- More than 1,200 Texans have emailed DPS Director Steve McCraw in the last week urging the agency to adopt rules proposed by Just Liberty and its allies to rein in arrests by state troopers for Class C non-jailable offenses. Go here to send your own email.
- A former TDCJ guard was sentenced to 180 days in jail for allowing two inmates to attack a third then attempting to cover it up.
- Charges were dismissed against two Harris County jailers who left a Class B pot defendant in a cell filled with feces and garbage then tampered with records to cover it up. Prosecutors waited too long and the statute of limitations has passed.
- Coverage from yesterday's House Corrections Committee hearing on parole reminded me of this recent Grits post. Sounds like it was a one-sided discussion.
- Two academic papers raise interesting questions: Did Justice Samuel Alito suggest a viable legal strategy for holding police officers accountable when they wrongfully kill people? And what duty do prosecutors have to investigate and charge officers who engage in misconduct?
- From the Vera Institute, "Why more incarceration won't reduce crime?"
- Via the Wrongful Convictions blog, see Samuel Gross, "How concealing key evidence convicts the innocent." Related: From the New York Times Magazine, "She Was Convicted of Killing Her Mother. Prosecutors Withheld the Evidence That Could Have Freed Her."
- Fair Punishment Project, "Dozens of wrongful convictions tossed out of Southern California Courts because of prosecutor bad behavior."
- Aggressive law enforcement in poor neighborhoods amounts to a "crime tax," posit criminologists.
Tuesday, August 01, 2017
1,200+ back petition to limit DPS Class C arrests, and other stories
Here are a few odds and ends that caught Grits' eye while I'm focused elsewhere:
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5 comments:
1200 Texans out of 28 million is not a very convincing statistic to push policy reform.
That's 1,200 EMAILS, 9:51, from average people in every corner of the state - people who did something besides complain privately or like a post on Facebook. In the political world, those who take the trouble to speak up represent quite a few more who also share their views. Plus, just getting started.
Emails are not nearly indicative of much effort, maybe the use of snail mail would be a better metric to use. Regardless, I look forward to seeing how many more show furtherance beyond a simple email or signing a petition, maybe who donates over $100 to the cause, testifies at a state hearing, or something else of that nature.
I don't need to justify metrics to you, 9:25. I'm betting you couldn't generate 1,200 emails to a public official if you set your hair on fire.
Grits, she didn't appear to be asking for you to justify anything. I don't know if the people emailing were average people or not but many in state and federal elected offices take a similar approach. A formal letter is worth a great many emails just as a donation is worth a great many letters, the pecking order established long ago. No need to get testy with her.
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