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It was announced this morning on the air, KCOH will be moving to the 1230 spot on the dial, where the call letters KQUE have been in use. The current programming will continue, operating out of the KCOH picture window studios on Almeda.
The Chronicle story has more details.
UPDATE: WHILE I DON'T USUALLY COVER BREAKING NEWS IN THE BROADCAST INDUSTRY ON THIS BLOG, KCOH IS ONE OF OUR FEW REMAINING HERITAGE RADIO STATIONS; NOT ONLY THAT, IT IS STILL LOCALLY OWNED AND PROGRAMMED IN A DAY OF CORPORATE RADIO, AND THAT'S NOT TO MENTION IT'S SIGNIFICANCE IN THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN COMMUNITY. SO, HERE'S MORE ON THE PENDING SALE AND MOVE, IN DEPTH, FROM THE FORWARD TIMES.
6 Şubat 2013 Çarşamba
5 Şubat 2013 Salı
When jails do mental health: Medicaid, local politics and public safety
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Rick Perry may have said "no" to Medicaid expansion, but given the economics of the situation, I'll bet Republican legislators all over the state have faced local meetings like the one described in the Waco Tribune-Herald evincing the Legislature's "division with local government leaders" on whether to expand Medicaid. "Top officials with the city of Waco and McLennan County support the Medicaid expansion envisioned as part of national health care reform, saying it would cut the area’s uninsured rate by more than half and bring $58 million a year in new federal funding to the area." Local officials in every county with taxpayers on the hook for a hospital are thinking the same thing.
Grits' particular interest in possible Medicaid expansion lies in the expanded access to mental health care for probationers and parolees and possibly federal cost sharing for inpatient hospital care at TDCJ. The Harris County Jail ain't for nothing the largest mental health institution in the state. Medicaid expansion would allow a continuum of care for folks jails currently treat, stabilize and let go. Not only are there costs to local government from uncompensated care at the emergency room, IMO there's a not-negligible public safety cost from limiting access to mental-health services in an era when we use local jails as front-end mental health providers.
Grits' particular interest in possible Medicaid expansion lies in the expanded access to mental health care for probationers and parolees and possibly federal cost sharing for inpatient hospital care at TDCJ. The Harris County Jail ain't for nothing the largest mental health institution in the state. Medicaid expansion would allow a continuum of care for folks jails currently treat, stabilize and let go. Not only are there costs to local government from uncompensated care at the emergency room, IMO there's a not-negligible public safety cost from limiting access to mental-health services in an era when we use local jails as front-end mental health providers.
Austin PD crime-lab backlogs delaying cases for months
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The Austin Statesman has a remarkable story ("Crime lab backlogs weighing down court system," Feb. 3) lamenting growing backlogs at the Austin PD crime lab, which are "causing unprecedented delays in the resolution of criminal cases, preventing some from going forward for at least six months and stressing an already bustling county judicial system." Reported Tony Plohetski:
Austin's failure to invest in its crime lab stems from the same illogic as their failure to invest in crime-scene investigators (the city fails to investigate 55-65% of home burglaries because they don't employ enough property-crime techs). Nearly every extra dollar available to the agency over the last decade has gone to hiring ever-more patrol officers and paying for extravagant raises agreed to in off-budget negotiations with the police union, which is the main source of recent city property tax increases.
That said, this is also in part a self-inflicted wound: The biggest source of crime-lab backlogs turns out to be police department management decisions to ramp up their "no refusal" DWI blood-draw policies.
See prior, related Grits posts:
The number of cases awaiting testing has doubled in five years, and more than 1,100 samples in both felony and misdemeanor cases remain unanalyzed – a backlog that every judge in the county’s criminal courts deems unacceptable.Ironically, Hays County recently announced it would begin to use Austin's crime lab on a contract basis because of backlogs at DPS!
Some cases involve relatively minor crimes from mid-2012 that now languish on court dockets. The problem is particularly acute for blood evidence in drunken driving cases, which is sitting on shelves an average of 200 days before it is assigned to an analyst, more than six times longer than three years ago.
The backlog is partly the result of repeated decisions by the city of Austin not to add new scientists to the crime lab in its nine years of operation, despite requests from the police department and a growing reliance on forensic evidence to solve and prosecute crimes.
