Wednesday, November 04, 2009
Hump Day Roundup
Here are several criminal-justice related items from the news that merit Grits readers' attention:
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Welcome to Texas justice: You might beat the rap, but you won't beat the ride.
- Blawg Wisdom
- Evan Smith, Editor-in-chief and publisher, The Texas Tribune
- The Austin Chronicle
- Emily Bazelon, Slate
- San Antonio Current
- Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic
- Erica Grieder, The Economist
- Pamela Colloff, Texas Monthly
- Doug Berman, Sentencing Law & Policy
- Marie Gottschalk, author of 'Caught'
- DallasBlog
- Scott Medlock, Texas Civil Rights Project
- Solomon Moore, NY Times criminal justice correspondent
- Donald Lee, Texas Conference of Urban Counties
-Attorney Bob Mabry, Conroe
- Corey Yung, Sex Crimes Blog
Tommy Adkisson,
Bexar County Commissioner
- Dirty Third Streets
- Texas Public Policy Foundation
David Jennings, aka "Big Jolly"
John Bradley,
Former Williamson County District Attorney, now former Attorney General of Palau
- To the People
Contact: gritsforbreakfast AT gmail.com
12 comments:
So much for the idea that the youngest juveniles needed to go to a contract facility instead of TYC run facilities. Seems like contract employees are just as susceptible to problems as regular TYC employees.
Unfortunately I suspect the answer to the last item will be "no".
Promote the lady having sex w/the TYC youth to TYC administrator and move her up to Austin, like they have always done; then hide it from the public. Put her in line for ED.
She was not a TYC employee. ABRAXAS is a contract program.
That is just one of many problems at Abraxas. Just look at the number of AMI reports they have compared to the other contract care programs and the number of youth that try to escape the facility. It is easier to let problems and complaints the youth report slide when there is only one person responsible for reviewing and responding to all the grievance with no oversight.
I guess Madden and Whitmire will be shutting them down now; they know how to elliminate embarassments but don't know how to solve problems or who to listen to for advice. If they were trying to get UTEP in the NCAA football championship they would call in a panel of motivational speakers.
The DPS officers should be charged criminally for battery. But of course he won't. Law enforcement always gets a free pass to kill and assault citizens in this country. The worst the happens is they lose their job when instead they should be spending time in a prison cell. I for one, am sick of the law enforcement hero worship in this country. They are no better than you and I. They should be held accountable the same as you or I. If anything, they should be held to a higher standard and receive harsher punishment for violating the trust placed in them.
I can't say either way on the SCOTUS decision before them. In the case in question, it remains to be seen if the Justices will hold that the misconduct actually happened in the Advocate stage of things or the Administrative (investigation) stage.
If in the Admin stage, prosecutors only have qualified immunity- if they do something wrong in this stage that is something that could be deemed misconduct, they're potentially liable for the same. It's worth noting that if you deep-six a case on a pre-trial motion, they're not likely to be in the Advocate stage of their role.
If it's in the Advocate stage, there's another concern- should they enjoy complete immunity like they do now? The alleged bars that the opposing counsel refer to plain flat DO NOT WORK as evidenced by all the exonerations coming down these days. If it's heinous enough, they should be held accountable- even the Judges. It is not appropriate to have no accountability, save unto themselves, for this sort of thing.
It sounds like the prosecutors are very guilty of something WRONG and probably would be hung out to dry if they didn't have absolute immunity in the Advocate role- and it remains to be seen if the misconduct was present in the Admin role. If so, the case will be decided on traditional grounds and they will find themselves being sued over it all as they're not within the qualified immunity that they have prior to the trial starting.
A 29 year old has sex with a 14 year old! Quick, transfer her to West Texas and make her Asst. Supt. She will never be prosecuted!!!
The cover-ups continue on......nothing has changed at TYC.
If this was covered up why was the lady arrested by the TYC Office of Inspector General?
I know the news says that San Antonio PD arrested the 29 year old but that is false, it was actually the Office of Inspector General.
Just thought I would set the record straight.
San Antonio Jail Deputy
Looks like the system worked. But, last I checked, San Antonio was a metropolitan area and ABRAXAS was a contract program. Isn't that what Mr. Whitmire said would solve TYC's problems? Hmmm....
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