Texas Judges Ask Panel to Block Pretrial-Release Order
Misdemeanor court judges in Houston urged a Fifth Circuit panel Tuesday to scrap a federal judge’s injunction they say is to blame for a spike in people failing to show up for court.
Read moreHarris County
Opioid-Tainted Handouts Alarm Sheriff in Houston
Texas sheriff warned the public Tuesday about the dangers of fentanyl after a deputy removed a flyer from her car’s windshield, began to feel lightheaded and was hospitalized, and the opioid was found on another flyer in the area.
Read moreInjunction Revisited in Houston Bail Case
Criminal justice reform in Texas’ biggest county took another tortured step forward Thursday, as combatants in litigation over the county’s bail policies laid out their differences before a federal judge who is narrowing her injunction in the case.
Read moreJudge Won’t Dismiss Wrongful Death Claim Against Sheriff’s Office
Parents of a black man who was shot to death by a Texas sheriff’s deputy have evidence that rebuts the story he attacked the lawman with a knife, a federal judge found this week, refusing to dismiss their wrongful death lawsuit.
Read moreTexas Treasurer Accused of Theft to Pay Off Dominatrix
Prosecutors said Friday that a top official in a Texas county’s treasury department stole $35,000 from a county credit union to pay a dominatrix who blackmailed him.
Read moreElection Watchdog Demands Access to Texas Voter Rolls
A conservative voter-fraud watchdog claims Texas’ most populous county is violating federal law by refusing to let it inspect the county’s voter rolls for people who aren’t U.S. citizens.
Read moreInjury to Elderly
Houston-area prosecutors announced Friday that Philadelphia Eagles defensive end Michael Bennett has been charged with a felony count of injury to the elderly based on claims that he hurt a paraplegic woman while trying to get on the field at last year’s Super Bowl to see his brother.
Read moreFifth Circuit Affirms Unconstitutionality of Harris County Bail System
The Fifth Circuit on Wednesday affirmed that Texas’ biggest county unconstitutionally imposes cash bail on poor misdemeanor defendants, but vacated an injunction requiring the county to release them from custody within 24 hours.
Read moreFederal Judge Asks Houston Courts for Some Answers
The federal judge who forced Texas’ biggest county to overhaul its bail system ordered Harris County criminal judges on Tuesday to prove they did not withhold evidence of policies against releasing poor misdemeanor defendants from jail.
Read moreFive Texas Jailers Charged With Violently Beating Inmate
A Texas grand jury indicted two current and three former jailers on charges they beat an inmate so badly in the state’s biggest jail that they broke his nose and eye socket, forcing him to undergo a four-hour facial reconstruction surgery.
Read more
Fifth Circuit Wrestles With Bail Policies in Houston Jails
A panel of Fifth Circuit judges on Tuesday questioned whether a federal judge in Houston went too far in overhauling the bail policies of Texas’ biggest county by ordering it to release poor misdemeanor defendants from jail within 24 hours.
Read more
Is It Crime, or Is It the Fuzzy Animal Exception?
There are few casinos in Texas but games of chance abound, because a loophole in state law — cut out for huggable stuffed animals — blurs the lines between illegal gambling and innocent amusement.
Read more
Freed From Death Row, Man Sues His Texas Prosecutor
A Houston prosecutor “went to unbelievable lengths to manipulate evidence,” including threatening and jailing witnesses and concealing exculpatory evidence, to send an innocent, mentally disabled man to prison for 12 years — 10 of them on death row — the exonerated man claims in court.
Read moreHigh Court Rejects Texas County’s Bid to Stop Release of Poor Inmates
Claiming that complying with a federal judge’s order to release poor, “potentially dangerous” people charged with misdemeanors from its jail in Houston will cause irreparable harm, Harris County asked the U.S. Supreme Court late Tuesday to stay the order.
Read more
Texas County Appeals Injunction in Bail Dispute
Harris County, Texas officials refused Tuesday to buckle to public pressure to settle a lawsuit in which a federal judge ordered the county to release poor misdemeanor defendants from jail within 24 hours, and instead filed an appeal to the Fifth Circuit.
Read moreFederal Judge Strikes Down Houston-Area Bail System
Texas’ most populous county unconstitutionally jails poor people charged with misdemeanors only because they cannot afford bail, a pretrial-detention system that also violates state law, a federal judge ruled.
Read moreTexas Dad Says Police Overreacted to Son’s Call
A Texas teenager called police on his dad for scolding him about his long phone conversations and two officers used a stun gun on the father until he fell face-first into a wall and then arrested him, the man claims in a civil-rights lawsuit.
Read more