For the 11th event in our TribLive series, I interviewed the Dallas County district attorney about why and how he’s worked to exonerate the wrongfully imprisoned and whether he’s dragging his feet on a controversial corruption case involving county constables.
Criminal Justice
Get the latest Texas Tribune coverage on criminal justice, including crime, courts, law enforcement, and reforms shaping the state’s justice system.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
TribBlog: Cornyn Attempts to Murder “Murderabilia”
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, announced today that he filed legislation to outlaw profiting from the sale of items related to killers or killings.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
TribBlog: Skinner Jurors Call for DNA Testing
Seven of the jurors who sent Hank Skinner to death row for the murders of his girlfriend, Twila Busby, and her two sons now say they want the state to test all the DNA available in the case.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
TribBlog: Watkins Plays Self-Defense
Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins, under fire at home for his handling of an investigation into Democratic county constables, played defense before an Austin crowd this morning in a TribLive interview with the Tribune’s Evan Smith.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
TribWeek: In Case You Missed It
Ramshaw on geriatric care in state prisons, with Miller’s photo essay inside those walls; M. Smith interviews the state’s newest Supreme Court justice, Debra Lehrmann; Aguilar finds fewer Mexicans seeking asylum in the U.S; Galbraith sorts out the politics of pollution and whether our air is dangerous to breathe; Thevenot discovers authorities writing tickets for misbehavior to elementary school kids; Philpott reports on early hearing about political redistricting; Kreighbaum examines fines levied against polluters and finds they’re often smaller than the economic benefits of the infractions; and Stiles and Babalola spotlight some of our data projects from our first seven months online: The best of our best from May 31 to June 4, 2010.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
The Brief: June 4, 2010
Physician-owned hospitals, which provide some of the best health care in the nation but have been in danger since health insurance reform passed, are taking their case to court.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
Debra Lehrmann: The TT Interview
The Texas Supreme Court justice-to-be (she’ll take retiree Harriet O’Neill’s seat on June 21) talks about about judicial elections, the recent ethics complaint filed against her and what happens when she disagrees with the law.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
Dying on the State’s Dime
Texas’ “geriatric” inmates (55 and older) make up just 7.3 percent of Texas’ 160,000-offender prison population, but they account for nearly a third of the system’s hospital costs. Prison doctors routinely offer up the oldest and sickest of them for medical parole, a way to get those who are too incapacitated to be a public threat and have just months to live out of medical beds that Texas’ quickly aging prison population needs. They’ve recommended parole for 4,000 such inmates within the last decade. But the state parole board has only agreed in a quarter of these cases, leaving the others to die in prison — and on the state’s dime.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
The Brief: June 2, 2010
The Fort Hood shooter made his first courtroom appearance Tuesday, but a trial, the military court decided, won’t happen until October.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
Memorial Data
Since our November launch, we’ve published more than 30 web applications made from government records, including the most comprehensive public payroll database in the state, an interactive database with all 160,000 inmates serving time in the 100-plus state prison units, rankings of more than 5,800 public schools, a comprehensive list of every red-light enforcement camera in Texas, and databases with state-level fundraising and spending for members of the Legislature and statewide elected officials. Readers have viewed these pages more than 2.3 million times — more than a third of the site’s overall traffic.