Texas heat has killed prisoners and cost the state millions in wrongful death and civil rights lawsuits. Prison rights advocates hope a budget surplus next year will finally push lawmakers to invest in air conditioning.
Texas Department Of Criminal Justice
Posted in
Criminal Justice
Texas will resume inmate transportation after completing review of convicted murderer’s escape
The review came after Gonzalo Lopez escaped on May 12 and eventually killed five people.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
Texas suspends most transportation of inmates while it reviews convicted murderer’s escape
The review comes after Gonzalo Lopez escaped from a prison bus last month. Authorities say he killed a family of five before they found and killed him.
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Criminal Justice
Authorities fatally shoot convicted murderer who killed family of five while on the lam
Authorities say Gonzalo Lopez killed a man and his four grandchildren in Leon County. He escaped from a prison bus nearly three weeks ago.
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Criminal Justice
Four days after audacious escape from prison bus, Texas still hasn’t found convicted murderer
Officials are still trying to piece together how Gonzalo Lopez managed to cut through a metal door and hijack a prison bus Thursday. An extensive manhunt continues in Leon County.
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Criminal Justice
Spared execution once, Texas prisoner Kenneth Foster could face death penalty again after cellmate’s death
Foster had been the getaway driver, not the triggerman, in a killing that first put him on death row. Former Gov. Rick Perry commuted his death sentence to life in prison in 2007.
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Criminal Justice
U.S. Supreme Court justices appear reluctant to loosen restrictions on religious advisers during Texas executions
The latest Texas execution protocols forbid spiritual advisers from praying aloud or touching prisoners as the prisoners are killed. Some members of the high court said they feared overturning the rules would lead to a flood of requests for other religious accommodations during executions.
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Criminal Justice
U.S. Supreme Court weighs religion’s place in the Texas death chamber
After halting three Texas executions because of limits placed on spiritual advisers in the death chamber, the high court will hear arguments today over what religious rights the state must accord inmates as it kills them.
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Criminal Justice
For third time in recent years, U.S. Supreme Court halts a Texas execution over rules for religious advisers in the death chamber
John Ramirez was scheduled to die Wednesday. His last request to the state had been to let his pastor hold on to him as he died, something the state denied. The high court wants to hear oral arguments on the matter later this year.
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Operation Lone Star
Converted Texas prison gets first immigrant detainees as Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security effort ramps up
Border-crossing immigrants are being arrested by Texas troopers on state charges like trespassing, and they’re starting to trickle into a prison emptied to house them.
