Civil Rights
Lost in Limbo in the Hays County Jail
Ken Paxton’s Strange Quest to Execute an Intellectually Disabled Man
Prosecutors have agreed to spare Bobby Moore’s life due to his intellectual disability. Texas’ highest criminal court and top legal official want to kill him anyway.
As a teenager, Bobby Moore couldn’t tell time. Before dropping out of school in the ninth grade, he was so far behind his peers that teachers told him to draw...Read More
The Midterms Trigger a Seismic Shift in Harris County’s Courts
Among the Democrats who won all 59 judicial seats at play in the midterms: a socialist and 19 black women running on criminal justice reform.
The Democratic sweep in Harris County Tuesday night could remake one of the largest criminal justice systems in the country. When the blue wave crashed into Hou...Read More
On Election Day, Students Rally for Voting Rights at Texas’ Oldest HBCU
Prairie View A&M students, galvanized by yet another fight for equal voting rights, march to the polls.
When Jessmine Cornelius encourages other students to vote, she takes a moment to remind them about the history of discrimination against students at Texas’ ol...Read More
In the Midterms, Texans Face a ‘Panoply of Voter Suppression’
Civil rights groups accuse Texas of implementing a layer-cake of voter suppression techniques.
Restricted voting hours for college students, translators barred from polling places in immigrant-heavy communities, an aging fleet of voting machines prone to ...Read More
Harris County Judges May Face a Reckoning Over Bail On Election Day
Republican misdemeanor judges in Houston have clung to an unconstitutional bail system. But their intransigence could cost them their seats.
Editor’s note: This story was produced in collaboration with The Appeal, a nonprofit criminal justice news outlet. Typically, down-ballot judicial races i...Read More
Dallas County’s Cop-Convicting DA Is Among the Most Vulnerable Down-Ballot Republicans This Election
Even with her record for prosecuting cops, Faith Johnson hasn’t won over criminal justice reformers, who’ve made Dallas ground zero in the movement to elect progressive prosecutors.
On the first day of early voting, Liz Wolff was walking up to her Oak Cliff polling place when a man campaigning for Dallas County DA Faith Johnson approached h...Read More
In Arlington, How Not to Respond to a Police Shooting
The Arlington Police Department's bumbling response to the death of O'Shae Terry has only inflamed community tensions. Meanwhile, the DA has gone radio silent ahead of the election.
The meeting started cordially enough, but quickly turned sour. Angry community members lobbed question after question at a representative of the Arlington Polic...Read More
Texas Prisons Lead the Nation in Long-Term Solitary Confinement
Nearly a third of Texas prisoners in restrictive housing have been there for six years or longer, according to a new national survey.
The growing bipartisan consensus around solitary confinement — that it’s inhumane and overused across the criminal justice system — has led to its sharp d...Read More
Texas Governor Greg Abbott Opens His Mind to Marijuana Decriminalization… Kinda
Activists say Abbott’s moderated stance is “huge,” but his call for reform still lags behind Texas Republicans and the general public.
For the past three years, Governor Greg Abbott has been viewed as a primary hurdle to rewriting Texas’ draconian marijuana laws. So on Friday, when he reveale...Read More