Thursday, April 25, 2019

Podcast: Creuzot critiques, pot possibilities, Twin Peaks prosecutions peter out, and other stories that may or may not alliterate

Check out the April 2019 episode of Just Liberty's Reasonably Suspicious podcast, covering Texas criminal-justice politics and policy. This month, we spent a lean half hour discussing law enforcement attacks on Dallas DA John Creuzot, prospects for Texas marijuana penalty reduction bills, whether the Twin Peaks biker massacre was the biggest prosecutorial screwup in Texas history, and other important Texas-justice topics. As always, you can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Google Play, or Soundcloud, or listen to it here:


Here's what Mandy and I discussed this month:

Top Stories:
  • Tuff-on-crime backlash against Dallas DA John Creuzot
  • Marijuana penalty reduction bills at the Texas Legislature
Fill in the Blank:
  • Twin Peaks indictments all dismissed
  • Texas cops are arresting tens of thousands for traffic offenses
  • How will #cjreform advocates remember the 86th TX Legislature?
The Last Hurrah
  • $12k bail for $1 theft in Austin
  • Travis County DA will reject "trace" drug cases
  • Harris County DA is bleeding staff
As always, I've ordered a transcript and will add it below the jump when it comes back. Hope you enjoy it.
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5 comments:

  1. Anonymous4/25/2019 11:52:00 PM

    Harris County DA's office: Ms. Ogg has developed a bunker mentality and continues to take it out on her staffers, her political allies that were placed in leadership positions continue to make life miserable by sending mixed messages to subordinates and often conflicting interpretations of policies. Despite claims that raises and promotions would not be based on conviction rate, if a prosecutor loses a case that gets any media coverage, ADA's are being taken to task no matter what the reason for the loss. Any hope of reasonable accommodations for personal matters (tied to spouses, kids, or what have you) was lost long ago. The value of working in the office to get experience or as a stepping stone to bigger things has decreased to the point where there's no point of putting in a stretch of time too.

    Officers arresting for Class C cases: This has been discussed on this blog for quite some time but no matter how many times people ask, no answers have been forthcoming regarding exactly what the arrests were for other than "class C". Large cities have extensive policies regarding no arrests for such matters in most cases but make an exception for driver's unwilling to present valid ID/TDL. Houston lawyer Paul Kubosh has stated publicly that the city of Houston is not arresting for equipment violations, expired stickers, and most forms of class C violations, counterparts in Dallas and San Antonio have mirrored his remarks for their locales. Ideas?

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    Replies
    1. Gritsforbreakfast4/26/2019 05:30:00 AM

      80+% of Class C arrests at traffic stops were for the underlying traffic violations, the rest for municipal ordinances.

      Also, regardless of what Kubosh says, 11% of Harris county jail bookings in the most recent analysis were for Class CS as the top offense. Most of those were not failure to ID.

      Delete
  2. Anonymous4/27/2019 06:29:00 PM

    Perhaps you can provide the percentages of these class C charges, a great many underlying traffic violations include "no driver license" which are later dismissed when the license is provided but are said to provide the reasoning for the arrest on that and any other charge (not "failure to ID"). If you have the information, why is it treated as a state secret?

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  3. Gritsforbreakfast4/28/2019 10:22:00 AM

    4.27, the data we have access to just isn't broken out at that level of detail. We really have only begun to get top line data for the 1st time in 2019.

    ReplyDelete
  4. SantaMedical4/29/2019 04:53:00 AM

    It is safe for most people to use a TENS unit , and they will not usually experience any side effects.

    ReplyDelete