Friday, February 01, 2019

Reasons Texas county jails failed their state inspections

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When I saw that an inmate recently hanged himself in the Waller County Jail - the same jail in which Sandra Bland died - on a hunch, I chec...
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Considering long DPS license-center lines and ballooning prison-healthcare costs at House Appropriations

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The Texas House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday will consider two items this blog has covered quite a bit heading into session: Long li...

Third party will review rape-clearance data that spurred ouster of Austin PD division chief

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Last night, the Austin City Council voted to have a third party review years worth of cases to discover the extent to which the Police Dep...
Monday, January 28, 2019

Senate Finance debate ignores policy solutions to excessive DPS license-center lines

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The Texas Senate Finance Committee this morning had a quite-animated discussion over long lines at DPS driver license offices. But nobody ye...
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Guard understaffing just one reason the #txlege must reduce inmate populations and close more state prisons

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Budget hawks at the Texas Legislature should be taking a close look at the state prison system this year. Without significant policy changes...
4 comments:
Sunday, January 27, 2019

County Judge blames #txlege for indigent defense costs, but local officials' choices are to blame

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Having written yesterday about Texas counties portraying their core, criminal-justice responsibilities as "unfunded mandates," th...
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Saturday, January 26, 2019

Counties promoting misinformation about indigent defense in anti-unfunded-mandate campaign

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I'm sick of the Texas Association of Counties (TAC) trying to include indigent-defense costs in their list of unfunded mandates. They ca...
7 comments:
Friday, January 25, 2019

Podcast: Taking a bite out of junk science, update on bail-reform litigation, and much more

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The January episode of Just Liberty's Reasonably Suspicious podcast was delayed a bit by my co-host's enviable trip to Vietnam at t...
Thursday, January 24, 2019

Randy Ranger misconduct, CCA says TX cops can locate your phone w/o a warrant, police union endorses lesser punishment for non-violent offenses, and other stories

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Here are a few odds and ends that merit Grits readers attention while I edit the January podcast and attend to other business. There's a...
7 comments:
Wednesday, January 23, 2019

Texans incarcerated thousands of years over traffic-ticket debt

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In 2018, according to Office of Court Administration data , 524,628 people satisfied Class C misdemeanor fines and fees through jail credit....
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Monday, January 21, 2019

TDCJ suicide record argues against state takeover of Harris County Jail

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In a roundup post over the weekend, Grits pointed to an odd story emerging when "Sen. John Whitmire suggested the state should take ov...
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Saturday, January 19, 2019

Bail litigation updates across Texas, and other stories

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A bit of personal news: After Just Liberty's Executive Director, Shakira Pumphrey, left to join the new Texas House Speaker's staff ...
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Friday, January 18, 2019

#txlege budget writers in denial on prisoner health care

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In its Legislative Appropriations Request , the Texas Department of Criminal Justice said it needs an additional $247 million in order to co...
8 comments:
Monday, January 14, 2019

Beto bitter over El Paso police-union fight: Here's why that's okay

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Grits must admit, I thought a bit more highly of Beto O'Rourke after reading this feature from The Intercept detailing his fraught rela...
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Friday, January 11, 2019

Fixing longstanding criminal-justice problems in a black-ink budget year

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Comptroller Glenn Hegar gave the Texas Legislature some good news with a black-ink budget projection for the coming biennium, suggesting t...
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In praise of pretrial-detention algorithms, the 'failure to appear fallacy,' Louisiana ↓ technical revocations, and other stories

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Several national items merit Grits readers' attention here during the calm before the 86th Texas Legislature storm. Debtors-prison ref...
3 comments:
Tuesday, January 08, 2019

Appeal of Harris bail suit withdrawn, lazy judges cause jail overcrowding, and the paradox of progressive prosecutors

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Here are a few odds and ends that merit Grits readers' attention: Appeal withdrawn in Harris Co bail suit The new Harris County misde...
6 comments:
Sunday, January 06, 2019

Innocence Project Math 101: Why it's certain eyewitnesses are still sending innocent people to prison in Texas

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Our friends at the prosecutor association want to pretend Texas has solved its problem with eyewitnesses falsely identifying innocent suspec...
7 comments:
Friday, January 04, 2019

Prospects for reduced marijuana penalties in the 86th #txlege

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The Texas Legislature this year is primed for its most serious effort yet at reducing penalties for user-level marijuana possession. Leg...
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