Mark Alan Norwood, a 57-year-old Bastrop resident, was indicted today by a Williamson County jury for the 1986 murder of Christine Morton, whose husband, Michael Morton, spent 25 years wrongly imprisoned for her death.
Courts
Stay up to date on Texas courts with in-depth coverage of major rulings, judicial elections, criminal justice, and the judges shaping state law from The Texas Tribune.
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Criminal Justice
Breast Cancer Group Drops Support of Planned Parenthood
The Dallas-based breast cancer prevention group Susan G. Komen for the Cure has halted its financial support of Planned Parenthood, yet another blow to the family planning organization that provides abortions in some of its clinics.
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Criminal Justice
Legal Dispute Leaves Poor Defendants in Limbo
In rural Val Verde County, defendants who are too poor to afford their own lawyers have waited years for resolution of their cases. As a new legal battle between their lawyers and the county begins, their day in court remains elusive.
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Criminal Justice
Consumer Group: High Court Favors Businesses
A report out today from the consumer advocacy group Texas Watch blasts the Texas Supreme Court for a decade of decisions that favor corporate interests and benefit the rich at the expense of consumers.
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Criminal Justice
Texas Supreme Court Moves Forward to Create Divorce Forms
Despite the State Bar of Texas’ suggestion to hold off on creating simple divorce forms, the Texas Supreme Court has decided not to halt the work of task force charged with creating forms that improve access to the courts for the poor.
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Criminal Justice
U.S. Supreme Court Won’t Hear “Pole Tax” Case
Nearly five years into a legal battle over the constitutionality of Texas’ $5-per-patron strip club fee, the U.S. Supreme Court has refused to take up the adult entertainment industry’s case against the state.
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Criminal Justice
Texas Lawyers Divided Over Divorce Forms
The Texas Supreme Court is preparing to help out poor Texas couples who want to split up with a simple divorce form. But some family lawyers say breaking up is much harder to do.
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Criminal Justice
TribWeek: In Case You Missed It
Root on the end of Rick Perry’s presidential campaign, Murphy on what happens to his campaign cash, Ramsey on his next act, Ramshaw, Aaronson, Murphy, Chang and Seger interactively chart the rise and fall of his run, Aguilar talks Juárez violence with a documentary filmmaker, Galbraith on the tug-of-war over surface water, Grissom and Murphy on three decades of capital punishment in Texas, Hamilton and Aaronson on our workforce needs in 2018 and Tan on the state’s much-reduced list of women’s health clinics: The best of our best content from January 16-20, 2012.
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Criminal Justice
State Settles Largest-Ever Medicaid Fraud Suit
In the state’s largest-ever Medicaid fraud recovery, Johnson & Johnson agreed Thursday to pay Texas $158 million to settle a lawsuit over its efforts to get the schizophrenia drug Risperdal on an approved list for the state’s poorest patients.
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TribCast
The Weekly TribCast: Episode 115
Ross, Reeve, Brandi and Thanh look ahead to the South Carolina primary, look back on the history of the death penalty in Texas, and discuss the current state of women’s health clinics in the state.