Every nasty thing you thought about Chuck Rosenthal is probably true

Yikes!

I've thought Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal was pretty darn awful for years, but the revelations about emails recovered from his county computer seem unfathomably stupid and juvenile, even bigoted, basically confirming every nasty assumption his enemies ever made about him.

For example, in a city with a large African American population, whom the criminal justice system disproportionately prosecutes, imagine finding on the DA's computer, according to KHOU:

an e-mailed photo ... of an African-American man lying on his back on a sidewalk and seemingly unconscious. He is surrounded on one side by watermelon, that has clearly been eaten, and an empty fried chicken bucket on the other. The photo’s sender is unknown, but it does have a title with it: “Fatal Overdose.”

That doesn't sound like any spam I've ever received. Another email, this one borderline misogynist, came to Rosenthal from the husband of one of the current DA candidates:

It’s from a Web site showing unsuspecting women getting their clothes ripped off on public streets. The sender was Dr. Sam Siegler, Rosenthal's personal physician, friend and the husband of Assistant District Attorney Kelly Siegler. She is now a Republican candidate for district attorney.

“I didn't intend for it to be offensive. I didn't e-mail anybody that I thought would be offended by it,” Dr. Siegler told 11 News.

I wonder if that was the same thinking of the person who sent the picture of the black fellow overdosed on watermelon? Perhaps the sender didn't email anybody they thought would be offended?

What may get Rosenthal in the most hot water, though, is evidence that he routinely, cavalierly used county employees to perform campaign work. I've heard that accusation in the past, but these revelations put a hard edge on them that may wind the DA up in court.

The Chuckster has already announced he won't run for re-election, but that may not be enough. He might not be able to functionally run the agency with these kind of revelations coming out in dribs and drabs over the next year before he leaves office. Maybe it's time Chuck Rosenthal retire now, and put him entirely out of his (our?) misery. What do you think?

Vendor that employs TYC conservator won't bid on state contracts

While this announcement would have been better received when his appointment was declared, the Texas Youth Commission's conservator says the Florida non-profit he works for will not pursue contracts with TYC to house young offenders.

When Richard Nedelkoff was first appointed conservator, I wrote on Grits about "One potential conflict of interest not reported in initial press accounts: Eckerd is one of the private contractors competing to take over TYC's role housing young offenders (10-13 year olds), and Nedelkoff personally was involved this summer in soliciting the Texas contract, which would have been the company's first in the state."

Thankfully, according to the Austin Statesman ("New conservator says company withdrew bid on state contract, Jan. 9), the new conservator recognized the conflict and took steps to resolve it:

Eckerd withdrew its proposal in December, when Nedelkoff was appointed to the Texas job.

"I knew there would be a perception of a conflict ... so to remove that, Eckerd withdrew," Nedelkoff said. "It was the right thing to do. Eckerd will not be pursuing business with the state."

In recent months, before Nedelkoff was appointed, agency officials were criticized for awarding a no-bid contract to a politically connected Austin firm, AutoGov Inc., to provide software for classifying and tracking incarcerated youths.

Eckerd provides highly regarded programs for at-risk and incarcerated youths, operating residential and community-based programs in 10 states.

Youth Commission spokesman Jim Hurley said officials are evaluating a dozen or so responses received from bidders. No date has been set for awarding the residential-services contracts.

Of course, that begs the bigger question: Given TYC's lack of oversight of its private vendor at the Coke County facility, should TYC be privatizing more youth detention services at all? I'm hoping once Nedelkoff wraps his brain around the scope of the problem, he'll put the kabosh on that ill-considered plan.

Dallas PD teaming up with U of North Texas for research-training institute

I can't quite put my finger on it. On the surface, it seems like I should welcome news that the Caruth Foundation has devoted $9.5 million to allow the Dallas Police Department to partner with the University of North Texas (DMN, Jan. 8) to create a:

research institute dedicated to training officers and developing crime-fighting strategies.

The city and the University of North Texas will team up to run the W.W. Caruth Jr. Police Institute at Dallas. It will be funded with a $6 million endowment and $3.5 million for start-up costs provided by the W.W. Caruth Jr. Foundation fund through the Communities Foundation of Texas.

Organizers say the institutes's mission will be to train the next generation of Police Department leaders and to give officers opportunities to obtain college degrees through the doctorate level.

The institute also will study the department's crime-fighting strategies to determine what works and what doesn't in an effort to place Dallas at the forefront of the national conversation on best policing practices.

Somehow that strikes me as posing many of the same potential benefits, detriments, and conflicts of interest created by collaborations with the military by universities. Chief David Kunkle said:

"If our supervisors and managers and executives are better trained and have better backgrounds and are better skilled, then they will make better decisions," he said. "If they make better decisions, regardless of what direction the city or the department or the city takes, you're likely to have better outcomes."

It's hard to argue with that. And yet, will the academics at the Institute be comfortable exploring the full implications of their research when working in such close association with field practitioners, and will that create conflicts that potentially harm academic freedom or a commitment to openness and public dissemination of research?

Will DPD impose limits on publication for researchers using their data that eliminate their ability to fully and honestly assess the agency's problems? I don't know. The role of a university is different from that of a consultant: It's supposed to be more independent, not necessarily institutionally intertwined with the subject its researching.

In any event, reports the Dallas News, the new Institutes's research will build on recent consulting work performed by the Rand Corporation

Rand found that one major hurdle facing the department was that crime analysis and crime-fighting efforts are hampered by dozens of databases that don't link to one another. "If you want to do a search on Robert Davis, you'd have to go to potentially 40 places for that information," Mr. Davis said.

