Wednesday, October 15, 2008

A Desperate Argument: Sheriff claims feds will mandate jail building if voters don't approve new Tyler lockup

Smith County Sheriff J.B. Smith told a local TV station that if voters don't approve a new jail on the November ballot, "He believes if a new jail doesn't get approved now the federal government will step-in and approve one themselves."

Hmmmmm ... Really?!

And where else in Texas has this occurred? In Dallas, where the feds have active litigation, nobody's come close to doing anything like the Sheriff suggests here. Even if the feds sued Smith County because of jail overcrowding - and there's no such litigation right now - it would take many years before a judge even came close to ordering new construction on their own.

J.B. just made that up - it's a desperate argument, perhaps further evidence the pro-jail crowd in Tyler has begun to implode and sabotage their own efforts.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's funny! Dallas County has failed their last five state annual jail inspections and are still open for business.

Typical scare tactics and words from another career politician.

Anonymous said...

I much rather have the feds in charge than anyone in Smith County.

Anonymous said...

There has to be something that can be done to remove this man from office. That has got to be an ethics violation or something...

Anonymous said...

Didn't Dallas County finally pass an inspection or did it just not fail it by as much?

Anonymous said...

Feds forcing Smith County to build a new jail is baloney. There are still plenty of options Smith County hasn't pursued that could help ease the jail population pressures, but that would take hard work and the county leadership would rather the taxpayer do all the hard work.

Anonymous said...

Ref Dallas County Jail, they were relatively minor non-compliance issues. The jail had made major progress since the fourth failure. You can go to this link and read the article.

www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/

Anonymous said...

Sorry about that. Here is the right link.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/011908dnmetjailinspection.34be22ca.html