Lawmakers, bureaucrats and criminal justice advocates all agree that the state’s trouble-ridden Texas Youth Commission ought to close down two of its correctional facilities. Like other state agencies, TYC has been asked to cut its budget for the next biennium by 10 percent, or $40 million. But no one at TYC is saying which lockups should get shuttered. “They don’t want to bite that bullet and show leadership,” says state Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston.
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
Audio: Abbott on Health Reform Ruling
The Virginia court ruling declaring parts of federal health care reform unconstitutional elicited plenty of reaction in Texas, which is part of a separate attempt to repeal the new law. Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune reports.
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Criminal Justice
Diagnosis: Unconstitutional
A federal court’s ruling on Monday declaring parts of federal health care reform unconstitutional elicited plenty of reaction in Texas, which is part of a separate attempt to repeal the new law. Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune reports.
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Criminal Justice
TribBlog: Abbott Gives Virginia Ruling Thumbs Up [Updated]
A Virginia federal district court judge’s ruling today that the individual mandate portion of the Obama health care law is unconstitutional is a “huge victory” for Texas, Attorney General Greg Abbott said in a phone interview.
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Criminal Justice
TribBlog: New SG Also New to Texas Bar [Updated]
The state’s new chief appellate lawyer is as new to the Texas bar as he is to the job.
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Criminal Justice
TribBlog: Texas Juries Gave Only 8 Death Sentences in 2010
Texas juries sentenced just eight people to death in 2010, the smallest number since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment here in 1976, according to a report published today by the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.
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Criminal Justice
TribBlog: Ho (Steps) Down
James Ho said today that he’s leaving the post he’s held as Texas solicitor general since 2008.
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Criminal Justice
TribBlog: Inflexible
The legal wrangling between Texas and the federal government over the state’s air-pollution permitting system for big industrial plants is intensifying, as Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott filed a brief in a federal court yesterday defending the system.
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Criminal Justice
John Nielsen-Gammon: The TT Interview
The Texas state climatologist on the reasons for rising temperatures, why international science on climate change is fundamentally sound (no matter what state officials say), what he thinks of our fight with the EPA and how long the drought in Central Texas is likely to continue.
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Criminal Justice
A Man of Conviction?
Harris County District Judge Kevin Fine is set to hold a hearing Monday in the case of John Edward Green, who is charged with fatally shooting a Houston woman during a robbery in June 2008. Green’s attorneys and capital punishment opponents want Fine to find that prosecutors can’t seek the death penalty because the way we administer it in Texas is unconstitutional. “The current system is profoundly and fundamentally flawed from top to bottom,” says Andrea Keilen, executive director of the Texas Defender Service. Prosecutors counter that the ruling should be made by higher courts, not a trial judge.