Criminal Law

TDCJ finds spare money during budget crunch for drug testing employees

Posted on June 11, 2010
My only question about this latest move by TDCJ: "What will you cut in the budget to pay for drug testing employees?" Mike Ward reports in the Statesman today that:In a push to bolster security and curb contraband in Texas' massive prison system, officials for the first time plan to order random drug tests for a majority of the state's 41,000 corrections employees including all guards and parole officers...

David Dow warned, Sharon Keller on the dock

Posted on June 11, 2010
While my focus remains elsewhere for the moment, I can't help but anticipate next Friday's June 18 hearing at the State Commission on Judicial Conduct, which will hear oral arguments in Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Presiding Judge Sharon Keller's removal proceedings...

News from Jail: Fewer inmates at largest facilities

Posted on June 10, 2010
Several jail related items caught my eye recently, beginning with this Austin Chronicle story from Jordan Smith published yesterday reporting that:Travis County has seen a dramatic drop in its jail population, following a national trend showing local jail populations dropping over the last year for the first time in more than a decade, according to stats released last week by the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics...

Dallas DA to go on the record

Posted on June 09, 2010
Dallas District Attorney Craig Watkins will be interviewed this a.m. by Evan Smith of the Texas Tribune in a public event here in Austin, and though I'd RSVP'd, I regret seeing no option but to skip the show to focus on an important, unrelated work deadline...

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Levin: Saving money while reducing juvenile crime

Posted on June 09, 2010
Marc Levin at the Texas Public Policy Foundation has a column out titled "In Juvenile Justice, Less is Often More," arguing that community-based alternatives are cheaper and more effective for all but the most high-risk youth. He concludes thusly:juvenile justice is at another crossroads due to a projected state budget shortfall of $10 billion to $15 billion...

I always feel like somebody's watching me

Posted on June 08, 2010
It looks like Austin will become the next city to waste money on expensive anti-crime cameras that will never live up to the crime-reduction promises made to secure them. Reported KXAN-TV:The Austin Police Department laid out a plan for more than two dozen public safety cameras to be put up in two high-crime areas of the city...

Rec, education make up small portion of commissary revenue

Posted on June 07, 2010
How are Texas commissary revenues spent? I asked TDCJ under the Public Information Act and uploaded the details at this link. Of $94.9 million in FY 2009 revenue, just $4.3 million (4.5%) went to educational and recreational programs, with the majority going to library services ($2...

Reentry Task Force looking for input

Posted on June 07, 2010
Ana Correa of the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition and Vice Chair of the state's Reentry Task Force asked me to tell readers about a survey being conducted by the task force on which they're seeking community participation. She writes:Hello,I hope you are doing well...

Blogs to read while I'm focused elsewhere

Posted on June 06, 2010
I've got work to focus on for the time being that somebody's actually paying me for, so check out recent posts from these fine blogs in the meantime:Liberty and Justice for Y'allCourtexThe Defense RestsSentencing Law & PolicyCrimProf BlogWomen in Crime InkTexas Court of Criminal Appeals BlogDallas Criminal Defense Lawyer's Blog

Restless natives rebuff court nominee as TCDLA President-elect

Posted on June 04, 2010
Austin criminal defense attorney Keith Hampton faced two elections this year - one for President-elect of the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association and one for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, where he is the Democratic nominee facing incumbent Michael Keasler...

Mexico may eliminate municipal police over corruption

Posted on June 04, 2010
Here's an extraordinary proposal coming out of Mexico:Mexico's president is vowing to push forward a plan that would eliminate local police departments and replace them with state law enforcement agencies. ...Mexico's federal police is leading the war on drugs, but Calderon said he would like to see state police play a stronger role if the government agrees to disband weak and corrupt municipal forces...

Geriatric prisoner images

Posted on June 04, 2010
Following up on Emily Ramshaw's story, "Dying on the State's Dime," Texas Tribune photographer Caleb Miller posted this slideshow with pictures from Texas' geriatric prison wing at the Estelle Unit in Huntsville:How much danger do these fellows really pose to the public? Earlier Ramshaw had earlier written that:despite the fact that the national one-year recidivism rate for older offenders is miniscule compared to that of younger offenders ? 3...

Describing cash smuggling by cartels easier than stopping it

Posted on June 04, 2010
See this "Binational Criminal Proceeds Study" (pdf) from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement for a detailed discussion of currency smuggling from the US to Mexico. Time magazine described the topline results thusly:Based on interviews with law enforcement officials on both sides of the border, along with confidential information, the study also describes routes the money often takes: Smaller dealers throughout the U...

Murderabilia or History?

Posted on June 04, 2010
Lots of interesting stories out there that I don't have time to write about but that may interest Grits readers:Murderabilia or History?Sen. John Cornyn and Houston Mayor Annise Parker want to ban "murderabilia," or the practice of selling items related to killers for profit...

Parole board rejects most inmates recommended for medical release

Posted on June 03, 2010
Coupla notable stories out today regarding medical parole:Calif. Senate okays bill to release sickest inmates, San Jose Mercury NewsDying on the state's dime, The Texas TribuneEmily Ramshaw at the Tribune offered this graph showing how many sick or disabled inmates are approved for medical release by the parole board compared to how many were recommended by TDCJ and Texas' Correctional Managed Health Care Commitee:

Graffiti grandstanding about reelecting pols, not solving problems for property owners

Posted on June 03, 2010
Pols in Corpus Christi have been grandstanding over graffiti for years, insisting on ever-longer sentences for graff in court and for harsher sentences at the legislature. Yet seemingly everyone from Corpus you'll ever hear discussing the matter insists the problem continues unabated, as typified by this report from KRIS-TV ("Cracking down on graffiti," June 2):Corpus Christi Police Department is gearing up for the summer and, unfortunately, more graffiti...

