director Cherie Townsend regarding proposed cuts in the House budget:TYC Staff:This morning the Legislative Budget Board?s (LBB) House Version of recommended baseline appropriations for the 2012-13 biennium, House Bill 1, was released...

Pub ed going well on surcharge amnesty, but probationers need to be notified

Posted on January 26, 2011
I'm pleased to see that a press release issued yesterday by DPS on the Amnesty program for the Driver Responsibility surcharge has received a great deal of mainstream press.Just 650,000 of the 1.2 million drivers whose licenses are suspended under the program are eligible for Amnesty, but for them it's a tremendous boon...

House, Senate budgets set up false debate on corrections priorities

Posted on January 25, 2011
"Must one smash their ears before they learn to listen with their eyes? Must one clatter like kettledrums and preachers of repentance?"- Nietzsche, Thus Spake ZarathustraThe Texas Senate Finance Committee released its own draft budget yesterday, and according to initial reports it was more generous overall than the starkly sparse House budget...

Interim reports from House committees posted online

Posted on January 25, 2011
For those interested, check out the recently released interim reports from criminal-justice related Texas House committees:Corrections (pdf)Criminal Jurisprudence (pdf)Public Safety (pdf)Once I've had a chance to read them, some or all of these reports - particularly the one from House Corrections - may merit their own (perhaps multiple) posts, but for now I thought I'd pass along the links for anyone interested in a preview of what these committees have been discussing over the interim (which may or may not have any relationship with what they actually do during the session)...

Delay, delay, it's the word of the day: Bradley proffers excuses to put off investigating forensic errors

Posted on January 24, 2011
I attended a meeting Friday of the Texas Forensic Science Commission at which Chairman John Bradley continued his quest to delay the commission's work as long as possible, this time pushing in executive session to request an Attorney General opinion to decide whether they have authority to consider the Todd Willingham case...

Texas Monthly vs. Charles Sebesta

Posted on January 24, 2011
Former prosecutor Charles Sebesta has created a website criticizing Texas Monthly for Pam Colloff's investigative stories (see here and here) about Anthony Graves, who was released last year after 18 years in prison because prosecutors found exculpatory evidence was withheld at his capital murder trial...

Whither Texas prison healthcare with 24% budget cuts?

Posted on January 22, 2011
Just about everybody who's looked at it thinks the 24% budget cut slated for prison healthcare in Texas proposed House budget is unworkable; now we learn it supposedly opens a path toward privatizing prison healthcare, reports Mike Ward at the Statesman:Health care for inmates in Texas' 112 prisons costs taxpayers more than $929 million for two years...

Adult probation cuts detailed from just-filed Texas budget bill

Posted on January 21, 2011
A reliable informant forwarded me an email from Carey Welebob, director of the Community Justice Assistance Division at TDCJ, to local probation directors around the state, including this "preliminary summary" of cuts to probation funding in the recently filed version of HB 1:Preliminary Summary of the FY 2012-13 General Appropriations Bill, as Introduced, House Version   As stated in an email yesterday, the House version of the general appropriations bill was filed on Wednesday, January 19, 2011...

Sugar Land anxious to get rid of 'unwelcome neighbor'

Posted on January 20, 2011
I'm not sure every community would embrace the proposed closure of a state prison so gracefully, but locals in Sugar Land are welcoming the closure of TDCJ's Central Unit, reports Katie McCall at KTRK-TV:It's something people have been wanting for years...

Media should promote amnesty on Driver Responsibility surcharge if DPS won't

Posted on January 20, 2011
The Waco Tribune Herald has a helpful article (subscription only) informing their readers about new Amnesty opportunities for drivers who've defaulted on their Orwellian-named "Driver Responsibility" surcharges, including some stats I hadn't seen before on how many Texans are actually eligible for the program...

Correction budget cuts concentrated in community supervision, set TDCJ up to fail

Posted on January 19, 2011
The Texas House budget was finally released last night (though I can't yet find it online), and initial MSM reports indicate Grits' concerns were justified that the Department of Criminal Justice would focus most of their cuts on probation and diversion programming instead of closing prison units...

Innocence clinics dodge budget-cut bullet so far

Posted on January 19, 2011
One small bright spot in an otherwise gloomy proposed Texas budget: The draft issued today included funding for the state's innocence clinics at the state's four public law schools, which had been widely rumored as a target of cuts. This morning I attended a press conference (on behalf of my clients at the Innocence Project of Texas) to stress the importance of continuing to fund that post-conviction work...

Texas corrections budget at second glance

Posted on January 19, 2011
Following up on this morning's missive, I've had a chance now to skim the criminal justice portions of the budget (large pdf) proposed in the Texas House, and though I don't feel like I've completely wrapped my head around all I've seen there, I thought I'd identify a few high and lowlights that jumped out at me related to prisons, jails, and community supervision...

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