The Texas Forensic Science Commission heard testimony from four fire experts today to gather evidence about the reliability of the arson investigation that led to the 2004 execution of Cameron Todd Willingham. Half said investigators got it right, and half said they were wrong.
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
TribBlog: Abbott 1, Gay Divorce 1
Over the objections of state Attorney General Greg Abbott, an Austin appellate court has upheld the divorce of a lesbian couple married in Massachusetts.
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Criminal Justice
Michele Deitch: The TT Interview
The jail conditions expert and professor at the University of Texas’ LBJ School of Public Affairs on why maintaining treatment programs that keep offenders in their communities and reducing some of the harsh, long-term jail sentences often doled out in Texas’ notoriously tough criminal justice system could be more cost-efficient and allow Texas to close prisons.
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Criminal Justice
TribBlog: Court Says No to Texas in EPA Case
Texas’s bid to suspend a federal efforts to regulate greenhouse gases hit another roadblock today, when the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals turned down the state’s request for a stay of a move to force states to implement federal plans.
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Criminal Justice
TribWeek: In Case You Missed It
Ramshaw on how hard it is to sue over emergency room mistakes, Galbraith on paying for roads in an era of fuel-efficient vehicles, Aguilar on a disagreement about gun regulation, my interview with tort reformer Dick Trabulsi, Grissom on Perry’s parsimonious pardoning, Hu and Chang interactively look at House committee chairs, M. Smith on an election challenge and who’ll settle it, Ramshaw and Stiles on Dallas County’s blue streak and Hamilton on a Valley school district that leads the nation in preparing kids for college: The best of our best from Dec. 20 to 24, 2010.
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Criminal Justice
Triggering a Debate
Should Texas gun sellers be required to notify the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives when they sell two or more semi-automatic rifles to one person within a five-day period? The feds, desperate to stem the flow of weapons into Mexico, say yes. Gun rights advocates like Gov. Rick Perry say such a policy would be misguided.
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Criminal Justice
TribWeek: In Case You Missed It
Ramsey on what a GOP supermajority means, Ramshaw on a crime victim not eligible for crime victims’ compensation, M. Smith on grave matters and state regulation, Hamilton on the college pipeline at San Antonio’s Jefferson High, Hu on a senator’s anticlimactic return, Grissom on the coming closure of juvenile lockups, Aguilar on the return of residents to their drug-war-torn Mexican town, Galbraith on next session’s energy agenda, Philpott on the legal fight over federal health care reform and Stiles on the travel expenses of House members: The best of our best from Dec. 13 to 17, 2010.
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Criminal Justice
Grave Mismanagement?
In October 2001, Marcos Guerra’s wife and three daughters laid him to rest at the cemetery in San Benito where members of his family had been buried for three decades. Almost four years later, they were at his graveside again, burying him a second time, after the cemetery moved his body without their permission and exhumed his remains. Now the family’s legal battle with one of the largest funeral services providers in North America, which has faced class-action lawsuits in several states, has reached the Texas Supreme Court — and is raising questions about the state’s regulation of after-life care.
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Criminal Justice
Crime Doesn’t Pay
British tourist Thomas Reeve’s murder in an Amarillo bar last fall shattered his family, which has been unable to claim financial assistance from the state’s Crime Victims’ Compensation Fund because he wasn’t a U.S. resident.
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Criminal Justice
Achieving Closure
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.