A panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals will decide whether to keep in place a lower court’s block of Senate Bill 4, which makes illegally entering Texas a state crime.
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
Texas appeals court overturns Crystal Mason’s conviction, 5-year sentence for illegal voting
Mason gained national attention after she was convicted for voting while under supervised release for felony tax fraud. She said she didn’t know she was ineligible to vote.
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Criminal Justice
Texas criminal appeals court takes man off death row over intellectual disability
Since Randall Mays was sentenced to death in 2008 for the murder of two sheriff’s deputies, his lawyers have argued his intellectual disability exempts him from execution.
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Politics
Once the Texas GOP’s “weak link,” Attorney General Ken Paxton is growing more popular and powerful
With his impeachment and securities fraud case behind him, Paxton’s political stock is on the rise.
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Immigration
Appeals court keeps Texas’ migrant arrest law on hold
The order prevents Texas from arresting and deporting migrants suspected of illegally entering the U.S. while the case challenging the law is under consideration.
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Politics
Montgomery County directs citizen board to review, and potentially remove, library books
The county north of Houston adopted the guidelines amid a growing number of book bans in school districts and a new state law that supporters claim protects children from inappropriate material.
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Criminal Justice
Ken Paxton agrees to community service, paying restitution to avoid trial in securities fraud case
Paxton, who will not have to enter a plea under the terms of the agreement, faced the prospect of decades in prison if he had been convicted of fraud.
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Rural reproductive health in Texas
U.S. Supreme Court takes up Texas case challenging abortion pill access
A majority of Supreme Court justices seemed open to keeping mifepristone, a common abortion-inducing drug, on the market despite a Texas ruling revoking its FDA approval.
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Criminal Justice
Legal experts say it’s rare to pursue jail time in securities fraud cases like Paxton’s
In 2015, Attorney General Ken Paxton was indicted on three securities fraud felony charges. Experts in securities fraud say those charges are rarely pursued.
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Criminal Justice
Feds arrest five men accused of smuggling illegally purchased guns to cartels in Mexico
The men were charged with two criminal offenses, including straw purchasing of firearms, created by the 2022 bipartisan gun safety bill authored by Sen. John Cornyn.