A two-tiered system gives less populated counties more time to provide court-appointed lawyers, requiring creative responses to a long-standing problem.
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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Texas Legislature 2023
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.
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Texas Legislature 2023
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.
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Criminal Justice
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.
Posted in
Texas Legislature 2023
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.
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Texas Legislature 2023
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.
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Criminal Justice
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.
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Criminal Justice
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.
Posted in
Texas Legislature 2023
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.
Posted in
Texas Legislature 2023
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.