Criminal Law

Poll: Fragmented voter attitudes on drug war solutions, consensus about its failures

Posted on October 08, 2008
While partisan politics can make the electorate appear deeply divided, regarding the war on drugs there appears to be a remarkable consensus among voters, according to the results of a Zogby interactive poll released last week:Three in four likely voters (76%) believe the U...

Has the 3rd Court of Appeals found a solution to the liquidity crisis?

Posted on October 08, 2008
Speaking of Judge Diane Henson and the Third Texas Court of Appeals, she spoke up recently to criticize her colleagues' decision in the Tom DeLay money laundering case - a ruling that's an almost caricatured, extremist example of appellate judges identifying the outcome they want, then crafting a contorted opinion to get that result...

How an appellate court works

Posted on October 08, 2008
Austin Third Court of Appeals Judge Diane Henson (no relation) spoke to a gathering of the state bar's Solo and Small Firm section recently, and Todd Smith from the Texas Appellate Law Blog posted the handout she distributed (pdf), which is a nice insider summary of how the six judges on the court assign cases, circulate opinions, and manage its docket...

New Dallas crimjust advisory board: Send fewer people from city to county jail

Posted on October 07, 2008
Dallas County Commissioners are looking for advice from a new Criminal Justice Advisory Board to improve "efficiency" and combat rising local criminal-justice related costs, reports Kevin Krause at the Dallas News' Crime Blog, and they've already identified ways to reduce costs by reducing unnecessary pretrial detention for low-level offenders:Dallas County's biggest expense is administering the local criminal justice system...

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Credit Crunch or Overstuffed Prisons? Why does Arnold Schwarzenegger want $7 billion from the feds?

Posted on October 07, 2008
Though the Governator linked his recent request for a federal bailout to falling housing prices and the crushing credit crunch, most of the cash will probably go to pay for inmate health care under a federal court order:U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson made it clear Monday he expects California to pay $8 billion for seven new inmate medical facilities...

Balko on Obama on Crime

Posted on October 07, 2008
I've generally avoided presidential election discussions on Grits since many, many other blogs perform that function with much more focus and enthusiasm than I could ever provide. But like Doc Berman, I wanted to recommend Radley Balko's critique of Barack Obama's crime policy at Slate, "Bad Cop: Why Obama is getting criminal justice wrong," in particular because of his dead-on analysis of Democrats' backing for pork barrel grant programs designed to make them look tough on crime...

Travels in the Land of "Harmless Error": Hide your dildos, the Court of Criminal Appeals is in session

Posted on October 07, 2008
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals earned coverage and some criticism lately from several corners of the blogosphere. Let's round up the highlights:Robert Guest informs us that, at least for the moment, apparently, vibrators and dildos are illegal to sell in Texas, again, at least in the jurisdicition of the 13th Court of Appeals in Corpus Christi - this despite a Fifth Circuit ruling in February overturnings the CCA's rulings on the subject and declaring the law unconstitutional...

Cartel violence so far stays in Mexico but corruption has crossed the river

Posted on October 06, 2008
Will Mexican drug cartels really stop at the Rio Grande because they're afraid of American law enforcement? To believe so seems like hubris to me, but the Houston Chronicle ran a piece over the weekend putting out this theme that's long been conventional wisdom...

How will economic meltdown affect the justice system?

Posted on October 06, 2008
As the nation watched, aghast, first at Wall Street's economic meltdown and then Washington's ill conceived bailout, I've wondered what effects the financial mess might have on the criminal justice system. Here are some initial thoughts:Possible prosecutions?Clearly there may have been flat-out fraud involved in some of these financial institution failures...

Prison Poster Project in Austin

Posted on October 05, 2008
I found the prisoner-produced artwork above via an email notice this morning for a neat looking prisoner art project on exhibition in Austin today:Sunday, October 5th, at 8 pm there will be a presentation of the Prison Poster Project, a 5 year long process involving contributions of more than 100 people and artists in prisons across the US...

Dallas police cameras focused on petty crime, public relations

Posted on October 04, 2008
I've spent quite a bit of time on this blog looking at evidence of whether surveillance cameras "work" to reduce crime - most long-term studies say they have no significant effect. But aggregate trends don't mean cameras never help, so it's useful to examine stories put out by camera proponents to see what's really going on regarding whether and how crime is actually reduced...

DOJ BJS: Private prisons dominated recent prison construction growth but provide fewer services

Posted on October 03, 2008
Thanks to Doc Berman for pointing out the newly released national Census of State and Federal Corrections Facilities from the Bureau of Justice Statistics at the Department of Justice, which provides a number of interesting insights into 21st century prison expansion and practices...

Immigration notes

Posted on October 03, 2008
I'd be more sympathetic to the position of those who polemicize against illegal immigration if the same folks weren't typically indifferent to making legal immigration easier. The New York Times has an editorial making this point, that many folks who "rage against illegal immigrants ...

Blakeslee profiles prosecutor who ignored TYC cases

Posted on October 03, 2008
A reader directed me to Nate Blakeslee's article in Texas Monthly about Randy Reynolds, "The Reluctant Prosecutor" whose refusal to pursue TYC sex abuse cases investigated by a Texas Ranger put the agency in the crosshairs of angry legislators for the last year and a half...

Evins JCO charged with peddling cocaine

Posted on October 03, 2008
As if the Texas Youth Commission doesn't have enough problems, a Juvenile Corrections Officer (JCO) at TYC's Evins Unit in South Texas was arrested along with his spouse for dealing cocaine, reports the Brownsville Herald:Alfonso Ibarra, a correctional officer with the Texas Youth Commission, and Melba Ibarra, an employee with the La Feria Independent School District, were both charged with possession of cocaine with the intent to distribute, police said.

