Wednesday, November 14, 2018

New Day or an Anomaly? Dallas DA race became referendum on justice reform

It will be years before we know whether the Dallas District Attorney's race was a turning point or an anomaly in Texas prosecutor elections. Certainly, the state has never in living memory seen another one like it.

The sight of R and D candidates in a general election debating who would better reform the system stood in stark contrast to the days of tuff-on-crime DAs like Henry Wade or Bill Hill. This time, instead of trying to out-do one another with punitive promises, two former Republican judges (both former judges, one a former Republican) duked it out over who was more committed to reducing incarceration and enacting justice reform.

The victor, John Creuzot ran on a platform of ending mass incarceration and suggested he could reduce the number of people Dallas County sends to prison by 15-20 percent, as detailed by The Crime Report. Creuzot has promised to produce a plan to reduce mass incarceration within 90 days of taking office, so we'll soon see how he plans to accomplish that goal.

The group I work for, Just Liberty, co-sponsored a debate between the two Dallas candidates leading up to the general election. Go hear excerpts from a debate between the candidates here (at the 8:10 mark), or listen to the full debate.

2 comments:

  1. The victor, John Creuzot also said he believes the (former) Dallas cop that shot and killed an unarmed innocent black man inside his home should be properly charged with murder NOT manslaughter!

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  2. I wonder how John Creuzot feels about the murderous ex-Dallas cop being allowed to pack a pistol for days before she was arrested and for WEEKS before she was finally fired. Texas Rangers on the job! Epic fail. People have strong feelings about this fustercluck and it helped lead to a strong victory at the polls for John Creuzot.

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