A few retrospective criminal justice items now that the 83rd Texas Legislature has ended
TCJC Lege Wrap Up
See the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition's legislative wrap-up on all the criminal-justice topics that group was tracking.
TPPF: Prison closures mean TX on right track
So wrote Arlene Wohlgemuth in an essay that first appeared in the Austin Statesman.
Travis County to keep juvenile felons from state lockups
See a story by Brandi Grissom published both in the Texas Tribune and the New York Times on Travis County's experiment handling serious juvenile offenders in-house instead of sending them to the Texas Juvenile Justice Department. Legislation this session authorized the pilot, which the prosecutors' association is derisively calling the "Shadow TYC."
Bill on juvie capital sentences collateral damage in abortion debate
The bill creating options for sentencing 17-year old capital offenders died along with everything else in the abortion driven brouhaha on the final night of the session. The Texas Tribune rounded up all the casualties. Perry has called another special session beginning July 1st on the same topics. Versions of the bill have been re-filed as SB 2 by Huffman, HB 4 by Kolkhorst and HB 7 by Moody.
Private Prison Roundup
Lots of good recent posts up over at Texas Prison Bidness, including a thirty-year retrospective on Corrections Corporation of America.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
.jpg)
4 comments:
In the terms of numbers, Harris County reached the status
of the most productive conviction pipeline in the history of
human race.
1) Case A. Michael Peters, German, lifelong taxeater, was on the bench during
John Holmes tenure as DA. Fat and ugly physical appearance,
was characterized as "schmuck", lazy and unscrupulous. 60,000
cases for 15 county judges any given year. Consequently, he
figured he had to rubberstamp 4,000 cases a year, 16 criminal
(!) cases a day (no trials generally) to be employed. He also
had an option to quit because with such high caseload, minutes
of consideration per case, it is statistically inevitable to
convict innocents on daily basis. Nowhere, except being
employed as judge, he could safely get high salary and wait
until getting high pension. Despite the conflict of interest
between his stable salary and perks, and impossibility to
provide high standard of justice for innocents, he makes a
dirty decision to stay and execute the following methods to
move cases as swiftly as possible that is to make 'em plead as
fast as possible:
a1) Torture of innocents that included: up to a dozen of
reschedules (each time strip search with opposite sex
always present, chain-gang, butthole searches, denigrating
treatment, insults, urine-smelling 25 square-feet-rooms,
feces here and there, with a dozen of accused in each etc).
a2) Punitive, and life-threatening or extreme conditions in
jail for innocents: no natural light, one cell with
self-declared murderers, and lifers. (This is by design
of extreme conditions in cooperation with lifelong taxeater
Thomas Thomas, the former sheriff, German).
a3) Sensory deprivation. Maximizing harsh conditions, accused
are chain-ganged to courts early at night leaving a few
hours to sleep.
b) Public defenders acting as prosecutors so innocents could
not possibly trust that any justice is possible. "Plea
barganing". Seconds, a minute, few minutes if lucky for a
single communication with "public defender" who invariably
accusative and sure that every innocent is guilty. Judge
doesn't allow any decent defender to handle cases because
they would be objectively unable to move cases (decent
defenders seek truth that almost always requires much more
time).
c) Prosecutors don't see accused, so that "feelings" of
prosecutor are protected from the suffering he or she
imposes on innocent. The same is for the judge.
d) Accused don't see judge neither, lucky might be able to
exchange a few words with "public defender". The room--
dirty old-painted walls with feces, where accused are
placed--is filled with urine smells, stinking & dirty
lavatory. These conditions are by design (as harsh as
possible, "plead 'em fast").
e) Zero physical evidence, nothing except blunt lies of
sheriffs. Prosecutors act as crazy with creative lying
as possible, leveraging offence to new and new highs so
that the innocent must feel that he is risking
being trapped by the system for the rest of his life
while being factually innocent and having a relatively
small misdemeanor charge initially. This is by far the
most important criminal practice, threats and leveraging,
used by prosecutors whom judge consciously selects. With
such caseload, a prosecutor seeking truth would not be
able to move cases.
f) A wish for trial must mean that accused must stay in
jail for the next 6-12 months, "judge" voluntarily
dismisses any reasonable idea about constitutional
protections such as speedy trial. Frequently, waiting
time exceeds maximum possible penalty for an accused
innocent. Then, prosecutor conveniently comes in and
leverages accusations to the next level.
