Criminal Law

A viral video event waiting to happen: Alleged beating of 15-year old by 8 Houston cops caught on video

Posted on May 02, 2010
Richard Connelly at the Houston Press' Hairballs' blog says:Reports are everywhere about eight Houston police officers allegedly caught on tape beating a suspect. But the worst is no doubt yet to come, when the video eventually gets released.Mayor Annise Parker tried to describe what's seen on the security-cam footage as calmly as possible to reporters yesterday, but anytime you have to say of your police force that they're alleged to have "handcuffed the suspect and then may have beaten that suspect while he was in custody and handcuffed," it's not good...

Counting prisoners skews precinct drawing in rural counties

Posted on May 02, 2010
The Victoria Advocate published a story this morning about the effect of prison populations on rural redistricting, a subject discussed recently on Grits after Maryland became the first state to require counting inmates in their home counties instead of the county in which their unit is housed...

Ex-trooper convicted of shaking down motorists dies in private detention

Posted on May 01, 2010
I'd recently mentioned the case of a trooper convicted of shaking down Hispanic motorists for cash. He died in custody at a private detention facility in Robstown, reported the Corpus Christi Caller Times April 29:A former Department of Public Safety trooper sentenced last week to prison for stealing from Hispanic motorists, died at a Robstown private detention facility Thursday, state officials and the prison confirmed...

A market-based, techie solution to texting while driving by teens

Posted on May 01, 2010
With all the talk about making texting while driving a criminal offense, it's interesting to see folks developing technical solutions to the problem which they're wisely marketing to parents of teens, probably the highest risk group and also a category of consumer with income to spend on the devices...

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Bumbling Nueces DA fires wrong person for release of embarrassing document she authored

Posted on May 01, 2010
Just weeks after Governor Perry appointed her Nueces County District Attorney, Anna Jimenez fired a veteran prosecutor for supposedly leaking an embarrassing, profanity-laced document Jimenez had written. But now the woman who released the document to the media says the fired prosecutor wasn't the person who gave it to her...

Did DA commit perjury to protect wife-murdering cop?

Posted on April 30, 2010
Via the DMN Investigates Blog:Bruce Isaacks (right), as Denton County district attorney in 2004, refused to prosecute a police officer who had been indicted on a murder charge for his wife's death. Medical authorities concluded that the woman had committed suicide, Isaacks swore then and later...

Still no Texas US Attorneys

Posted on April 30, 2010
A year and a quarter into the Obama administration, Texas still has no nominees for US Attorney. We had a nominee in the Eastern District who withdrew his name from consideration after months of delay, and now there's no telling when we may see these appointments, if they ever come at all...

Prosecution for school graffiti critiqued at senate hearing

Posted on April 30, 2010
There's not much MSM news out there from yesterday's Senate Criminal Justice Committee meeting (see the archived broadcast), but Odessa TV station KOSA had coverage of one of its locals who came to Austin to speak with them about school discipline.As students across Texas are being criminally charged for drawing on school property, some state leaders are taking notice...

Keller fined $100K for financial disclosure lapses

Posted on April 30, 2010
Remarkably, Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Sharon Keller was fined $100,000 today by the Texas Ethics Commission. Here's the ruling (pdf) and initial coverage from the Dallas News, Houston Chronicle, Austin Chronicle, and Texas Watchdog.After Judge Keller falsely pled poverty trying to get the state to pay for her lawyer last year when the Judicial Conduct Commission brought removal proceedings against her, she shoulda seen this coming...

Terri Hodge headed for one-year stretch in federal pen

Posted on April 30, 2010
Former state Rep. Terri Hodge was sentenced to a year in federal prison after a slew of bigshots testified at her sentencing hearing asking for leniency, reports the Dallas News. According to the DMN Investigates Blog:Jason Trahan says [Hodge's] supporters included: Dallas County state District Judge John Creuzot; former state Rep...