Rand also found that the department's efforts to train rank-and-file officers and its leadership needed an extensive overhaul.

Researchers found that only about 10 of the department's 125 senior staff members are sent to outside training programs each year, and less than 40 percent of the senior staff members have had any leadership training at all. Those out-of-town training programs are often expensive, take a lot of time away from the job and are frequently better suited to the needs of smaller policing agencies.

Promotions are also based on an archaic testing process. Only about 30 percent of the department's patrol officers had bachelor's degrees, Mr. Davis said.

Because other efforts are under way to improve the department's technological capabilities, officials decided the remainder of the $15 million should be invested in the department's workforce. The idea for the institute grew out of that realization, Mr. Davis said.

"They need to have the right training, the right motivation and the right career paths and retention to be able to make it possible for the department and the people to carry out the vision that the chief has," he said.

Organizers hope to eventually involve other police departments in their work. The University of Texas at Dallas is also expected to be involved in the institute.

Mr. Davis said Rand will stay involved with the institute because its researchers are in the midst of developing an extensive performance measurement system.

This may turn out to be a great idea, and I support all the stated goals. But something about the partnership doesn't sit right. The academic freedom issues seem too ill-defined and potentially troublesome. I'd like to understand better just what protections will be afforded UNT researchers participating in the program, and what limits are imposed on rights to publish research based on DPD data.

I want to be for this project, but for now count me as "neutral."

Dallas DA Defines "Smart on Crime"

Dallas District Attorney Craig Watkins had a column in the Dallas News (Jan. 7) yesterday reflecting on his first year in office. In addition to describing his much-publicized partnership with the Innocence Project to correct past mistakes and exonerate wrongfully convicted prisoners, he goes further to define what his office means by "smart on crime":

Being smart on crime means we look at ways to keep repeat offenders off our streets, and we are doing so with a new and improved "impact offender" program. In conjunction with the Dallas Police Department and our elected district judges, we are targeting offenders who repeatedly fail to stop their criminal behavior. These impact offenders are tried within 60 days of indictment, and their convictions swiftly take them off our streets, out of our county jail and into the state penitentiary, thus creating a safer community and saving Dallas County taxpayers' money.

Being smart on crime also means that we are seeking the necessary resources to represent and protect citizens. We were fortunate to receive approval in the 2008 budget for funds that will pay for a prosecutor to handle cases of financial abuse against the elderly, which is a growing problem in our community. We also received federal grants to establish a gang unit and a sexual assault unit. The gang unit not only focuses on prosecution, but also on discouraging young people from getting involved in gangs. The sexual assault unit is supported by a $1.48 million grant from the U.S. Department of Justice's Office on Violence Against Women. This funding allows us to finally have a prosecutor, investigator and caseworker dedicated to handling sexual assault crimes.

We also have established a unit that works directly with the county's probation department, the constables and the Sheriff's Department to locate probation absconders and get them back into custody.

In addition, we have implemented a new policy for first-time, nonviolent misdemeanors. Offenders are now held accountable for their actions – often youthful indiscretions – by doing community service and completing educational courses. For drug cases, offenders must also pass two drug tests within a specific period. When these requirements are met, offenders' cases are dismissed, thus keeping marks off their criminal records that would inevitably put their future employment at risk. And as we know, when people can't find jobs, they typically move on to more serious crimes.

More on US-side drug cartel contacts

I've been asking on Grits who are the big American drug bosses? Well, here's one, via AP:

A U.S. citizen who was a top assistant to the leader of a Mexican drug cartel was sentenced Monday to 30 years in federal prison for his role in smuggling drugs across the border.

Manuel Arturo Villarreal Heredia, 32, will also forfeit $5 million. He thanked U.S. District Judge Larry Burns for being fair.

Villarreal pleaded guilty in September to racketeering and conspiracy to invest illicit drug profits.

He was captured with cartel chief Francisco Javier Arellano Felix aboard a fishing yacht off the coast of Baja California in 2006. Arellano Felix pleaded guilty to running the cartel and was sentenced in November to life in prison.

Warden threw a party in the county jail ...

Happy 72nd Birthday, Elvis!

In looking up a version of Jailhouse Rock to post here, I ran across some background on the two authors of Elvis' "Jailhouse Rock" classic, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, that I didn't know, from a recent column in the UK Guardian (Dec. 28):

Jailhouse Rock was written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, a preposterously successful songwriting team. With tunes such as Kansas City, On Broadway, Love Potion No. 9, Stand By Me, Spanish Harlem, I Who Have Nothing and Hound Dog to their credit, the pair wrote many hits for many different kinds of artist, ranging from forgettable novelty acts to the blues icon Big Mama Thornton to the sultry torch singer Peggy Lee. They also helped launch the career of producer Phil Spector, who helped launch the career of Sonny Bono, who actually did launch the career of Cher. Spector, whose trial on murder charges recently ended in a mistrial in Los Angeles, ruined the soundtrack for Let It Be and produced the Ramones worst LP End of the Century.

Since revulsion at what they had wrought with Let It Be contributed to the Beatles decision to disband, and since End of the Century was viewed as a sellout from which the Ramones never recovered, it can be argued that Leiber and Stoller, by giving Spector work at this pivotal stage in his career, may have planted the seeds for two of the greatest tragedies in the history of popular music. But as neither man could have foreseen or foreheard any of this, they are no more responsible for the strings on "The Long and Winding Road" and "Baby, I Love You" than Richard Wagner is for the rise of the Third Reich.

