Criminal Law

Former judges and prosecutors: Investigate official misconduct before executing Charles Dean Hood

Posted on September 03, 2008
Here's another dramatic turn of events in the Charles Dean Hood case: Attorneys for Mr. Hood learned today that State District Judge Robert Dry has recused himself. Dry had earlier acknowledged he personally knew both the Collin County judge and prosecutor involved who allegedly carried on a romantic affair during Hood's capital murder trial, but before now he'd refused recusal...

Tracking Texas' budget

Posted on September 03, 2008
Will Texas prison guards get their 20% raise? Will the Youth Commission get permission to spend bond money on multiple small facilities, or only one big one? Will Texas continue to fund diversion programs or leave local probation departments to fend for themselves?As in all public policy matters, some of the most important questions about crime and punishment get answered not in court but during the legislative budget writing process...

Jail standards commission needs greater healthcare focus

Posted on September 03, 2008
Interested readers should see recommendations for the Texas Commission on Jail Standards submitted to the Sunset Commission from Matt Simpson at the ACLU of Texas, compiled in response to a survey of advocates. Key proposals include stricter evaluation of medical care provided at county jails and improving medical care and services for pregnant inmates...

NPR focuses on pitfalls of informant use

Posted on September 02, 2008
I've been critical of law enforcement relying too heavily on confidential informants when they contribute to police corruption and falsely accuse innocent people, but an NPR story today shows snitches can also cause loads of trouble when they make false allegations against their police handlers...

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Do taxpayer-funded ads contaminate DWI jury pools?

Posted on September 02, 2008
While attorneys have long railed against taxpayer funded sloganeering over DWI, at The Matlock Blog, defense lawyer Shawn Matlock suggests an hypothesis I've long harbored in some deeply cynical pocket of my soul but never publicly pronounced: Is the main, real-world function of anti-DWI advertising of the type Texans see everywhere on billboards and television, essentially to contaminate the jury pool? If not in intent, certainly I think that occurs in practice...

Why are attorneys leaving the Dallas Public Defender's office?

Posted on September 02, 2008
Five attorneys have resigned from the Dallas Public Defender's office in the past month thanks to oversized caseloads and pressure from the county commissioner's court to short-change clients legal representation via a new, weekly reporting system. Two of those lawyers - Mike Howard and David Woodruff - just opened their own practice, and their website includes a blog whose first post gives their reasons for leaving the PD office:A while back the county commissioners? court started making life difficult for the PDs for seemingly no reason...

Mexico rallies against kidnappings, cartel violence, police corruption

Posted on September 01, 2008
In Mexico, a popular political backlash may be swelling thanks to the rising tide of drug cartel-related killings and the lawlessness left in its wake, at least to judge by reports of a rally in Mexico City Saturday drawing more than 200,000 people in the capital as well as simultaneous rallies in all 32 Mexican states...

Delaying the truth in Charles Hood case harms pro-death penalty cause

Posted on August 31, 2008
If you don't think judges cover up for one another's misdeeds, consider the case of Charles Dean Hood, a convicted murderer who's scheduled for execution next month despite evidence that the judge and the Collin County DA engaged in an extramarital affair during his 1990 trial...

Pre-Gustav prisoner evacuations at TYC, TDCJ

Posted on August 29, 2008
The Austin Statesman's Mike Ward reported three hours ago that:Texas Youth Commission officials early today started removing incarcerated youths from the Al Price youth lockup in Beaumont, and state prison officials said they plan to start evacuating adult felons from two Beaumont prisons early Saturday...

UPDATE: Judge recused who ordered search of attorney's files

Posted on August 29, 2008
Via Texas Lawyer's Tex Parte blog , we learn that "Collin County District Judge Mark Rusch has been recused from hearing a capital murder case" in which he ordered police to search a defense attorney's files. (See prior Grits coverage.) Bill Baumbach has more at the Collin County Observer, which profiles this case along with the Charles Dean Hood fiasco, in which a Collin County judge and prosecutor who allegedly had an affair during Hood's capital murder trial want to put off answering questions about it until after he's executed...

Correcting forensic science errors

Posted on August 29, 2008
From the Justice Project this week comes another in their excellent series of policy papers on the causes of wrongful convictions in DNA exoneration cases, this time focused on flawed or biased forensic science. From their announcement:This week, The Justice Project is releasing Improving the Practice and Use of Forensic Science: A Policy Review...

Snitches in the News: Informant use at root of many scandals

Posted on August 29, 2008
The reminder this morning about UT-Austin police spying on student groups led me to think about a topic I've strayed from recently on Grits - confidential informants. Several recent stories (most of them outside of Texas, to be sure) demonstrate that it would be easy to devote an entire blog to the subject of informants and the risks their use poses to police integrity and public safety...

Chief who approved undercover surveillance of UT-Austin political groups called to account by Georgetown student paper

Posted on August 29, 2008
Jeffrey Van Slyke, the former University of Texas Police Department chief who authorized undercover snooping on UT-Austin student groups, finds himself facing hard questions from a student newspaper in Washington D.C. about his policing record at UT in this high-impact piece from the Georgetown Voice...

Education and low crime rates in Barbados

Posted on August 29, 2008
Having lately discussed a new law enforcement initiative on early education and crime prevention and the relationship between crime rates and the ratio of security spending vs. education in different countries, I was interested to see this note from the London Telegraph about Barbados, which reportedly enjoys the lowest crime rate of all the Caribbean islands...

New TYC executive director hired

Posted on August 28, 2008
According to an email sent out by the conservator today to all Texas Youth Commission staff, TYC has finally hired a permanent executive director. Wrote Richard Nedelkoff: I am pleased that I am able to tell you today that I have hired Cherie Townsend as the agency?s new Executive Director...

