Why is John Bradley smiling? ... and other stories

Here are a few odds and ends that may interest Grits readers from a busy week in which the legislative picture for 2015 began to gain some clarity.

A case study in faulty sex-offender registration restrictions
Not long after testifying at the Legislature on the unfairness of sex-offender registration conditions, Fresh off a Soros fellowship, and just a couple of weeks after testifying before the Texas Legislature, activist Josh Gravens' faces prison again for a sex-offender registration violation. See an account of his alleged new offense by an eyewitness.

Somewhere in Palau, John Bradley is smiling
Williamson County politics is sort of a cesspool and DA Jana Duty has been feuding with the local establishment for a decade. So it's hard to tell from the coverage whether a judge's threat to hold her in contempt for violating a gag order has subtexts beyond the immediate issues in the case. Regardless, somewhere in Palau, John Bradley is smiling.

Newsflash (not!): DPS withholds answers from reporters
I'm not sure it's news that the Department of Public Safety fails to give reporters information even when they obviously know and could easily provide answers to their questions, but it's now proven.  Given that DPS provides the Legislature dubiously overstated information, who is really surprised?

Conservative views on threat from government inform left-right reform coalitions
Polling re: Jade Helm shows 45 percent of Americans fear their government. Grits harbors no concern at all from an in-country military exercise, Greg Abbott's pledge to monitor the situation notwithstanding. But for good or ill, it's this underlying political reality that makes left-right coalitions on criminal-justice reform possible in the current environment. If conservatives fear a hypothetical police state may be turned on them, they're a little more careful to limit police power and preserve constitutional protections.

Bill would require in-person visit option at (most) county jails
The House passed legislation to require jails to offer in person visits, but grandfathering facilities built in the last few years that only include video. The MSM coverage did a good job on this. I don't like the amendment - and I suspect some or all the grandfathered facilites previously had in-person visits and could revert more easily than they're pretending - but I understand why it would be  necessary to pass and it limits future harm.

Passing more unconstitutional statutes: Revenge Porn edition
A bill banning revenge porn also made it across the threshold out of the Texas House and into the Senate before Thursday's deadline, but Mark Bennett says the version passed can't survive constitutional challenge. That doesn't mean it won't become law, anyway, just that Mark won't soon find a shortage of First-Amendment-challenged legislation to blow up in court. It could be possible to write a constitutional revenge-porn statute but there's no evidence this is one.

Late train on Driver Responsibility surcharge reform
Rodney Ellis' bill to repeal the Driver Responsibility surcharge has morphed into a version of a now-dead House bill to eliminate driver license suspensions associated with the program. It's passed out of committee but will need to hurry to catch the late train. Both reform bills in the House this session died on the calendar Thursday night.

Don't double down on stupid
The Houston Chronicle unwisely suggested giving the GR portion of Driver Responsibility surcharges to trauma hospitals in addition to the 49.5% of the money they get now, which Grits thinks is a terrible idea. We need to wean them off that funding source, not double down on it. As I wrote in the comments, "The state needs to find a more stable means of funding hospitals - the larger point of the article with which I wholeheartedly agree - and stop pretending Texas can pay for them by mulcting poor people. Texas should abolish the DRP and expand Medicaid to cover hospitals' indigent care - that's the real solution."

Polunsky inmates made Willie Nelson a badass guitar
From Willie's blog:

 How awesome is that?