Thirty-nine songs by Leiber and Stoller were used in the Broadway revue Smoky Joe's Café, the most successful show of its kind ever. Unlike similar revues based on songs by Billy Joel or the Four Seasons, Smoky Joe's Café does not have the fingerprints of Moloch all over it. Jailhouse Rock is one of the last numbers in the show. One verse contains the lyrics:

Number forty-seven said to number three,
You're the cutest jailbird I ever did see;
I sure would be delighted with your company,
Come on and do the jailhouse rock with me.

It has elsewhere been suggested that, even though songwriters didn't generally dwell on such subjects back in 1957, these lyrics may refer to homosexual acts practiced within the walls of American penitentiaries.

Gosh. Do you think?

Last of the 'pen writers' still plying trade in Dallas courthouse

John Henry says to his mother,
Says "A man ain't nothin but a man,
Before I let this steam drill beat me down,
I'll die with this hammer in my hand,
Lawd, Lawd, I'll die with this hammer in my hand."

- "John Henry," folk ballad

When I read this profile of 72-year old Frank Howell, a court reporter in Dallas and perhaps the last of the "pen writers" - i.e, hand stenographers - in an era when most court reporting has entered the digital age, I couldn't help but think of the ballad of John Henry, the 19th century steel-drivin' man who took on a steam drill in a railroad spike-driving contest, and "died with a hammer in his hand."

"Even when I first began to report, people would tell me that someday I would be replaced by a machine," Howell told Texas Lawyer ("Dinosaurs still roam the court," Jan. 8). But it hasn't happened, at least yet. He owns neither a cell phone nor a computer. Still working as a reporter in Dallas competency hearings, Howell transcribes pen-written short-hand onto transcripts using an IBM Selectric. Though some of his peers disbelieve the claim, Howell says his by-hand transcription meets the state's 225 word per minute minimum rate (at 96% accuracy).

In addition to his court reporting skills, Howell also serves another function, as part of the courthouse's long-term institutional memory: "If you wanted to know what was really going on in the courthouse, he has been one of the sources," declared Dallas solo Ron Goranson. "If there is a rumor going around, sooner or later, he would pick it up."

Though the steam drill beat John Henry, in an era when technology seems to transform the world around us at such a breathtaking pace, it's gratifying that the steno machine never defeated Frank Howell.

One million prisoners by mid-century? Can Texas sustain recent rates of incarceration growth?

If Texas sustains high rates of incarceration growth seen in recent years, where would it ultimately lead?

Looking at past growth rates, over the 26 years from 1978 to 2004, the number of adult Texas prisoners grew by 573% while the state's population grew by 67%. That means that for every percentage point increase in population, Texas expanded its prison population by an additional 8% over that period!

If Texas prisons sustain the same growth rate over the next 26 years, by 2030 Texas will incarcerate approximately 894,000 adults, compared to around 156,000 today, and fewer than 30,000 in 1978!

That's an insane thought - that Texas would be headed quickly toward one million prisoners by the middle of the century - but it's where we're going if Texas doesn't reverse course.

At least on paper. In reality, I seriously doubt that our current growth rate can be maintained.

Already, reality has reared its ugly head to impose limits on incarceration. Texas prisons today are around 4,000 guards short of minimum staffing, and the problem is only getting worse. Trustees routinely perform functions previously reserved for TDCJ employees. More state employees already work in corrections than any other area. Either significantly expanding their numbers or raising their pay high enough to attract more job applicants would raise the state's artificially low per-inmate cost by an enormous margin.

When the Legislative Budget Board tells the Legislature they need new prison space, or when the Texas Commission on Jail Standards tells county jails they need to expand, they're basically taking current incarceration growth rates and projecting forward to identify future needs. That makes perfect sense except for one thing: Texas' current rate of overincarceration already has proven unsustainable.

What's needed, but almost never done, is for agencies like LBB and TCJS to inform decision makers about policy choices that might reduce growth rates, instead of just tallying up the cost of accommodating past bad decisions. These days, no one in government performs that function any longer, and the task has been farmed out to private consultants.

Yet now that we're in election season, we hear reflexively "tuff" rhetoric from candidates that appears to have zero basis in reality. Who believes we can continue to expand prisons by 8% for every 1% increase in population? I don't understand how such a foolish position could be adopted with a straight face by anyone calling themselves a "fiscal conservative."

For years, Texas pols from both parties have been tuff as tuff can be on crime: Surely now it's time to get smart.

Are Mexican Cartel Wars Headed for a Final Showdown?

These recent stories about the war on drugs in Mexico caught my eye and may interest Grits readers:

Drug Cartels Aim to Disrupt Elections, Intimidate Pols
Reported the Washington Post (1/4/08):

Drug cartels are trying to influence the outcomes of major elections in Mexico by kidnapping and threatening candidates, according to Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora.

The remarks by Medina Mora, released by his office Friday, underscored the Mexican government's growing willingness in recent months to acknowledge the threat drug cartels pose to the nation's fragile democracy. The problem is most severe, Medina Mora said, in the border states of Baja California and Tamaulipas, and in Michoacan, the home state of Mexican President Felipe Calder¿n.

"We have evidence, complaints from candidates who were kidnapped or intimidated, or who received threats intended to influence the results of an election and the behavior of candidates," Medina Mora told the Spanish newspaper El Pais, according to a transcript of the interview.

The Changing Face of the Drug Trade
See an analysis of black market imports and exports in and out of Arizona related to the drug trade.

Cartels retaliate against Mexican police, officials
Direct intimidation of police and public officials continues to rise, with three beheadings near the Tijuana border on New Years Day, seven officers recently murdered in Zacatecas, five more drug-related killings in Mexico City, the killing of a prominent anti-cartel politician in Rio Bravo, and four more drug-related killings in Rio Bravo just today.

