Traveling-day links

Today's a travel day for me and blogging may be light for a few days. So chew on these items for now and maybe I'll find some blogging time this week in between meetings while I'm in California.

• Missing host. A conference of drug dog trainers in Nacogdoches was hampered by the dissolution of their host, the Deep East Texas Narcotics Task Force. "It's hard to get dope from a task force that ain't here," said a conference organizer.

• An overlooked solution to jail overcrowding. The Nueces County jail has accidentally released six different inmates since the new year.

• Common sense prevails. The Seventh Texas Court of Appeals said a pregnant mother ingesting drugs did not constitute delivery to the fetus under the statutes.

• Notes from underground. Might municipal restrictions on sex offender residency endanger children more than help them by driving sex offenders underground?

• Eighteen years is a long damn time. Read the New York Times profile of Arthur Mumphrey, an innocent Texan who spent 18 years in a Texas prison for a rape DNA tests confirm he did not commit. Mumphrey's brother actually committed the crime; he lied at his brother's trial, recanting a previous confession. A co-defendant also wrongly testified against Mumphrey in exchange for a reduced sentence.

• Entrepeneurial kiddie jail fails in Kerr County. The juvie facility now swimming in red ink was purchased through a non-profit run by the county, a model officials want to mimic down the road in San Angelo.

• Deep penetration. You know protests against the federal immigration bill have penetrated middle America when you see them in Odessa and Lufkin.

• Snitches on parade. Our friend and past Grits guest blogger Alan Bean covers a trial in Lafayette Louisiana based on apparently unreliable snitch testimony.