Texas criminal appeals court removes Tomas Gallo from death row because of his intellectual disability
The court re-sentenced Gallo to life in prison for the murder of his girlfriend’s 3-year-old daughter. Full Story
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![The Huntsville Unit Texas State Penitentiary houses the execution chamber of Texas and is located in Huntsville on Jan. 31, 2024.]()
Credit: Maria Crane/The Texas Tribune -
Ken Paxton successfully ousts three Republican criminal appeal court judges
Three incumbent judges with nearly a century of criminal law experience fell victim to Paxton’s political revenge tour after they ruled against the attorney general in a 2021 voter fraud case. Full Story
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![The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Jan. 15, 2020.]()
Credit: Miguel Gutierrez Jr./The Texas Tribune -
Election results: How Texas voted in the 2024 primary
Get The Texas Tribune’s coverage of election results for the 2024 primary races for president, U.S. Senate, U.S. House and the Texas Legislature. Full Story
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![Voting stickers for 2024 primary election voter guide.]()
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It’s primary election day. Here are six things to watch.
Divisions among Republicans are in stark display, some of Texas’ most senior members of Congress are retiring and Democrats are hoping to unseat Sen. Ted Cruz. Full Story
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![Election signs on March 5, 2024, outside of the Metropolitan Multi-Service Center in Houston, Texas.]()
Credit: Mark Felix for The Texas Tribune -
Texas executes Ivan Cantu for Dallas murders despite doubts of his guilt
Faith leaders and jurors from the original trial launched a public campaign to reconsider recanted testimony in Cantu’s case. Texas courts declined. Full Story
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![Ivan Cantu poses for a photo on Jan. 31, 2024. Cantu is locked in a room for visitation and uses a telephone to speak to a reporter.]()
Credit: Maria Crane/The Texas Tribune -
Paxton’s push to oust incumbents puts spotlight on Court of Criminal Appeals primaries
The attorney general has tried to supplant eight Republican judges on the court after they rejected his efforts to unilaterally prosecute voter fraud. The judges are now pushing back. Full Story
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![The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Jan. 15, 2020.]()
Credit: Miguel Gutierrez Jr./The Texas Tribune -
Texas inmate Syed Rabbani taken off death row after original appeal was left pending for decades
A prosecutor called delays in Rabbani’s long-standing appeal “a due process disaster.” Full Story
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![Joshua Reiss, a division chief with the Harris County District Attorney's Office, at right, hands Judge Lori Chambers Gray a copy of Syed Rabbani’s original trail transcript during a hearing for Rabbani at the Harris County Criminal Justice Center, Tuesday, Nov. 14, 2023, in Houston. Rabbani was issued the death sentence in 1988 after a jury found Rabbani guilty of killing a fellow Bangladeshi immigrant, 28-year-old Mohammed Hasan, at a Houston convenience store. (Antranik Tavitian / Houston Landing)]()
Credit: Antranik Tavitian/Houston Landing -
Texas executes Brent Brewer, who spent three decades on death row, for murder of Amarillo man
Brewer lost a clemency appeal earlier this week, despite one of his jurors pleading that his life be spared and an expert witness’ methods put into question. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to pause Brewer’s execution Thursday afternoon to hear arguments about the “junk science” used against him. Full Story
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![A still of Brent Brewer from a video provided by his attorneys.]()
Credit: Courtesy of Attorneys for Brent Brewer -
Texas’ top criminal court halts William Speer’s execution hours before he was scheduled to die
Speer has been on death row for decades after strangling another inmate at a Texas prison. The victim’s sister and faith leaders have both called on the parole board to halt the execution. Full Story
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![Interior of Death Chamber in Texas.]()
Credit: Jenevieve Robbins/Texas Department of Criminal Justice -
Ken Paxton moves one step closer to trial on long-delayed securities fraud charges
The impeached attorney general appeared in a Houston courtroom, where lawyers from both sides agreed to return in October to set an expected trial date on charges that have been pending since 2015. Full Story
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![Suspended Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sits as he makes an appearance during his eight-year-old felony securities fraud case against him at Harris County Courthouse on Thursday, Aug. 3, 2023 in Houston.]()