Austin's failure to invest in its crime lab stems from the same illogic as their failure to invest in crime-scene investigators (the city fails to investigate 55-65% of home burglaries because they don't employ enough property-crime techs). Nearly every extra dollar available to the agency over the last decade has gone to hiring ever-more patrol officers and paying for extravagant raises agreed to in off-budget negotiations with the police union, which is the main source of recent city property tax increases.
That said, this is also in part a self-inflicted wound: The biggest source of crime-lab backlogs turns out to be police department management decisions to ramp up their "no refusal" DWI blood-draw policies.
Since 2008, the number of samples submitted to the lab has risen modestly overall — about 25 percent. But the request for certain types of testing, including blood in drunken driving cases, has gone from 440 in 2008 to 2,002 last year as the department has increasingly sought blood samples from suspects who refuse a breath test.Luckily, Travis County is pretty good about issuing personal bonds in such situations; elsewhere those sorts of backlogs could leave a county jail bursting at the seams. Still, the story shows how, in the 21st century, state and local officials must invest in forensic labs as diligently as they do front-line police officers, the judiciary, and county jails, and a nascent storyline every budget season - at the state and local levels - will be the growing competition between these various law enforcement functions for increasingly scarce resources.
Those cases are handled in the lab’s chemistry section, which also analyzes narcotic samples, but blood cases “are the most complicated, and the processing time is much longer,” said Ed Harris, the department’s chief of field support services, who oversees the lab. ...
The longest wait time is the average of 200 days for blood samples, which have flooded into the lab in recent years, according to department statistics. The wait time for narcotic and DNA samples is 75 days, while fingerprint wait times are about 90 days.
See prior, related Grits posts:
- Hays County would save money eschewing 'free' DPS crime lab services, paying Austin
- 500% increase in DWI blood tests worsened DPS crime lab staffing shortages
- Will new, 'anti-government' Lege invest in criminal justice system: Crime lab edition
- Texas crime lab capacity expanding slower than demand
- Law enforcement coming to grips with new limits on DPS crime lab services
- DPS reaching limits of unsustainable crime lab model: Tells agencies to reduce DNA, drug testing requests
- DNA testing dominates crime lab backlogs
- Texas crime labs ill-equipped to handle coming volume of 'touch DNA' cases
- Upward budget pressure at crime labs
- Large backlogs for DPS forensics testing
- Using DNA in nonviolent offenses would swamp crime labs
- Backlog of DNA cases complicates Houston crime lab's bias problems
- Houston fingerprint lab plagued with errors, two-year backlog
- Forensic backlogs force tough choices
Levin: Keep criminal-justice reform ball rolling
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The Texas Public Policy Foundation's Marc Levin had an op ed in the Austin Statesman titled "Lawmakers must continue criminal justice reforms." With his permission, I've reprinted the full piece below the jump.
BY MARC LEVIN
There’s plenty of good news on criminal justice in Texas, but now is not the time to stop the presses. Instead, Texas lawmakers must build on recent achievements that have enabled Texas to realize its lowest crime rate since 1973 and a double-digit percent drop in both the state’s crime and incarceration rates since 2005. By better aligning policies with research, policymakers can continue the progress in driving down the crime rate without being too tough on taxpayers.
Building on recent successes requires understanding the factors that contributed to it. Two key budgetary strategies adopted in 2005 and 2007 enabled Texas to avoid building more than 17,000 new prison beds, which the Legislative Budget Board (LBB) had projected would be needed by 2012. Such beds would have cost $2 billion to build and operate over five years.
The first strategy involved appropriating $55 million in 2005 for probation departments that agreed to seek a 10 percent reduction in the number of probationers returned to prison, and that agreed to implement graduated sanctions. Such sanctions involve imposing issuing swift, sure and commensurate measures (more required meetings, extended probation terms, electronic monitoring and weekends in jail, for example) for rules violations such as missed appointments, rather than letting them pile up and then revoking that probationer to prison. Most of the funding went toward reducing caseloads, which facilitated closer supervision and the consistent application of both sanctions and incentives. Participating probation departments have reduced revocations, avoiding $226 million in incarceration costs.
The second strategy was the 2007 appropriation of $241 million for prison alternatives. This included more intermediate sanctions and substance abuse treatment beds, drug courts, and substance abuse and mental illness treatment slots. Capacity was also created to clear the backlog of parolees not being released because of waiting lists for in-prison treatment programs that must be completed as a condition of release, and for halfway houses (paroled inmates cannot be released without a valid home plan). The 2008-09 budget added about 7,000 beds, including treatment beds for diverting probationers and parolees from prison, halfway house beds and mental health pretrial diversion beds, as well as 3,000 outpatient drug treatment slots, all of which were maintained in subsequent budgets.
