A U.S. Supreme Court decision Monday that upheld the use of an execution drug used in Oklahoma will not change how death row inmates in Texas are executed, according to a Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman.
Criminal Justice
Get the latest Texas Tribune coverage on criminal justice, including crime, courts, law enforcement, and reforms shaping the state’s justice system.
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Criminal Justice
Supreme Court Rulings Give Cruz Fresh Ammo for Favorite Targets
As he redoubles his anti-Washington crusade on the presidential campaign trail, Ted Cruz is receiving an assist from an unlikely source: the high court he used to argue before.
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Criminal Justice
Advocates Call for Release of Some LGBT Asylum-Seekers
A growing number of asylum-seekers are asking for safe haven based on a factor that isn’t usually associated with a need to flee one’s homeland: gender identity. In the days before the Supreme Court ruled in a landmark gay marriage case, immigrant rights groups were drawing attention to the plight of LGBT immigrants.
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Criminal Justice
After Gay Marriage Ruling, Republicans Promise Religious Liberty Fight
Texas’ Republican leaders suffered a historic loss on Friday when the U.S. Supreme Court held that state bans on gay marriage are unconstitutional. But social conservatives vowed not to go down without a fight over religious liberty.
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Criminal Justice
Court’s Ban of Death Penalty Lawyer Will Stand
The Texas Supreme Court on Friday ruled it has no authority or jurisdiction to intervene in its sister court’s ban of prominent death penalty lawyer David Dow.
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Criminal Justice
Texas Counties’ Responses to Marriage Ruling Vary
Elated couples across Texas hurried into county clerks’ offices Friday to apply for marriage licenses following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage.
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Criminal Justice
Supreme Court: Gay Marriage Bans Are Unconstitutional
Handing gay rights advocates a monumental victory, the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday ruled that marriages between couples of the same sex cannot be prohibited by states, a decision that overrides Texas’ ban on gay marriage.
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Criminal Justice
Texting Bill’s Demise a Victory for Tea Party Freshmen
It was a mostly new cast of characters in the Texas Senate, a chamber historically ruled by seniority, that flexed its political muscle to stop a statewide texting-while-driving ban this year.
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Criminal Justice
Visualization: A Shrinking Texas Death Row
The number of inmates on Texas’ death row is falling. At its peak in 1999, 460 men and women were living with a death sentence in Texas, according to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics. Today, there are 260.
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Criminal Justice
New Consul Takes on Mexico’s Texas Diaspora
In an interview with the Tribune, Carlos González Gutiérrez, Mexico’s newest general consul in Austin, discussed the challenges of reaching out to the state’s diverse communities of Mexican nationals, and how he interacts with state leaders at the Capitol.