Press Report Predicts 'Final Showdown' between Sinaloa, Gulf Cartels
The Sinaloa and Gulf Cartels in Rio Bravo "are armed and ready for a final showdown. It's a battle four years in the making for control of the Rio Grande Valley smuggling routes."

Snitching dillemmas confronted on the small screen

For those like myself interested in the pros and cons of using police informants, last night was a strong TV night.

First CBS' 60 Minutes offered a high-profile snitching two-fer: An interview with a mob assassin whose testimony implicated Boston mobster Whitey Bulger, and a face to face sit down with Texas pitching ace Roger Clemens over allegations by an uncorroborated informant that he used steroids. Then later in the evening, HBO launched the fifth and final season of The Wire, which arguably has done more to illuminate problems with reliance on informants than any journalist. A few quick comments about each:

Fingering Whitey Bulger: Is it snitching to snitch on a snitch?
Not long after Whitey Bulger was supposedly spotted on the lam in Italy, 60 Minutes' Steve Kroft interviewed John Martorano, a trigger man for the Irish Mob in Boston led by Bulger. Bulger used his position as a federal snitch for more than 30 years to target his opposition, and his FBI handlers supplied information on competitors and rats within Bulger's organization that led to numerous killings. It interested me to hear Martorano's thought process about what he'd done (he received just 12 years for more than 20 murders thanks to a sentence reduction in exchange for his testimony against Bulger's crew - approximately seven months for each admitted killing). Martorano didn't view himself as a mass murderer or a snitch, he said, but as a "vigilante" with a strong moral sense. He considered himself a "witness" instead of a "snitch," and said he came forward to STOP Whitey Bulger from snitching. He would have killed his former boss instead if he hadn't already disappeared from the scene, he said, so cooperating with the feds was his next best avenue for revenge. Watch the whole thing, and also see CBS' interactive portrait on the FBI, including several informant related scandals..

Pitching ace Clemens angry at uncorroborated snitch testimony
Meanwhile, Mike Wallace's interview with Roger Clemens I found equally interesting: As I've written before, these he-said he-said disputes can be interpreted in a variety of ways, and while the interview broke no new ground, it fleshed out the whys and wherefores of the dispute. A key moment came when Wallace confronted Clemens about the informant, Brian McNamee, who accused him in the Mitchell report of using steroids:

"George Mitchell says he believes McNamee and this is why: McNamee got caught up in a federal steroids investigation, and the federal prosecutors agreed not to charge him if he told the truth about his involvement with steroids. But they would charge him if he gave any false information. So Mitchell says McNamee had strong incentives to tell the truth," Wallace says. "What did McNamee gain by lying?"

"Evidently not going to jail," Clemens says.

"Jail time for what?" Wallace asks.

"Well, I think he's been buying and movin' steroids," Clemens says.

The problem is, depending on the circumstances, both arguments are equally plausible: McNamee could have told the whole truth in order to avoid prosecution, or if investigators were pressuring him with threat of jail time if he didn't name names, he could just as easily have manufactured allegations from a decade ago that can no longer be proved or disproved. While other players included in the Mitchell report frequently were identified through sales records and internet credit card transactions, no one has presented such corroborating evidence against Clemens.

Even though some view the upcoming Congressional hearings as a perjury trap for Clemens, from the evidence publicly described so far I can't see either libel or perjury suits sticking - neither side possesses corroborating evidence for their story, so I doubt we'll see libel suits in either direction.

Besides McNamee's allegations, the main reason many question Clemens' veracity is that his pitching career, especially toward the end, seemed almost superhuman, particularly as he aged into his mid-40s when most ball players have long since retired. As I listened to Wallace's questions along those lines, I thought to myself, what about Satchell Paige whose legendary pitching dominance endured past age 50 (though no one ever knew his exact birthday)? What about Nolan Ryan, whose ferocious fastball was as feared in his 40s as in his 20s? There aren't a lot of iron-men hurlers in Major League Baseball history, but we've seen others before Clemens and before the steroid era - simply his productivity at an advanced age, to me, provides no conclusive proof of his guilt.

We just can't know from the currently available evidence what is the truth. Clemens rightly complained that it's becoming virtually impossible for him to clear his name, since he can't prove a negative - that he DIDN'T do something - and that many people will never believe him:

"I don’t know if I can defend myself, I think people, a lot of people, have already made their decisions," he says.

"Well, a lot of people have made…," Wallace says.

"And that's our country, isn't it? Guilty before innocent. That that's the way our country works now. And then everybody's talking about sue, sue, sue. Should I sue? Well, let me exhaust. Let me just spend. How about, let's keep spending," Clemens says. "But I’m gonna explore what I can do and then I want to see if it’s gonna be worth it, worth all the headache." (UPDATE: Clemens had filed suit against McNamee by the time the interview was broadcast.)

Clearly, he's right; few are giving him the benefit of the doubt. At a certain point among journalists in particular a sense of schadenfreude sets in. Like Barry Bonds, lots of people want Clemens' accomplishments to appear tainted, and it shows in the ferocity of the coverage about him.

The Wire, Prop Joe, and Motives for Snitching
There are many reasons to welcome the much-anticipated final season of The Wire, HBO's crime drama set in Baltimore which has provided the most realistic small-screen portrayal of the drug trade and criminal justice politics ever produced.

Though I don't want to turn this blog into a center for TV criticism, to me the series has nearly morphed into a truly historic cultural event - the first ever attempt at a realistic, multi-dimensional approach to storytelling about crime and punishment, particularly as it relates to the War on Drugs.