Credit: Courtesy of Elizabeth Conley/Houston Chronicle -
Texas courts struggle to resolve criminal appeals that got lost in Harris County for decades
Overlooked in the churn of one of the country’s busiest courthouses, the forgotten appeals included two death penalty cases, and one from a man who’s already finished his 20-year sentence. Full Story
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![The Harris County Criminal Justice Center in Houston on Nov. 16, 2016.]()
Credit: Callie Richmond for The Texas Tribune -
Texas’ highest criminal court emphatically rejects death row inmate Rodney Reed’s claim of innocence
Reed, a Black man on death row for more than 25 years, has gained international support for his claims that he did not kill 19-year-old Stacey Stites, a white woman. Another appeal over DNA testing of evidence is still pending. Full Story
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![Rodney Reed was sentenced to death for the 1996 murder of Stacey Stites in Bastrop.]()
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Texas Republicans, once allied with prosecutors, seek to rein them in
Some local district and county attorneys have said they will not pursue abortion-related cases, or prioritize certain drug, property and election crimes. Full Story
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![The Texas Supreme Court on Jan. 15, 2020.]()
Credit: Miguel Gutierrez Jr./The Texas Tribune -
Look up your representatives in the Tribune’s elected officials directory
Look up information about every statewide elected official, every member of the Texas Legislature and every Texan in Congress and see who represents you. Full Story
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![State Representatives and their families sit on the House floor on the opening day of the 88th Legislative Session at the state Capitol in Austin on Jan. 10, 2023.]()
Credit: Evan L'Roy/The Texas Tribune -
Texas executes John Balentine for killing three teens in Amarillo
Though he confessed to the murders, Balentine’s lawyers argued he might have been spared a death sentence if not for pervasive racial bias at his trial. Full Story
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![Interior of Death Chamber in Texas.]()
Credit: Jenevieve Robbins/Texas Department of Criminal Justice -
Questions about validity of shaken baby syndrome not enough to give Texas death row inmate new trial, court rules
Robert Roberson was sentenced to death for killing his 2-year-old daughter. Experts have since backtracked on the science used in part to win his conviction. Full Story
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![Robert Roberson seeks a new trial for the 2003 conviction of the murder of his two-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis, in Palestine, Texas on August 14, 2018.]()
Credit: Shelby Knowles for The Texas Tribune -
Texas executes Robert Fratta after high courts reject challenges to expired lethal injection drugs
Fratta was convicted in the 1994 murder-for-hire of his wife. Lawyers unsuccessfully challenged Texas’ routine of extending the expiration dates of its lethal drugs, a practice begun when many pharmacies began refusing to provide doses for executions. Full Story
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![The view of Texas' execution chamber from a witness viewing room.]()
Credit: Texas Department of Criminal Justice -
U.S. Supreme Court tells Texas to reconsider executing man convicted with faulty DNA evidence
Areli Escobar was sentenced to death in 2011 for an Austin murder, but even prosecutors now agree his conviction relied heavily on faulty DNA testing by the discredited Travis County crime lab. Full Story
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![The U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 4, 2022.]()
Credit: Jason Garza for The Texas Tribune -
Travis County judges can’t hear appeals from migrants arrested under Texas border security push, court rules
The Court of Criminal Appeals scuttled nearly 450 cases, saying migrants arrested for trespassing in Kinney County can’t ask Austin judges to hear their appeals. Full Story
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![Walkthrough of the migrant processing facility located adjacent to the Val Verde County Sheriff’s Office in Del Rio, TX.]()
Credit: Chris Stokes for The Texas Tribune -
Republican dominance continues for the two highest courts in Texas
Three seats were up for election in the Texas Supreme Court, which handles civil cases, and three in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Democrats haven’t been elected to either court since the late 1990s. Full Story
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![The Texas Supreme Court on Jan. 15, 2020.]()
Credit: Miguel Gutierrez Jr./The Texas Tribune