This week we added more than 20 new public agencies to The Texas Tribune’s government employee salary database. The application now features payroll data on more than 620,000 employees from 88 school districts, cities, community colleges, universities, state agencies and transit authorities.
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.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
Rob Owen: The TT Interview
Texas Tribune interview with Rob Owen, lawyer for Hank Skinner and co-director of the University of Texas School of Law Capital Punishment Center
Posted in
Criminal Justice
Rob Owen: The TT Interview
The co-director of the University of Texas School of Law Capital Punishment Center, currently representing death row inmate Henry “Hank” Skinner before the U.S. Supreme Court, on what it’s like to try a case in front of the high court, how Texas has influenced capital punishment law, why Texas juries are more inclined to impose the death penalty and the impact of life without parole.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
On the Records: What Candidates Buy
A new rule that took effect this summer allows — for the first time — real categorization of campaign spending.
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Criminal Justice
TribBlog: Willingham Inquiry Will Proceed [Updated]
As former Gov. Mark White ended his argument before the Willingham court of inquiry calling for a change in the way the state carries out the death penalty, an appellate court issued an order demanding that Judge Charlie Baird stop the hearing.
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Criminal Justice
Hank Skinner’s Last Chance
The U.S. Supreme Court heard testimony Wednesday in a case that could have far-reaching ramifications for criminal justice nationally. Lawyers for Henry “Hank” Skinner maintain that the Texas death row inmate has a civil right to access DNA evidence that could exonerate him in the 1993 murders of his live-in girlfriend and her two sons. Lawyers for the state argue that Skinner exhausted his opportunity to analyze potentially exculpatory evidence when his defense team declined to request testing at his original trial, fearing that the results might be incriminating.
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Criminal Justice
Community Property
The Texas Association of Community Colleges is accusing the University of Texas of siphoning money from programs that support community colleges into UT’s College of Education.
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Criminal Justice
Inquiring Minds
Judge Charlie Baird will decide today whether to recuse himself from an investigation into the innocence of Cameron Todd Willingham, the Corsicana man executed in 2004 for the arson deaths of his three young daughters. But with or without Baird, a bigger question is in play: Is a court of inquiry the appropriate venue to consider Willingham’s guilt or innocence?
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Criminal Justice
TribBlog: Keller Cleared
A specially appointed court of review vacated the State Commission on Judicial Conduct’s sanction of Sharon Keller today, saying the state board acted unconstitutionally in reprimanding the presiding judge of the Court of Criminal Appeals.
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Criminal Justice
ICE Under Fire
A year after Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced it would reform immigration detention, advocacy groups say the agency has fallen short on a few key counts: addressing alleged human rights violations and expanding alternatives to incarceration.