To promote the new season, HBO has created an outstanding website that gives story summaries from every episode from season one to the present, and even crafted short "prequel" videos to give a sense of some of the characters before the storyline begins.

Click through here and watch the short video portraying a young "Prop Joe," a drug kingpin from Baltimore's East Side, plying his black market trade (selling stolen multiple choice test scores) as a plump high-school youth. When an older thug threatens him and shorts him on payment for the test scores, Prop Joe pulls aside a teacher to sell her information about who's walking around with tomorrow's test scores in his pocket.

The story to me seems nearly iconic: Prop Joe was the one selling test scores in every subject, but his customer was the one who ended up getting caught and presumably punished. It's an old story: The Big Fish get off, the Little Fish get eaten.

CCA Judge Cathy Cochran responds to Grits' criticisms on workload

Reacting to Grits' criticisms last week that the number of discretionary review cases before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeal had declined during a period when the overall criminal caseload had grown, CCA Judge Cathy Cochran sent me an email this morning, published below in full. I may have a fuller reaction later, but for now let's devote this post to her substantive response:

I would like to thank you for your interest in the administration of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. As a member of the CCA for the past six years, I have felt that the responsibilities and administration of this court are widely misunderstood. Your blog of January 4, offers me the opportunity to set at least one small part of the record straight.

I fear that you have misunderstood the process by which petitions for discretionary review are reviewed by the CCA. The total number of petitions for discretionary review that were filed with the CCA in fiscal 2007 was 1,661. The court has no control over that number. Both defendants and the State have a statutory right to file such petitions. The Court granted 149 petitions–that is, it agreed to hear 149 new discretionary cases in 2007. By comparison, the total number of cases filed in the U.S. Supreme Court during its 2006 Term was 8,857, and it heard 78 civil and criminal cases. During fiscal 2007, 831 petitions for review (equivalent to discretionary review) were filed in the Texas Supreme Court; it agreed to hear 138 of them. According to these statistics, the CCA granted review of more discretionary cases than either the U.S. Supreme Court or the Texas Supreme Court. The Texas Supreme Court agreed to hear a higher percentage of discretionary cases than the CCA, and the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a much smaller percentage of its discretionary cases.

In addition, the CCA received 5,489 post-conviction applications for a writ of habeas corpus and resolved 6,158 such writ applications (including some pending from the previous year). It also resolved 82 death penalty applications for writs of habeas corpus, and wrote opinions resolving 19 direct appeals in death-penalty cases. The Court reversed the conviction or sentences in four of those death-penalty appeals, approximately 20% of the total. This was by far the highest reversal rate of death penalty cases in the past seven years.

The raw number of petitions filed by both defendants and the State for discretionary review has decreased since its high in 2000 of 2,271, thus it is not surprising that the 170 petitions granted in 2000 was higher than the 149 the CCA granted in 2007. The same seven-year decrease in appellate filings occurred in the Texas Supreme Court as well, although it agreed to hear a greater percentage of cases in fiscal 2007 than it had in prior years.

The CCA has not conducted a specific time/workload study, but in my experience, the work involved in writing the 575 opinions we issued last year (the Texas Supreme Court wrote a total of 170 opinions) and reviewing and resolving 6,158 applications for writ of habeas corpus is significant. In other words, a nine-member court has a limit to the number of cases and writs that it can adequately process in a year given the time it takes to perform this and other administrative functions. We may be able to increase the number of cases that we agree to hear in a year by a small percentage, but at some point we would be exchanging quality for quantity under the law of diminishing returns.

The number of direct criminal appeals filed in the fourteen Texas courts of appeals has also decreased in the past seven years. The total number of direct criminal case appeals filed in 2000 was 7,163, versus 5,999 in 2007.

You are correct in noting that the total number of felony criminal cases filed in the district trial courts in Texas has increased in the past seven years from 222,882 in 2000, to 285,019 in fiscal year 2007. How can one account for the fact that, although more criminal cases are being filed now, fewer appeals are taken? There are many possible reasons for this over-all decline in appeals, but one of them may be that the CCA amended the rules of appellate procedure to ensure that, if a defendant has no statutory right of appeal, the trial court will certify that fact and no appeal may be filed. Thus, the county need not waste the public’s money to appoint a lawyer to represent a defendant for an appeal he has no right to pursue, and the county need not pay for the compilation of the clerk’s record or the transcription of a reporter’s record. Formerly, the filing and subsequent rejection of statutorily unauthorized appeals had wasted an enormous amount of judicial time and effort, and it cost the local and state taxpayers a great deal of money which could be invested in useful ways, such as: paying court-appointed appellate defense attorneys more for filing authorized appeals; paying court-appointed appellate defense attorneys for filing PDRs in the CCA; investing resources in a public defender’s appellate office; paying court-appointed defense attorneys more for their trial-court representation or more for investigative expenses or expert witnesses. And so forth.

I do not have access to information about whether this shift in resources– to produce other benefits for defendants–has occurred, but I suggest that this is a reasonable possibility given the reduction in statutorily unauthorized appeals. I hope that “Grits for Breakfast” will continue to participate in the ongoing, well-informed, public policy debate concerning the best allocation of our finite criminal justice resources.

Thanks, Judge, for taking the time to write and contribute to the debate on this blog.

More on what clergy can do to respond to and reduce violent crime

Yesterday I mentioned that my brother John asked on his blog for suggestions what local clergy could do to reduce violent crime and its consequences in light of a rising local murder rate in Shreveport, where he is an assistant pastor.

