Texas Legislature
House Bill 166, Which Addresses Wrongful Convictions, Passes Texas House
On Wednesday, the Texas House of Representatives passed House Bill 166 which addresses the growing trend of wrongful convictions in Texas. Named after Timothy Cole who served 13 years in prison for a rape he did not commit, the “Tomothy Cole Exoneration Review Commission” is a nine-member commission which investigates wrongful convictions for the purpose of singling out the core causes of exonerations. The goal of the commission is to identify problems in the criminal justice system and patterns of prosecutorial misconduct. Research shows that the number of wrongfulRead More
New Laws Go Into Effect on 9/1/2011
Just a reminder, in Texas the new laws go into effect on September 1 of the year of a legislative session, which is today. While there are around 700 new Texas laws which took effect today there are 3 that are of particular interest. One new Texas law makes it a crime to impersonate someone online without obtaining his or her permission with the intent to harm, defraud, threaten or intimidate. Since this law is new there is no telling how it will be applied, but it certainly is somethingRead More
Texas Prison Budget Cut Proposals
I actually started working on this post a week ago, but was waiting to post until I heard more about the plans. Since there hasn't been anything new for a week or so, I thought it was time to go ahead and finish. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice has announced ways they intend to cut their budget. To no one's surprise, the changes don't include anything to reduce the prison population either immediately or even gradually (perhaps by enacting low cost programs to reduce recidivism rates). Instead, they choseRead More
New Link to the Texas House Corrections Committee Audio Minutes
For those of you who are interested, and you should be interested if you have a loved one in prison and/or looking at parole, there is a link in the sidebar on the right to the Texas House Corrections Committee. This is the part of the legislature, along with the Criminal Justice Committee, that deals with prison and parole issues. I put a link there in case you are interested in listening to what they have to say. With all of the changes that are being contemplated you should takeRead More