Civil Rights
Dallas Is What Happens When People Can’t Trust Police
Texas Republicans Poised to Make Voting ‘Harder, Scarier and More Confusing’
SB 9’s passage out of committee Friday sets the stage for a heated debate over voting rights in the waning days of the session.
A bill raising criminal penalties for certain election-related offenses and imposing new voting restrictions cleared a major hurdle Friday, setting the stage fo...Read More
With a Bizarre Assist by Democrats, Police Groups Kill Bill to Limit Arrests for Fine-Only Offenses
A combination of incompetence and sabotage appears to have killed a police reform bill that had passed the House with an overwhelming bipartisan majority.
Law enforcement’s ability to arrest Texans for crimes punishable only by fine, including traffic violations, will likely remain unchecked after House Democrat...Read More
The Texas GOP’s War of Municipal Aggression
With their approval of a bill to “protect” Confederate monuments from liberal city halls, Senate Republicans exposed the raw racial dynamics of the party’s preemption crusade.
For more than a century, a pillar of granite and marble has loomed 60 feet high in downtown Dallas, topped with a statue of a Confederate soldier. Statues of f...Read More
Four Years Later, Sandra Bland’s Arrest Continues to Sow Distrust in Law Enforcement
New reporting shows that Sandra Bland recorded her infamous 2015 arrest. Authorities never told her grieving family.
After Sandra Bland’s death in the Waller County jail became a national scandal, former Texas Department of Public Safety trooper Brian Encinia struggled to ju...Read More
Immune from Justice
The Legislature appears unlikely to close a loophole that allows prosecutors to fire subordinates for refusing to illegally withhold evidence.
Eric Hillman thought the law was clear when he discovered new evidence that could help the man he was prosecuting in 2014. Then a prosecutor in the Nueces Count...Read More
The Big Blue Obstacle to Bipartisan Criminal Justice Reform
In the era of right-on-crime-backed efforts to curb mass incarceration, police unions have increasingly become a voice in the wilderness.
Jack Michael Ule’s death inside the Bexar County jail on April 18 struck a nerve. Arrested two weeks earlier for criminal trespass, a Class B misdemeanor, Ule...Read More
Religious Exemption Bill Could Leave LGBTQ Texans Scrambling for Health Care
About a quarter of Texas counties have two or fewer primary care doctors and pharmacists. What happens if they refuse service?
Matthew Glass said the first red flag was when the pharmacist called across the room, loud enough for other customers to hear, “What’s the Truvada for?” T...Read More
GOP Continues to Stonewall Efforts to Improve Voter Access in Texas
The “election integrity” bill that passed the Senate this week is only the latest entry into a long history of conservative-led voter suppression in Texas.
In the latest move by Republicans to make voting harder for Texans, the Senate passed a high-priority omnibus “election integrity” bill this week. The measu...Read More
Dallas County DA John Creuzot Calls New Reforms ‘A Step Forward in Ending Mass Incarceration’
The policies announced Thursday range from refusing to prosecute certain drug cases to reforming probation and changing how the office handles crimes related to poverty and homelessness.
Last year, Dallas was ground zero in the national movement to elect prosecutors willing to help shrink the bloated carceral state. The race for Dallas County DA...Read More