Why the scare tactics? Austin PD hyping stranger danger

Posted on August 28, 2008
Living in Austin, I find it unfortunate when our local police department uses scare tactics and hype instead of being honest with the public. This practice did not begin with new Chief Art Acevedo, but it's continuing under his watch to judge by a new video they're promoting on APD's website titled, simply, "Stranger Danger...

Does jail work as an intermediate sanction?

Posted on August 28, 2008
With so many jurisdictions now using some version of so-called problem solving courts, the question arises: What are the best intermediate sanctions to use for probationers as opposed to revoking them to prison? In particular, are short jail stints the answer?Recently Marc Levin of the Texas Public Policy Foundation urged the House Corrections Committee to follow the lead of Hawaii's HOPE program, which routinely uses jail time to punish minor infractions, reportedly with great success...

Survey results: One third of Grits readers say 'Underage drinking for me but not for thee'

Posted on August 27, 2008
In a sense, the results of Grits reader poll last week about underage drinking surprised me. I'd posted the two-question survey after publishing this essay arguing that the legal drinking age should be reduced.Nearly 500 Grits readers responded to the first of two questions on the topic: "Were you of legal age when you first drank alcohol?" An overwhelming 89% of you replied "No," meaning your first drink was actually a criminal act...

Harris County candidate forum focused on mental health and criminal justice

Posted on August 27, 2008
A reader points out this Houston Chronicle story describing "a forum on behavioral health and the criminal justice system" in which "Republican and Democratic candidates for county judge, sheriff and district attorney offered ideas meant to divert the mentally ill from jail to treatment...

Jury awards fat verdict against Dallas County over jail health failures

Posted on August 27, 2008
For the second time in 18 months, a jury has awarded a plaintiff nearly $1 million because of inadequate healthcare provided by the Dallas County Jail. Reports the Dallas News ("Jury orders Dallas County to pay $900,000 over lack of medical care for fomer inmate," Aug...

That Dammed Border Fence

Posted on August 26, 2008
From the moment Congress first proposed putting a wall along the Rio Grande on Texas' southern border to reduce illegal immigration, I thought it was not just a bad idea but an insane one. As far as I can tell, when it's finished the United States will be the first nation state in the history of the planet to wall off a major river and leave the river on the other side!Anyone who's spent time along the border knows that limiting river access - whether for crops, livestock or recreation - will cause the locals big problems...

Police interrogation a 'guilt presumptive' process

Posted on August 26, 2008
The raft of DNA exonerations nationwide has focused greater discussion in recent years on a handful of common sources of provably false convictions. While erroneous eyewitness IDs dominate among causal factors, more than a few erroneous convictions have resulted from false confessions...

Charles Kuffner interviews Harris DA candidate C.O. Bradford

Posted on August 25, 2008
Charles Kuffner has an interview up with former Houston PD Chief C.O. "Brad" Bradford who's now the Democratic nominee for District Attorney. Bradford declared his support for a number of forward thinking ideas, including making the Houston crime lab independent from law enforcement, increasing use of personal bonds to relieve jail overcrowding, and letting police officers use new authority to issue citations instead of arresting for certain low-level offenses...

Too fat to jail?

Posted on August 25, 2008
Not long ago we saw a fellow escape from jail by losing so much weight he could slip through an air conditioning duct. Now we get a tale from the opposite end of the spectrum: A half-ton woman accused of killing a toddler in Hidalgo County who's so fat she can no longer fit through the door...

Education investments, not security spending, separates the United States from Third World status

Posted on August 25, 2008
Speaking today of education and crime, I saw a sad and unreal statistic from the Salvadoran Public Security Council which found that "El Salvador spends some 11% of its GDP on security, yet spends only 2.7% on education." Their crime problem is a lot worse than ours, too; for that matter, it's substantially worse than Mexico's...

Questioning impartiality of (particular) judges

Posted on August 25, 2008
Via Texas Lawyer - Two high-profile cases where defendants dispute the impartiality of the judge:Recusal, round two: A convicted capital murderer gets another chance to disqualify the judge who presided over his trial. Senior reporter Mary Alice Robbins finds out why...

Back to School: Fight Crime, Invest in Kids

Posted on August 25, 2008
As Texas kids head back to school today, it's worth raising the question of whether too much public debate is focused on crime and punishment and too little on investments in education and mental health care that might prevent more incarceration.That's the gist of the "Fight Crime: Invest in Kids" initiative proposed recently by a national coalition of police, prosecutors and crime victims...

Federal panel issues prison rape prevention recommendations

Posted on August 24, 2008
In reaction to the passage by Congress in 2003 of the Prison Rape Elimination Act, the Department of Justice in recent years has focused greater attention on documenting, preventing, and encouraging prosecutions of prison rape, gathering data on the problem comprehensively for the first time and setting up a review panel to recommend ways to prevent it...

Levin urges Corrections Committee to mimic Hawaii's HOPE program

Posted on August 24, 2008
At the House Corrections Committee hearing last week, Texas Public Policy Foundation researcher Marc Levin said the state should consider adopting elements of the HOPE initiative in Hawaii - which stands for Hawaii Opportunity Probation with Enforcement...

Failure to update state crime database affects employment options for the unconvicted

Posted on August 23, 2008
Texas' statewide crime database is woefully incomplete, containing no information at all about outcomes on more than 30% of cases, reports the Dallas News ("Counties fail to update cases in state crime database," Aug. 23):The state's criminal database, riddled with holes four years ago, has just as many gaps today...

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