Courts

The lower chamber gave initial approval to a bill creating a pretrial process to determine if a capital murder defendant is intellectually disabled — more than 15 years after the U.S. Supreme Court said executing such prisoners is cruel and unusual punishment.

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The state had questioned the citizenship status of almost 100,000 registered voters, but many on the list turned out to be naturalized citizens.

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A former school contractor spoke Friday about a Texas law that prohibits state government agencies from doing business with contractors who boycott Israel. A federal judge temporarily blocked the law Thursday.

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The order came in a case brought by a Pflugerville school speech pathologist who was told she could only continue her contract work if she promised not to boycott Israel.

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Molina has dismissed the investigation as politically motivated.

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The group, which was granted credentials in the Senate but denied them in the House, argues that the lower chamber's administration chairman engaged in "unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination."

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Citing security concerns, the state has fought for years to keep the supplier's name secret.

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The former congressional staffer, Jason Posey, was sentenced Tuesday in federal court in Houston.

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“The Constitution’s protection of religious liberty is somehow even better than Chick-fil-A’s chicken,” Paxton wrote in a Thursday letter to San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg and the rest of the council.

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Lawmakers in the House and Senate have filed bills that aim to address a pair of 2015 court decisions seen as threats to open government.

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For years, Diane Wilson has tried to get Formosa Plastics Corp. to stop discharging plastic pellets from its sprawling petrochemical complex on the Central Texas coast. This week, she's getting her day in court.

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An estimate to put air conditioning into one prison changed from more than $20 million to $4 million last year.

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Busby, a Republican judge and former U.S. Supreme Court clerk, served on an appellate court in Houston until voters rejected him in November as part of a Democratic sweep.

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There are now two sets of bail reform bills named after a Texas Department of Public Safety trooper who was murdered while the suspect was out of jail on a $15,500 bond after allegedly assaulting a sheriff’s deputy.

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A now-erased provision in Senate Bill 15 explicitly said a potential new state law would not supersede local nondiscrimination ordinances. Without that language, many LGBTQ advocates fear Texans could be exposed to some discriminatory employment practices.

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If the U.S. Senate confirms Brown, the state's highest civil court would see its second vacancy in a period of months.

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Brown was freed from nearly a decade on death row in 2015, but because he was never declared "actually innocent," he couldn't get compensation for wrongful imprisonment — until Friday.

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The bill would also nullify mandates some local city councils in major Texas cities have already tried to put in place. The measure is now eligible to be taken up by the full Senate.

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A day earlier, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals struck down a provision of the law that makes it a crime for public officials to deliberate privately in small groups.

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As the state put the 70-year-old to death, his son banged on the death chamber window. After an altercation with law enforcement, Coble's son and another relative were removed from the witness room and arrested.

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