Grits for Breakfast

Let's highlight several pieces of Texas legislation filed recently that piqued Grits' interest. There's HOPE for probation ref...

A judge in Waco had to tell residents of an upscale neighborhood that the state cannot stop a registered sex offender from purchasing a home...

The headline " Bills aimed at lowering criminal penalties " from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram this week (Feb. 11) sounds almost li...

The Austin Chronicle's Jordan Smith has a crackerjack, must-read story with the same title as this post on problems at police evidence ...

The caption to a bill filed yesterday by state Rep. Trey Martinez-Fischer filled Grits' wonky heart with joy: "Relating to providi...

Though they've stopped doing it so much after folks like me began regularly reading their message boards, one recurring theme at the Tex...

The State Commission on Judicial Conduct receives about 1,200 complaints per year against Texas judges, executive director Seana Willing tol...

This morning in a House Appropriations subcommittee, Chief Justice Terrie Livingston of the Second Court of Appeals (Fort Worth) made an int...

The Waco Tribune Herald had an item last week (" DA Reyna comes under fire from attorneys on jail crowding ," Feb. 6) on how tuff-...

Thomas Paine admonished that time makes more converts than reason, and that's certainly been the case with law enforcement policies rela...

Via AP , meet Texas' newest DNA exoneree: A 58-year-old Texas man walked free Monday after serving years for a crime he didn't co...

Mike Ward at the Austin Statesman reported that "the state has paid more than $65 million to 89 wrongfully convicted people since 1992...

MSM coverage was relatively light of last Monday's senate hearing on budgets for the judiciary and related agencies (this was the heari...

Senate Criminal Justice Committee Chairman John Whitmire wants to end contracts for at least two private prison units and wants the Texas ...

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals this week agreed to hear arguments in Ex Parte Terrell to determine whether the Supreme Court's Mil...

One purpose of this blog is to hone arguments in a more informal arena - using readers as a sort of raucous, unmannerly focus group to vet a...

The Texas Public Policy Foundation's Jeanette Moll says that,"Contrary to the original intent, the Driver Responsibility Program (D...

Looking ahead to next week at the Texas Legislature, few committees are meeting yet and discussions about the budget remain the dominant pol...

A titillating excerpt from the Tribune's coverage of the Ken Anderson court of inquiry, where former Williamson County DA John Bradley ...

Col. Steve McCraw of the Texas Department of Public Safety yesterday told the Senate Finance Committee that his agency is currently short ...