I've been thinking about the subject since then, and believe the restorative justice model provides opportunities for creative new approaches to the subject.

Restorative justice asks "who's been hurt, what are their needs, and what process can we use to meet those needs and help them transcend their victimization?" As a thought experiment, how might that philosophy play out applied to attempts by the clergy to reduce violent crime through their local ministries?

First, who's been hurt? Obviously, the murder victim's family and friends rank first on this list, and any restorative justice approach must minister to their needs.

I'd also argue for including the family of the offender in the list of "who's been hurt," particularly any children of the offender. That's especially important if a goal of the mission is to reduce violent crime: Children of incarcerated parents are 6-8 times more likely than their peers to wind up in prison themselves, so when a parent commits a serious crime, it places their children at significant future risk.

There are many things churches could do to help meet the physical and psychic needs of those harmed by violent crime. With an interdenominational coalition focused on the problem, perhaps it would be possible to create a volunteer system to establish liaisons to victim and offender families in the wake of such tragedies?

The first step for such a mission would be to track and monitor violent deaths, perhaps partnering with the local PD to make sure the ministry is notified when a murder occurs so assistance can be provided.

For victims', what people need most in the immediate aftermath of such a tragedy is a friend. In the short term, a helpful gesture might be simply bringing food so the victim's family doesn't have to cook while making unexpected funeral preparations, or assisting with babysitting or household chores while the victim's family takes care of its unhappy business. Not only are these acts of service helpful to the victim's family, they give average parishioners a way to participate in the ministry that's doesn't insist on the kind of long-term commitment that will be needed from staff and core volunteers.

Another obvious need: Perhaps churches could either establish a fund to help pay for indigent funeral expenses, or provide resources for services pro bono in the case of murder victims.

After the initial "rapid response," churches could establish interdenominational group sessions for grieving victims and families, preferably led by a licensed counselor, or possibly, for victim families who are willing, they could work with prison ministry groups to pursue victim-offender mediation like the Bridges to Life program in Texas. Such programs give victims a voice and contribute to real rehabilitation for offenders.

Similarly, it's pretty easy to identify key assistance churches could provide for offenders and their families using the restorative justice model that might help reduce crime and promote rehabilitation. Christ did not forsake sinners, and neither should His bride, the church.

For starters, I don't think any New Testament reading can get around the church's duty to visit and comfort the offender in prison. Not only does this fulfill a biblical mandate from Christ himself, talking with the offender may be the best way to identify who within his own family may have been harmed by what happened and give the ministry intelligence about how to proceed in ministering to the offenders own clan.

Just as I suggested a "liaison" to victim families, a liaison to the offenders families would give the coalition a wedge into crime producing dynamics. Children of offenders, IMO, should receive special attention from the church if the ministry's goal is to reduce violent crime. After such an incident, they're inevitably confused, angry, mournful, and incredibly likely to descend into delinquency that will eventually send them into a life of crime. Programs to mentor children of murderers (and other prisoners) may be among the most productive. (In Texas, Big Brothers Big Sisters has launched the Amachi program, which might be a good vehicle for that work.)

A lot of churches in Shreveport including my brother's operate private schools. Perhaps it would be possible to pursue grants or other resources to pay for education of indigent children of victim and offender families, offering them a more promising future despite the tremendous loss they've suffered.

A key to these ideas working would be to suborn proselytizing to a more direct service type ministry. Though tragedy may draw one closer to God, it's a person's own spiritual journey, not some badgering stranger, that's most likely to lead them in that direction. In such a painful environment, if folks think you're there for your own benefit instead of theirs, they're likely to turn away.

Demonstrating piety through acts of service and humility is a better approach,and if there's ever a time for humility it's when facing the trauma caused among survivors by a violent death. IMO the mission could only succeed if participants focused one showing their faith through mercy and action rather than pridefully trumpeting the benefits of salvation. Similarly, some folks will reject assistance, both among victim and offender families, and it would be important to respect those boundaries when they're drawn.

While I've never designed a church ministry, the functional process seems not that much different from designing a political campaign - evaluating goals and resources then creating strategies and tactics designed to achieve them. Viewed in that light, John's "goal" set an impossibly high bar: To "end violent deaths in 2008."

I don't think that's an achievable goal. But goals of 1) reducing the harm from violent crime and 2) reducing the amount of violent crime in the medium to long run, seem both achievable and like a worthy project for an interdenominational, citywide mission.

What do you think of these ideas, and what else could a motivated, citywide coalition of clergy do to respond to and reduce violent crime?

Clergy seeking to respond to violent crime should look to restorative justice

On his blog Wondering Thoughts, my brother, a Baptist preacher in Shreveport, LA, yesterday posted this query:

If you haven't noticed, we had a year of violent deaths here in our city. Local clergy gathered recently to discuss it. Any ideas on how the church can give a missional response and end violent deaths in 2008?

44 Died Violently in 2007:The Shreveport Times

If you have any good ideas, click through and let him know.

I don't know that the church can do anything to "end violent deaths," which no one has seemed able to stop since Cain killed Abel. But I suggested in the comments that clergy seeking to respond to violent crime might look to the restorative justice movement, which emphasizes support for the victims of violent crime and their families, asking "who's been hurt, what are their needs, and what process can we use to meet those needs and help them transcend their victimization?"

Anyone seeking more on the subject should see Grits' coverage of last year's national restorative justice conference which addressed many of these subjects and linked to quite a few additional resources.

Federal corruption investigation includes Harris County Jail contracts among targets

The local ABC station in Houston reports that an FBI corruption investigation "that could become public in a matter of weeks" has resulted in subpoenas in Harris County "looking for records of dealings with two companies and contractors with close ties to a slew of local politicians involved in the creation of city fire stations, county jails and even our football stadium."

