Articles tagged: Harris County
Editorial: Defund the Constables
The office of constable may have made sense back when Texas was a sprawling frontier. Instead, constables basically now run their own little personal fiefdoms.
From the March/April 2021 issue. Texas Republicans’ longtime demand that cities shrink their budgets ran into a thin blue line last year. Austin called thei...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 Prosecutor Races Offer Competing Visions for Criminal Justice Reform
In Harris County, Kim Ogg’s more cautious approach to reform wins big while Travis County’s incumbent DA still faces a challenge from the left.
Kim Ogg’s bruising primary fight to remain Harris County District Attorney was one of the most closely watched races in criminal justice reform circles headin...Read More
Alec Karakatsanis on the ‘Usual Cruelty’ of the Criminal Justice System
In his book, Karakatsanis argues that lawyers and judges have become numb to the cruelties of the criminal justice system—and ultimately stand in the way of changing it.
These days, political candidates of all stripes say they support “criminal justice reform,” but what does that really mean? Alec Karakatsanis, a public de...Read More
Reform Candidates are Trying to Change the Definition of a ‘Progressive Prosecutor’ in Texas
Kim Ogg’s primary challenge for Harris County District Attorney is one of several prosecutor races in Texas that could redefine the bounds of criminal justice reform in the state.
When Kim Ogg first ran for Harris County district attorney, she had a simple pitch for criminal justice reform: stop jailing people for petty pot possession. Th...Read More
Can a $2.5 Billion Bond Deal Fix Harris County’s Inequitable Flood Control?
The uneven patchwork of drainage infrastructure in Harris County means that some of Houston’s poorest neighborhoods are still waiting for basic flood protections.
When Raul bought his home in 1999, he had no way of knowing that just two years later, Tropical Storm Allison, as it inundated Houston with more than 30 inches ...Read More
‘A Watershed Moment’ for Bail Reform in Harris County
Advocates for criminal justice reform say this week’s settlement in Harris County’s bail lawsuit could reverberate far beyond Texas.
Bail reform isn’t a particularly controversial plank of the broader movement to end mass incarceration. In fact, it was a Republican jurist, Texas Supreme Cou...Read More
Mosquitoes Are Bad. So Are the Chemicals Some Texas Cities Are Using to Kill Them.
As an impressively wet Texas spring turns into summer, mosquitoes are coming to a neighborhood near you. Cities aim to eradicate the pesky insects, but at what cost?
Mosquitoes suck. And with all the rain that’s inundated Texas this year — many parts of the state have blown past their average rainfall amounts — mosquit...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