Death row inmate claiming innocence will get new trial thanks to prosecutorial misconduct

Posted on October 03, 2008
This has been quite a month for death penalty cases in Texas, or at least for screwing them up.In September, Texans witnessed a death row inmate exonerated by DNA evidence proving he didn't commit the crime, and another case where the DA and judge appear to have carried on a romantic relationship during the defendant's trial then covered it up...

What do you mean "Abolish TYC"? A conversation with John Whitmire

Posted on October 02, 2008
We've seen several bouts of news coverage this year in which Houston Sen. John Whitmire openly proposed "abolishing" the Texas Youth Commission and moving its functions to the counties (possibly along the lines of what's being proposed in California)...

MADD identifies its 2009 TX Lege agenda

Posted on October 02, 2008
In a Dallas News article ("Texas DWI bills gain support after tragedies," Oct. 2), Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) laid out their Texas legislative agenda for 2009, framing their bills around a tragic case of two newlyweds killed by a drunk driver in Dallas...

Ombudsman's report may overstate improper abuse case closures

Posted on October 01, 2008
My old boss from ACLUTX, TYC Ombudsman Will Harrell, took a lot of heat today at the Lege for his department's report last week alleging abuse cases were closed without proper investigation. (See prior Grits coverage.)"It's too early to say" how many cases were improperly closed, said TYC Inspector General Bruce Toney, but of more than 300 cases sent to his office to check if the proper criminal authorities were notified, 94 files did not contain enough information to tell if they should have been closed, he revealed under questioning from Rep...

Lack of private beds shouldn't stop Texas from using treatment, diversion strategies

Posted on October 01, 2008
At a hearing this morning in reaction to testimony from TDCJ officials about difficulties finding new aftercare beds and delays in opening authorized treatment facilities, Chairmen Turner and Whitmire expressed concern that if TDCJ can't get all its allocated treatment beds online by the time the Legislature starts, a) somebody will try to raid the unspent money and b) it will be difficult to argue for expanding treatment programs...

TYC caseload projections questioned

Posted on October 01, 2008
Sen. John Whitmire opened this morning's hearing on the Texas Youth Commission by grilling Legislative Budget Board analyst Michelle Connolly over their projections earlier this year predicting growth in TYC inmate populations over the next few years...

Most Texas inmates surveyed say they've been retaliated against for filing a grievance

Posted on October 01, 2008
Although the state auditor's office found the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in "substantial compliance" with laws and agency regs regarding its grievance procedures for inmates and employees (see the full report - pdf), the details of an inmate survey recorded in their recent report were particularly telling...

TYC history repeats itself - possibly at 10 a.m. this morning

Posted on October 01, 2008
With the joint Texas House-Senate committee on oversight for the Texas Youth Commission meeting this morning at 10 a.m., it was timely for Texas A&M San Antonio Prof. Bill Bush, a regular Grits commenter and historian who's writing a book on the Texas Youth Commission, to publish the first installment (pdf) of a history of the agency in collaboration with our friends at the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition...

Willful Negligence: Bexar probation still not providing confirmation to identify false-positive drug tests

Posted on October 01, 2008
Bexar County probation director Bill Fitzgerald continues to defiantly refuse to allow confirmation tests for probationers' urinalysis screenings, reports the San Antonio Current, which observes that, "By any measure, the department today is a house on fire and the only ones who can intervene, Bexar County?s local judges, have chosen to remain silent...

Why owning a 3-year old Kia may mean indigent defendants can't get a lawyer in Collin County

Posted on September 30, 2008
I've wondered before what the hell is the matter with Collin County justice and this latest report does little to boost my confidence. Now it turns out if you own a car or any other non-liquid asset worth more than $2,500 in Collin County, judges don't consider you indigent for purposes of having an attorney appointed in a criminal case! According to the McKinney Courier Gazette ("Determining the right to an attorney," Sept...

Federal coercion to implement Adam Walsh Act doesn't justify the cost

Posted on September 30, 2008
Thanks to a reader for pointing out these shocking statistics from the D.C.-based Justice Policy Institute which calculated that it will cost Texas $38,771,924 to implement the requirements in the 2006 federal Adam Walsh Act, which expands and broadens state sex offender registries into a national program at the states' expense...

TYC deprioritized abuse allegations while media frenzy raged

Posted on September 30, 2008
The Texas Youth Commission Ombudsman's first ever report to the state's political leadership (pdf) of ?particularly serious or flagrant? problems at the agency alleged that TYC had closed files on hundreds of allegations of staff-on-youth abuse without proper investigation...

Balko interviews DEA House of Death whistleblower

Posted on September 30, 2008
Since I've been back on the topic of snitching recently, I should mention that Radley Balko did an interview with the DEA whistleblower in the infamous House of Death case in which El Paso-based "federal agents had allowed a paid government informant to participate in a dozen brutal murders [across the river in Juarez] ? all but the first of which could have been prevented...

Snitching stories from all over

Posted on September 29, 2008
Having discussed over the weekend one of the most egregious horror stories I've seen regarding mendacious informants and prosecutorial misconduct, I thought I'd point readers to several recent non-Texas cases involving snitches that demonstrate more problems associated with their unregulated use:Encouraging Illegal Break-Ins...

Promoting familiy ties behind bars

Posted on September 29, 2008
Children of incarcerated parents tend to rebel and act out because of their parent's absence and are 5-7 times more likely than their peers to end up incarcerated themselves, so I was encouraged to learn of this program in a Missouri women's prison aimed at encouraging mothers behind bars to spend quality time with their children...

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