There's no additional information in the story about possible connections to county jails beyond this one, tantalizing mention. But we've seen scandals take down Sheriffs in Dallas, Bexar and Potter Counties regarding allegedly improper or bribe-influenced commissary contracts, so it'll be interesting to see which contracts related to county jails wind up being wrapped into the investigation.

It wasn't that long ago that the Cameron County Sheriff was convicted of escorting drug smugglers through his county, and San Antonio city council members went to prison for bribe taking. With Harris County added to the list of ongoing federal corruption investigations in Dallas and El Paso, not to mention the Laredo police chief indicted for bribery and the Bexar Sheriff having resigned last year over alleged bribe taking, it seems like we're witnessing a rash of increasingly serioius corruption in Texas - often regarding government's criminal justice functions - that's becoming increasingly hard to ignore.

I generally hesitate to attribute policy positions I disagree with to "corruption," but taking that stance over the last couple of years has begun to make me feel rather naive.

h/t to BlogHouston

Saturday Morning Odds and Ends

Here are a few odds and ends that deserve Grits readers attention:

Now Rosenthal is really out ... maybe
Chuck Rosenthal finally decided not to run for re-election for Harris County District Attorney, but ironically he may have screwed up the letter asking to be removed from the ballot. Reports the Houston Chronicle, "Now on the ballot are former felony court judge and former homicide detective Pat Lykos, assistant district attorney Kelly Siegler, defense lawyer and former prosecutor Jim Leitner and Doug Perry, who listed himself as a Houston police captain, lawyer and accountant."

Mexican marijuana still plentiful and cheap
I know, I know, you're shocked.

ABC News: Don't snitch on drug using co-workers
ABC News' Bob Rosner advises, "Your co-worker doesn't need someone to play snitch and bust him at work. So take off that badge and step away from your role as enforcer."

How do you compensate 27 years' unjust imprisonment?
Asks the blog Tort Deform, looking at the Texas case of Charles Chatman. Over the years as a corporate defense lawyer, my father has spent a great deal of time arguing in and out of court over the value of lives lost or the financial consequence debilitating injuries, and I've always thought based on that second-hand experience that the $50,000 per year Texas compensates wrongfully convicted people is probably too low. As a Tort Deform commenter wrote, "clearly an instance in which 'noneconomic damages' should be available. Besides the 27 years of employment this person missed out on, he has been irreparably robbed of so much life experience, and I hate to imagine the abuses he may have witnessed or even personally suffered while incarcerated."

2007 annual report on Texas judiciary available
I've already done a couple of posts based on data from the Office of Court Administration's annual report on the Texas judiciary, but if you're interested in seeing the whole thing, which is chock full of interesting data, it's available here.

No transition team yet for new Dallas jail wing
Dallas Sheriff Lupe Valdez has been criticized, sometimes justly, for her failure to turn around problems at the Dallas County Jail, but she can't do it without help from the county commissioners court, which was criticized by the National Institute of Corrections for failing to fund a transition team to plan for opening a new jail wing. I still don't understand how they plan to staff the new facility.

Partisan labels provide little guide for identifying criminal justice reformers

Do you consider Democrats or Republicans generally better on supporting criminal justice reforms? In my experience, the reality is more complex than public sterotypes about "left" and "right."

For example, here's an item where I strongly prefer President Bush's agenda to any Democrat running for President:

Every year since he took office, President Bush proposed zeroing out the "Byrne grant" program, now known as the Justice Assistance Program, which nationally is mostly used to fund regional drug task forces like the infamous one in Tulia. (In Texas, Governor Perry defunded our 40+ drug task forces and shifted our share of Byrne grant money to border security - specifically grants to border sheriffs - so that's where the cuts will be felt here.)

Though never entirely successful, over time President Bush has convinced Congress to whittle the program down to nearly nothing - this year the fund was cut from $520 million to $170 million, down from more than $800 million just a few years ago. On this score, I find myself more in agreement with folks like the Heritage Foundation and the National Taxpayers Union than with national Democrats - it's time once and for all for Byrne-grant funded drug task forces to go.

Similarly, this morning Doc Berman points out how Hillary Clinton attacked Barack Obama for allegedly being soft on crime. Why? Because he once criticized federal mandatory minimums that are entirely deserving of criticism. Berman effectively shows that Clinton's position not only tries to out-tuff Obama, but many Republicans:

As David Zlotnick and FAMM have effectively documented here and here, many well-known conservatives and Republican-appointed judges have spoken out forcefully against federal mandatory minimum sentences. Policy criticisms of mandatory minimum sentences have come from, inter alia, the late Chief Justice Rehnquist, current Seventh Circuit Chief Judge Frank Easterbrook, and former Utah District Judge Paul Cassell, none of whom will ever be accused of having been too liberal for the American public.

Proposing reactionary criminal justice policies is a bipartisan pastime, not only the purview of one or another party. Too many candidates from both parties, as Berman said of Hillary Clinton, are "quite eager to use the old "soft-on-crime" scare strategy in an effort to swing voters [their] way."

By contrast, many from both parties support smarter, more pragmatic outcome-focused approaches that rely on evidence about what works to reduce crime instead of knee jerk political slogans.

The political divide on criminal justice isn't between Democrats and Republicans, it's much more between opportunists and pragmatists. Typically, both political parties find themselves long on the former and short on the latter.

Are You Excited About the Final Season of The Wire?