End of the part IV of indictments.
In no other jurisdiction in Texas incarceration
numbers match those in Harris County, Texas dwarfs other
states, and the US, with its 25% of world incarcerated
population, leaves behind the rest of the world, where
incarceration rates are typically at least 10 times lower.
1) What is the number of innocents that Harris County
conviction pipeline outputs as convicts in misdemeanor and
felony (non-capital) cases? While it's hard to think about,
it is also certain that the minimum percentage can be
obtained from the number of exonerations for the most serious
crimes, where legal standards are higher. The number in Texas
is approaching 10%.
One estimate is that the percentage of innocents is at least
30%, and at least 50% could have been cleared with strong
defense, let's however take 3.3% as the minimum number that
comes from exonerations in cases involving DNA.
Former Judge Peters rubberstamped 4,000 cases a year, or
40,000 for 10 years. With 3.3% at the very minimum, he convicted
at least 1,333 innocents. When one 5,332 innocent lives affected
by decisions of a judge who wanted to draw his paycheck,
and who voluntarily kept his perception anomaly (criminal
negligence) regarding basic constitutional human rights such
as speedy trial, protections from torture, and right for just
consideration.
It means mostly he consciously wiped out their lives,
irreversibly damaged the lives of their families in the most
brutal ways. In some cases it resulted in deaths of family
members.
There were at least 1,333 single acts of serious crimes
mindfully committed by former judge Michael Peters, deserving
10 years of punishment at least per case. Consequently, he
must be convicted and stay in prison doing manual work under
close supervision for 13,333 years. All his accounts must be
frozen, possession seized. He must pay at least $10M per
case to his innocent victims that is $13 billion in total.
2) The plea-bargain system is a relatively new invention
of legal cabal that has radically increased--up to 20-50x--
the production outputs of Harris County conviction pipeline.
It works almost all the time against interests of innocents,
but helps those who actually committed crimes.
dges linked to bail companies.
3) Harris County businesses affiliated with judicial system
are masking the profits that come from bonding business. While
misdemeanors generate $100M and felonies generate $100M at
minimum, bonds posted, the "bank" does not report how much
income comes from those where bond set at >$20,000. These
cases evidently a special category for the number of bonds
posted is 5,000 every year, this gives $100M at the very
minimum, and at could be $1 billion.
4) Operation Greylord was conducted in the 1980s in
connection with corruption in the judicial system of Cook
County (Chicago jurisdiction). A total of 92 people were
indicted, including 17 judges, 48 lawyers, ten deputy sheriffs,
eight policemen, eight court officials, and a state legislator.
Out of the 17 judges indicted in the trials, 15 judges were
convicted, and sentenced to prison terms.
End of the part V of indictments.
Where can I find all part of the post on indictments in Harris County?
The Anon. posting the above info regarding Harris County is 100% spot on. Some might say it has nothing to do with the posting. While that could be true at first glimps, it hasn't stopped Anons from posting off topic shit or others from commenting about it with some even chimming in about spelling and grammer under nicknames.
I chose to read it all (you don't have to) and can promise you that it has everything to do with Texas and the Texas Legislature and the outline goes to show that 'had' they addressed the points listed 'decades' ago, we wouldn't be seeing the same ol dusty crap settle in 2013. Two years from now, we'll rinse & repeat.
I can also tell you that without a doubt, he or she has deffinately been there and done that. I hope to see this Anon's work published in future postings here regarding (on topic issues) the state of Texas's ass-hole aka: Harris County.
Post a Comment