CCA reinstates money laundering case against DeLay associates

Posted on April 29, 2010
In a bit of a Man Bites Dog episode, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals unanimously decided yesterday to uphold the state's election laws banning corporate donations in elections. Reports Chuck Lindell at the Austin Statesman:The Austin appeals court erred in deciding that the state?s money-laundering statute - used to prosecute associates of former U...

Ripped from the headlines: Crime show popularizes Willingham lookalike case

Posted on April 29, 2010
Michael Hall from Texas Monthly emails to say:Several people have told me about last night's episode of Law and Order SVU, which features an arson case that is almost a note for note copy of the Willingham case. Here is a video that shows the highlights--including the long-haired arson expert who helps turn things around--AKA Gerald Hurst, Rollingwood's own...

Senate panel discussing juvie justice topics

Posted on April 29, 2010
The Senate Criminal Justice Committee this morning will hear testimony on several critical juvenile justice issues. Here are the Interim Charges they'll be discussing:Charge five:Review the detention of juvenile offenders in local jails, state jails, and Texas Department of Criminal Justice prison units by examining conditions of confinement, including quality of education, mental health treatment and medical services, rehabilitative treatment, and equality of access to services for young female inmates...

Tribune app explores Texas prison units

Posted on April 29, 2010
The Texas Tribune has created an:application to explore Texas' numerous prison units, and learn more about the 160,000 inmates housed inside them. Search for inmates by name or explore this app by crime types and specific prison units...

"What's more compromising than money?"

Posted on April 28, 2010
The title of this post is the headline to a New York Times editorial yesterday scolding the US Supreme Court for not accepting the Charles Hood case. According to the Grey Lady: The Supreme Court abdicated its responsibility to address fundamental questions of ethics and fairness when it declined to review the case of Charles Dean Hood, an inmate on death row in Texas...

'Everything's bigger in Texas, like a $640 parking ticket'

Posted on April 28, 2010
The title of this post is the headline to a story out of Arlington from the Fort Worth Star Telegram. Here's the gist:Tweed Clark stopped briefly at the Arlington Municipal Court to pay her daughter's $250 speeding ticket. So, how did Clark end up with a $640 parking violation of her own? Clark admits that she parked in a yellow-striped space next to a handicap space for a few minutes March 8 but said she never saw a "no parking" sign until after an officer pointed it out to her while writing the ticket...

Glimpses from the House Corrections Committee

Posted on April 28, 2010
I turned on for a moment today's House Corrections Committee meeting (still going, see here) and heard these tidbits:Is Project Rio helping ex-offenders get state jobs?State Rep. Jerry Madden asked somebody from TDCJ how Project Rio, Texas' main job assistance program for ex-prisoners, was working...

Driver Responsibility program has 'devastating' effect on court system; hospitals only opposition to reform

Posted on April 27, 2010
See coverage of yesterday's hearing on the Driver Responsibility rules from the Dallas News, the Texas Tribune and News 8 Austin. I thought the event went well, though the Public Safety Commission apparently expected a larger crowd. Here's a notable highlight from Terrence Stutz's Morning News story:David Hodges, who served as a state district judge based in McLennan County, told the panel that the Texas Driver Responsibility Program has had a "devastating" effect on the Texas court system, and judges across the state are reporting at least two years of pending driving-while-intoxicated cases as more defendants seek trials...

Homicides kill three times as many kids as drunk drivers

Posted on April 27, 2010
I've got a pet peeve against hyperbolic overstatements by tough-on-crime mavens who think, because the targets of their false statements are unpopular, no one will call them on putting out bad information. So I took umbrage in the comments to a post over at Sentencing Law & Policy when a commenter announced that, " drunk drivers kill enough people to fill a mid sized CITY 45,000-55,000 PEOPLE A YEAR...