New York magazine featured an interview with Andre Royo, the actor who plays "Bubbles," the noble hero, homeless junkie and sometime confidential informant on the hit HBO series The Wire. The series' final season launches Sunday night, and I'm looking forward to it as much as any TV show in quite a long while. If nothing else, given my interest in "snitching," Royo's character surely is the most graphic portrayal of the cold realities of a street informant in the history of television.

Since we've been recently discussing public attitudes toward snitching, I found interesting his recollection of the real "Bubbles," who he'd met, and the informant's attitude toward working with police, revealed in the response to this question:

"Snitches or potential snitches on The Wire tend to get clipped. How is it that Bubbles, a confidential informant, has stayed alive for so long?
Being a snitch has a negative connotation in our community. I thought that might reflect on me. But Bubbles was a real-life character, he was an informant for [series producer] Ed Burns. He said that the whole neighborhood knew Bubbles was snitching, but they also knew he was a junkie and he was killing himself. What would be the point of getting a body when that person’s already killing himself? Snitching has more weight when it comes to turning on your boys, lying to your friends. If I come into a group and then I turn on my group, that’s a snitch. If I’m on the street, there’s no loyalty there. I’m just doing what I have to do to get high."

RELATED:

• Witness intimidation makes solving crimes harder, but so does public distrust of the justice system, Toronto Star
• So many crimes and reasons not to cooperate, NY Times
• Beauty and the Snitch: Art meets the police state, American Chronicle

More Than Just 15 False Convictions Overturned In Dallas Since 2001

Yesterday Dallas saw its 15th wrongfully convicted man walk out the doors of the courthouse exonerated by DNA evidence, in the most recent case a gut wrenching 27 years after his conviction.

But headlines trumpeting fifteen recent Dallas exonerations actually understate the problem. A lot more innocent people than that have seen their convictions overturned in Dallas since 2001.

At a minimum, another 24 people were wrongfully convicted in Dallas as part of the "fake drug" scandal and were ultimately exonerated. That makes the current total 39 people exonerated since 2001.

There very well may be more. It's not like anybody is keeping track.

The Innocence Project folks are doing important work, but by a longshot not the only cases with wrongful convictions have DNA evidence to re-test. Mendacious informants lie in all sorts of cases, big and small. Eyewitnesses mistakenly identify people in small-time robberies as well as sexual assaults. And slanted testimony from forensic scientists by no means can all be refuted with a DNA swab.

Charles Chatman's release yesterday was, at least, the 39th wrongful conviction overturned in Dallas since 2001.

Who will be #40?

Criminal caseloads rising dramatically despite falling crime

Despite a decline in crime over the last couple of decades, increasing criminal caseloads are flooding Texas' working judiciary, according to the 2007 annual report on the Texas judiciary from the Office of Court Administration.

After observing the precipitous and surprising decline in the Court of Criminal Appeals' caseload, I thought it might be informative to take a closer look at overall criminal court caseloads in Texas.

Between 1988 and 2007, reports the Texas Office of Court Administration, Texas district and county courts saw an overall 51% caseload increase. However, most of that increase came in the criminal courts, which saw a 71% caseload increase over that period, despite crime significantly declining overall. (The total number of civil cases, by contrast, rose just 31% over the same period, with the vast majority of that increase in family law cases.) Reports the OCA:

Six categories of criminal cases increased over 100 percent in the past 20 years. Traffic cases filed in county courts increased the most (296 percent). Misdemeanor assault cases increased 266 percent; felony and misdemeanor drug offense cases increased 191 percent; felony assault or attempted murder cases increased 178 percent; other felonies increased 144 percent; and felony DWI cases increased 127 percent.

Since crime rates declined substantially (pdf) over this same period, what explains these dramatic increases?

N.b., all of these increases far outstrip population growth, and represent more aggressive enforcement, often focusing on suspects and cases - e.g., misdemeanor assaults - who would not have drawn official attention in years past. Penalty increases partially explain the rise in felony DWI cases. And the boost in traffic cases IMO coincides with a more radical reliance by state and local officials on traffic fines for revenue instead of raising taxes.

But overall, I can't think of a good reason for these increases that's explained by demographics or crime statistics - instead these numbers represent policy choices by elected officials to arrest more people for lesser offenses than in the past. Our laws and officials today simply are more likely to treat deviant minor behavior as criminal.

What do you think? Why have criminal caseloads increased so dramatically when crime overall is declining?

Court of Criminal Appeals Workload Declining under Judge Sharon Keller

As Susan Strawn and J.R. Molina prepare for their runs at the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, it's worth trotting out one of the most serious beefs against the CCA under Presiding Judge Sharon Keller's dominion: CCA judges just don't work as hard as they used to.

Since 2000, the number of cases accepted by the CCA for discretionary review - i.e., the cases they choose to review as opposed to those they're required to hear by law - declined by 27% overall. Here are the raw stats from the Office of Court Administration (xls file):

Discretionary Cases Accepted Annually by
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

2000	2,271
2001	2,036
2002	1,951
2003	1,927
2004	1,816
2005	1,771
2006	1,842
2007	1,661

By contrast, total court filings increased (pdf) over the same period, with increased criminal court filings leading the way. Bottom line: Not only does the CCA need better judges who are more willing to buck against the iron-fisted direction of Presiding Judge Sharon Keller, it just needs judges willing to work harder and hear more cases as overall caseloads grow.

A 27% reduction in discretionary reviews amounts to a lot of folks and a lot of issues denied appellate review - does anybody really think the number of judicial errors declined by that much over the last few years? I sure don't. I can't say for sure what is the cause of the decline in discretionary reviews at the CCA, but it needs to be reversed.