Articles tagged: Criminal Justice
How Flawed Death Investigations Can Leave Texas COVID-19 Deaths Uncounted
According to a new study, undercounts of COVID-19 deaths appear worst in rural and suburban areas served by elected justices of the peace.
Rick Hill, a retired high school principal, plays a key role in tracing deaths linked to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. As an elected justice of the peace (JP) ...Read More
Uninvestigated, Uncounted: How Justices of the Peace Miss Important Clues in Death Investigations
In Texas, justices of the peace with little training can miss important clues in death investigations, and make mistakes tracking suicides, homicides, and COVID-19 deaths.
Janice Lee Wilhelm was dead in her blue recliner–that much was clear. The 63-year-old grandmother had leaned back as if to rest her legs, tucked under the afg...Read More
Clogged Toilets, Snow Inside: How the Winter Storm Exacerbated Problems in Texas Lock-Ups
After the near-total collapse of the state’s electric grid, many jails and prisons lacked heat and running water.
For more than a week, 60-year-old Willis Darby was pretty sure he had COVID-19: He was congested and suffering from headaches at the Bastrop County Jail where h...Read More
Why Didn’t San Antonio Police Immediately Apply First Aid To Darrell Zemault Sr. After Shooting Him?
Bystander videos show that officers waited a full minute before administering care.
This story originally appeared on Texas Public Radio. San Antonio police officers waited more than 1 minute to apply first aid to Darrel Zemault Sr. after they...Read More
From Jail to the Streets: One Texan’s Story During COVID-19
The homeless are 11 times more likely to be incarcerated than the rest of the population.
With the novel coronavirus upending society, Rachel Schuyler felt like a sitting duck. At the Bexar County lockup in downtown San Antonio, she lacked supplies l...Read More
In a Pandemic, Poor Defendants Could Pay With Their Lives
COVID-19 lays bare the fundamental inequalities that a cash bond system creates, and highlights the unsafe conditions our jails and prisons have designed.
I arrived at the Harris County Public Defender’s Office before 7 a.m. on Friday, March 13. The calls for action to stop the spread of COVID-19 had been buildi...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
In Rare Legal Move, the City of Amarillo Takes Landowner to Court Over Homeless Camp
Experts say the city’s lawsuit, filed this month against a man who allowed a homeless camp to be developed on his property, is virtually unprecedented.
In a nearly unprecedented move, the city of Amarillo has made good on its threat to take a landowner to court over a homeless encampment on his property. City o...Read More
San Antonio, Dallas Primaries Could Usher in Prosecutors Who Promise a More Equal Criminal Justice System
Reformers have targeted Texas primary races where candidates promise bail reform and jail diversion.
South Texas can create a curious kind of conservative-leaning Democrat, but bizarre behavior by Nicholas “Nico” LaHood during his first term as Bexar County...Read More