Willingham case stalled in seemingly stacked panel at forensic commission

Posted on April 26, 2010
Two stories on the Forensic Science Commission capture the essence of of last week's meeting:The Big Stall, Morgan Smith, The Texas TribuneLet's have a cheer for small victories, Rick Casey, The Houston ChronicleBetween them they make most of the points which have been rumbling around my head since on the subject...

Hearing on Driver Responsibility rules this afternoon

Posted on April 26, 2010
I'll be headed to the capitol this afternoon when the Public Safety Commission considers proposed indigency rules to the Driver Responsibility surcharge. See my column from last week's Dallas Morning News on the topic. Here are the logistical details of today's meeting for anyone interested:AGENDA Public Safety Commission Meeting April 26, 2010, 3:00 p...

Here and there: Briefs

Posted on April 25, 2010
Here are several items that would probably deserve full blog posts each if I had time:Do we need constables in the 21st century?The Amarillo Globe News renews a debate we've had here on Grits: Do we need constables in the modern era? Personally I think that in larger cities, especially, these obscure offices have seen mission creep and expansion of duties that is both risky and redundant for these smallish, typically less professional agencies...

'Doomsday Deal': Prison-for-profit scheme in Waco going bust for lack of inmates

Posted on April 24, 2010
In Waco, reported the Herald-Tribune ("A new jail in McLennan County, but no inmates to fill it," April 23), "The new jail on State Highway 6 has an impressively low detention population: zero." Now a private prison scheme that two years ago was touted as a multi-million dollar moneymaker for the county appears to be headed into a financial death spiral:Community Education Centers, the New Jersey-based detention company under contract to manage and operate the jail, has been unable to secure agreements with state and federal agencies to house inmates...

Family, debt, risk and private prisons

Posted on April 24, 2010
Coupla more private prison stories worth noting:A Family AffairForrest Wilder at the Texas Observer has a story on the Lucio family's relationships to a private prison firm, which has hired state Rep. Eddie Lucio III to lobby the city of Weslaco for a private prison deal...

Brookins found guilty of TYC sex abuse charges; sentencing today

Posted on April 23, 2010
A jury found former TYC administrator Ray Brookins guilty of molesting youth under his supervision at a Texas youth prison in West Texas. It sounds like prosecutors from the Attorney General came loaded for bear and Brookins didn't have much of a defense beyond pointing out the victim was a criminal...

Online broadcast of Forensic Science Commission meeting today

Posted on April 23, 2010
Via the national Innocence Project blog, this morning.from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., the Texas Forensic Science Commission will convene to discuss forensic developments and the investigations into the cases of Cameron Todd Willingham and Ernest Willis, among other items...

Advisory panel leaning against innocence commission

Posted on April 23, 2010
Dave Montgomery from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports that:An advisory panel bearing the name of a wrongfully convicted inmate from Fort Worth is apparently leaning against recommending the creation of a state innocence commission amid concerns that it would create a new bureaucracy and duplicate work already being performed in Texas law schools...

The "intractable problem" for prosecutors created by the Driver Responsibility surcharge

Posted on April 22, 2010
Over at DA Confidential, "The Assistant" (a Texas assistant county attorney who blogs anonymously) has a post describing the "intractable problem" of driving-with-license-suspended cases and the Driver Responsibility surcharge, offering an especially enlightened (and unusual) approach...

TDCJ regional release facilities announced soon, but state jails already send offenders straight home

Posted on April 22, 2010
An announcement will be made in a couple of weeks, according to the Abilene Reporter-News, which TDCJ facilities will become "regional release" facilities, a move spurred in large part by high gas prices a couple of years back. Presently TDCJ prison inmates are all released from Huntsville...

Dallas News column on Driver Responsibility rules

Posted on April 22, 2010
The Dallas Morning News tomorrow is publishing an op ed I wrote advocating improvements to the proposed indigency rules for the DPS Driver Responsibility surcharge, and I noticed this evening they've placed a version on line. Nothing earth shattering for Grits readers, I imagine, who've heard many of the arguments before, but give it a read if you're interested.

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