In rural counties, Texas law puts low-income defendants at a disadvantage
A two-tiered system gives less populated counties more time to provide court-appointed lawyers, requiring creative responses to a long-standing problem. Full Story
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![Chief Public Defender of the Concho Valley Public Defender's Office Joe Stephens looks out at the Tom Green County Courthouse in San Angelo on March 12, 2023.]()
Credit: Eli Hartman for The Texas Tribune -
Senate passes bill opening door for prosecutors to charge fentanyl distributors with murder
Gov. Greg Abbott and state lawmakers have taken a tough-on-drugs approach to the fentanyl crisis, primarily pushing efforts to increase criminal penalties. Full Story
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![Tablets of the opioid-based Hydrocodone at a pharmacy in Portsmouth, Ohio, on June 21, 2017.]()
Credit: REUTERS/Bryan Woolston -
Texas bill requiring 10-year prison sentences for gun felonies faces opposition from criminal justice and firearm advocates
Under Senate Bill 23, all felonies involving a gun would incur a mandatory 10-year prison sentence. It’s meant to curb crime, despite the lack of correlation between harsher sentences and crime rates. Full Story
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![Assault-style weapons are laid on a table at a gun show in San Marcos on Sunday, Jan. 29, 2023.]()
Credit: Jordan Vonderhaar for The Texas Tribune -
Lawmakers offer stark choices for ending the crisis in Texas’ youth prisons — shut them all down, or build more
Plagued by decades of scandals over sexual and physical abuse of children, the Texas Juvenile Justice Department is at a crossroads. Full Story
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![State Rep. James Talarico, D-Round Rock, speaks at a presser to support a bill aimed at closing down juveniles detention centers and reforming the Texas Juvenile Justice Department at the state Capitol on March 9, 2023.]()
Credit: Evan L'Roy/The Texas Tribune -
Texas executes Arthur Brown Jr. for Houston slayings despite claims of innocence, intellectual disability
Brown’s appeals ran out after almost 30 years on death row. Defense attorneys claim Harris County prosecutors hid evidence pointing to another suspect in the 1992 shooting deaths of four people in a Houston drug house. Full Story
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![Interior of Death Chamber]()
Credit: Jenevieve Robbins/Texas Department of Criminal Justice -
Ken Paxton’s whistleblowers ask Texas Supreme Court to take up their case as $3.3 million settlement in jeopardy
Lawyers for four former employees who accused the attorney general of firing them for reporting alleged crimes to authorities say Paxton won’t agree to finalizing the deadline by the end of this legislative session. Full Story
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![Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks at a press conference at the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. on April 26, 2022. Earlier, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments for Texas v. Texas, the enforcement of the Trump-era “remain in Mexico” policy that required asylum seekers to stay in Mexico as they waited for hearings in U.S. immigration court. (Eric Lee for The Texas Tribune).]()
Credit: Eric Lee for The Texas Tribune -
Texas death row inmate Andre Thomas’ execution date was postponed to allow his legal team reasonable time to prove his incompetence
At issue is whether Thomas, who gouged out his eyes after confessing to a 2004 triple murder in Sherman, is competent to be executed. Full Story
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![A photograph of Andre Thomas, who is on death row for the murders of his son, his estranged wife and her daughter.]()
Credit: Courtesy of the Paul Boren family -
Texas experts dive into the state of public defense 60 years after Gideon decision
In 1963, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Gideon v. Wainwright that the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of a right to a lawyer applies to criminal defendants. Together with the Texas Indigent Defense Commission, The Texas Tribune hosted a series of conversations Friday on public defense in Texas. Full Story
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![Victoria County Judge Ben Zeller speaks during a symposium on indigent public defense hosted by the Texas Tribune and the Texas Indigent Defense Commission inside the Texas State Capitol on Friday, March 17, 2023. The event discussed the effects of the 1963 Supreme Court ruling on Gideon v. Wainwright which required states to provide attorneys to defendents who could not afford them. (Sergio Flores for The Texas Tribune)]()
Credit: Sergio Flores for The Texas Tribune -
Texas executes Gary Green for 2009 murder of his wife and her 6-year-old daughter
Green’s appellate attorneys unsuccessfully argued that his intellectual impairments and mental health status made him ineligible for the death penalty. Full Story
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![The exterior of Huntsville Unit, a prison in Huntsville, on Nov. 14, 2019.]()
Credit: Sergio Flores for The Texas Tribune -
Texas Education Agency would have new power to enforce school safety plans under Senate bill
The bill, introduced months after the Uvalde school shooting, also allocates more funds to the state’s school safety allotment, which is money given to districts to improve campus security. Full Story
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![A police officer monitors Maplewood Elementary School in Austin the Monday morning following the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012.]()