TDCJ regional release facilities begin operation next week

Posted on June 03, 2010
Texas' prison system has announced the location of three new regional release facilities, according to this item in the Amarillo Globe-News ("Clements to free inmates," June 3), next week:the William P. Clements Jr. Unit outside Amarillo and two other units begin serving as release points for inmates who have served their terms...

Constablegate in Dallas getting special prosecutor

Posted on June 03, 2010
Instead of handing the constable corruption cases off to the Attorney General, Dallas District Attorney Craig Watkins yesterday assigned a special prosecutor to the case, Ted Lyons\, who is a former Democratic state senator and reportedly a contributor to Watkins' campaign...

Solution to gunplay at capitol: Many more guns

Posted on June 02, 2010
Here's a bizarre irony regarding the decision to put up metal detectors at the entrances to the Texas capitol, as reported by Mike Ward at the Statesman:Bill Miller already has his ticket to the express lane. Brad Shields is getting one.Both veteran lobbyists are among dozens, perhaps hundreds, of the nearly 1,500 registered lobbyists who are scrambling to get state licenses to allow them to carry concealed handguns...

Replacing school discipline with criminal enforcement

Posted on June 02, 2010
After a commenter self-styled "College Cop" and I have been discussing the merits of school campus police in Grits comments the last few days (in posts here and here), I was interested to see a story from the Texas Tribune on ticket writing by police in public schools ("Tickets for 10 year olds?," June 2)...

New York implements statewide eyewitness ID guidelines

Posted on June 02, 2010
Via The Crime Report we learn that New York State has implemented new statewide procedures for photo lineups:Law enforcement statewide announced the establishment of new guidelines and best practices for photo array and lineup procedures that determine whether an individual is implicated in a crime, announced the District Attorney?s Association of New York...

Law Enforcement for Higher Taxes

Posted on June 02, 2010
Scott Goldstein at the Dallas News Crime Blog mentions that "Some Dallas police union leaders are calling for a property tax hike to help shore up a $130 million budget gap. They hope such a move would ease the cuts for their department." Goldstein reports that an officer at a closed door union meeting Tuesday on the topic bore a tshirt declaring: "Raise taxes, no cuts...

New Austin PD dashcams will automatically activate

Posted on June 01, 2010
After repeated cases in which officers failed to turn on in-car dashcams during high-profile incidents, Austin PD will begin to install digital cameras in their vehicles that automatically turn on in response to predesignated cues that can't be controlled by the officer...

Homicide clearance rates on the decline

Posted on June 01, 2010
Scripps Howard News Service last week ran a series on the national decline in clearance rates (the percentage of cases solved) for homicides. The main story opens:Every year in America, 6,000 killers get away with murder. The percentage of homicides that go unsolved in the United States has risen alarmingly even as the homicide rate has fallen to levels last seen in the 1960s...

More on professionalism and supervisory capacities of campus police

Posted on June 01, 2010
Last week I questioned why the Houston Community College police force needed its own SWAT team, and a couple of commenters protested that I improperly demeaned the quality and professionalism of campus police when I noted that, "Unfortunately, smaller agencies have less training, less pay, and most importantly the pool of quality supervisors isn't even big enough for all the municipal agencies and sheriffs, much less a zillion smaller shops...

Extended case study of Tyler youth who slayed special ed teacher

Posted on May 30, 2010
The Dallas News has published an excellent, extended article by Lee Hancock on the sad case out of Tyler where a mentally ill youth named Byron who was hearing voices stabbed his special ed teacher, Todd Henry, at John Tyler High. I'd refrained from commenting on this high-profile case because we knew so little about the youth and the situation beyond the bare facts of the murder, but now Hancock has provided a wealth of detailed background...

'Unthinkable' prison closures now on table at Texas Lege

Posted on May 30, 2010
Mike Ward at the Austin Statesman has a feature today ("More programs, fewer beds could help prisons' bottom line," May 30) covering themes that will be familiar to Grits readers: "For Texas, a state that officials say has never closed an entire adult prison, a public discussion could be coming to do just that...

New revelations mean it's time for Craig Watkins to give AG constable corruption cases

Posted on May 29, 2010
After initially denying it, Dallas DA Craig Watkins acknowledged this week that his office was notified in early 2008 about corruption allegations regarding Dallas County constables - in particular alleged kickbacks from a towing company employed without authorization...

Impotent Austin police oversight lamented

Posted on May 29, 2010
Noelle Davis at Southern Shift posted this video to YouTube with excerpts from a community meeting in Austin last week in the wake of a report released on a controversial, racially charged shooting incident that recently rocked city hall. Participants offered complaints about the opacity and ineffectiveness of police oversight in Austin and the overweening power of the local police union to thwart the discipline process:I'd expressed similar frustrations in a recent post, "Long ago concessions by city contract negotiators delayed release of report on police shooting...

State won't exempt public safety agencies in next round of budget cuts

Posted on May 29, 2010
State leaders on Friday ordered Texas government agencies to identify another round of possible budget cuts, and this time public safety agencies won't be exempt. Reports the Austin Statesman's Mike Ward:According to Friday's directive, the only exceptions listed in the letter are for school funding, for debt service on bonds, to "maintain benefits and eligibility in Medicaid" programs, the Children's Health Insurance Program and foster care programs , to maintain health and human services eligibility staffing and to keep the state pension and benefits programs properly funded...

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