Credit: Tamir Kalifa for The Texas Tribune -
Texas lawmakers take first step to restoring felony penalty for illegal voting
Republican lawmakers — backed by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick — are working to reverse a change to state law they approved two years ago as part of a sweeping overhaul to Texas election law that included downgrading illegal voting to a misdemeanor. Full Story
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![Voters cast their ballots at the Lochwood Branch Library in Dallas on Feb. 25, 2022, the last day of early voting in the Texas primary. Dallas County voting centers’ hours were extended till 10 P.M. on the last day of early voting to make up for early closures due to icy weather.]()
Credit: Shelby Tauber for The Texas Tribune -
DPS sent at least 3,000 driver’s licenses to organized crime group targeting Asian Texans
A Chinese crime operation bypassed the password clues of Texas.gov by using stolen identity information to fraudulently obtain replacement driver’s licenses. Full Story
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![Steve McCraw, Department of Public Safety Director, speaks at a press conference with Gov. Greg Abbott and nine other governors regarding the southern border at Anzalduas Park in Mission on Oct. 6, 2021.]()
Credit: Eddie Gaspar/The Texas Tribune -
Gov. Greg Abbott starts state task force on street takeovers
During a recent street racing incident, Austin residents faced long 911 wait times. City officials say they need to increase staffing for 911 call takers, but state license and background check requirements make it difficult to fill positions. Full Story
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![Gov. Greg Abbott speaks during the Texas Rally for Life event at the Capitol in Austin on Jan. 28, 2023. Montinique Monroe for the Texas Tribune)]()
Credit: Montinique Monroe for The Texas Tribune -
Texas Senate revives effort to make illegal voting a felony
Lawmakers lowered the penalty to a misdemeanor in 2021, but then almost immediately began discussing raising it back. Full Story
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![Voters check in to vote at the Metropolitan Multi-Service Center in Houston, Tuesday Nov. 8, 2022.]()
Credit: Michael Stravato for The Texas Tribune -
Gov. Greg Abbott says most gun crimes involve illegally owned weapons. That’s not true in mass shootings.
Most of the state’s 19 mass shootings over the past six decades were carried out by men who legally possessed firearms, an investigation by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune found. Full Story
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![Gov. Greg Abbott speaks at a presser at Uvalde High School on May 27, 2022.]()
Credit: Evan L'Roy for The Texas Tribune -
In a Central Texas county, high schoolers are jailed on felony charges for vaping what could be legal hemp
Police often can’t tell if a cannabis vape pen is derived from marijuana or legal hemp, like the delta-8 products on display in gas stations across Texas. That doesn’t stop them from making felony arrests in high schools. Full Story
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![Miles Leon poses for a portrait inside his home on Saturday, Dec. 3, 2022 near Bulverde, TX. Leon was caught using a vape pen police say had THC but Leon claims had Delta-8. Leon could be charged with a felony for possession if tests show it was THC as a 17 year old in Texas Leon would be charged as an adult.]()
Credit: Sergio Flores for The Texas Tribune -
Despite decades of mass shootings in Texas, legislators have failed to pass meaningful gun control laws
State lawmakers have rejected dozens of bills that would have prevented people from legally obtaining weapons used in many mass shootings. Instead, they’ve made it easier for residents to get guns and harder for local governments to regulate them. Full Story
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![A group of men embrace during a vigil a day after a mass shooting at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, U.S. August 4, 2019. REUTERS/Callaghan O'Hare TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY - RC1E05433300]()
Credit: Callaghan O’Hare/Reuters -
Texas death row inmate Andre Thomas’ attorneys apply for clemency, citing mental illness
At issue is whether Thomas, who gouged out his eyes after confessing to the 2004 murders of his estranged wife, their son and her daughter, is competent to be executed in April. Full Story
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![The view of Texas' execution chamber from a witness viewing room.]()
Credit: Texas Department of Criminal Justice -
Uvalde’s state lawmakers face an uphill battle raising the age limit for semi-automatic guns. They’re trying anyway.
Many relatives of Uvalde victims back bills that state Rep. Tracy King and Sen. Roland Gutierrez are pushing in the Legislature. But limits on gun access don’t fare well at the Capitol. Full Story
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![The truck and weapons of Salvador Rolando Ramos remains crashed in a ditch near Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, where he entered and killed 19 students and two teachers on May 24, 2022.]()
Credit: Courtesy of Pete Luna/Uvalde Leader-News -
FBI announces investigations into deaths at Harris County Jail
Since Jacoby Pillow’s death last month, at least three others have died at Harris County Jail. And the year before, the jail hit a record high of 27 in-custody deaths. Full Story
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![The Harris County Jail in Houston on Wednesday, April 1, 2020.]()
Credit: Michael Stravato for The Texas Tribune