Given that nearly all felonies in Texas can result in either probation or prison, the recent drop in nonviolent offenders directly sentenced to prison may reflect the confidence that judges, juries and prosecutors have in the effectiveness of probation. Also, probation and parole revocations together account for approximately half of the annual prison intakes, and both have declined over the last several years as supervision has been strengthened. Parole offices have expanded the use of graduated sanctions, implemented instant drug testing, and hired chaplains who connect willing parolees with local religious congregations. Thus, despite there being more parolees, the number of new crimes committed by parolees has declined 11.9 percent since 2007, contributing to a sharp reduction in parole revocations.
The first step in sustaining and continuing these gains is to ensure that the upcoming budget prioritizes proven community corrections approaches that hold offenders accountable and put them on the right track at a fraction of the cost of prison. Consider that in Texas probation costs less than $3 a day, with half of that paid for by offender fees, while prison is more than $50 per day. Even if a more intensive community corrections approach like a problem-solving court or GPS is needed to safely supervise certain offenders, the cost is still a fifth of prison. Fortunately, the Texas prison population has declined from its high of nearly 156,000 just a few years ago to 151,191 as of the end of the 2012, some 4,384 fewer beds than the system’s operating capacity. Accordingly, legislators should budget for closing additional prisons and reinvest some of the savings in the proven approaches that have contributed to this surplus of beds and simultaneous drop in crime.
Lawmakers can do even more in the next budget by implementing Senate Bill 1055, which was unanimously enacted last session. This measure authorizes counties to voluntarily enter into an agreement with the state to reduce prison commitments of low-level offenders whereby the community receives a share of the state’s savings on lower prison costs, partly based on the county’s performance in reducing probationers’ recidivism rate and increasing the share of probationers who are current on their victim restitution. The next budget should implement SB 1055 by reallocating to participating counties some of the savings from prison closures achieved through the implementation of the local commitment reduction plans described in the legislation. In 2010 — the first fiscal year of Texas’ Juvenile Commitment Reduction Program — juvenile commitments to state lockups fell 36 percent, saving taxpayers at least $114 million, while juvenile crime continued to decline. Senate Bill 1055 provides that counties can use the share of the state’s savings that they receive for community-based programs, which include problem-solving courts, specialized probation caseloads, electronic monitoring and short-term use of the county jail to promote compliance.
Legislators should also establish a presumption of probation with mandatory treatment for first-time drug offenders who possessed less than 4 grams — about one-seventh of an ounce — of the outlawed substance. One version of this is Senate Bill 90. Those convicted of drug delivery are excluded, as are drug possession offenders who had a previous conviction for any other offense beyond a traffic violation.
The judge would determine whether the offender would go to a residential facility, which could be the state’s six month secure Substance Abuse Felony Punishment Facilities (SAFPFs), or day treatment, or a combination of both. If “three hots and a cot” is tough on crime, is it not tough on crime to force a drug addict to be in a program where he is tested regularly and must attend treatment and cover the cost to the extent possible, hold a job, pay child support and face jail time for repeated failures to comply?
Under this proposal, such an offender could still be initially imprisoned upon a documented judicial finding of danger to the community. Moreover, those who fail to comply face revocation to prison for up to 10 years. The LBB estimated this approach would save $500 million over five years, even considering the additional probation and drug treatment costs incurred.
Policymakers must also overhaul the state jail system, which houses those with offenses such as possessing less than a gram of drugs, writing hot checks and prostitution. It is plagued by a 60 percent recidivism rate, significantly higher than the recidivism rate of prisons that hold more serious offenders. To achieve better results, the law should be amended to return to the original model where state jail time must be a condition of probation. Accordingly, instead of being discharged without supervision after serving an average of eight months, state jail inmates would go on probation, where they would report to an officer, take drug tests and be required to attend mental health and substance abuse treatment and hold a job, while also being eligible for resources that promote reintegration into society.
Another priority is legislation allowing prosecutors to refer certain cases to victim-offender conferencing. Consider if an 8-year-old in your neighborhood stole something out of your garage. Rather than go through months of a protracted legal process, you as the victim could choose this restorative approach which typically involves the offender taking responsibility for his conduct, making an apology, providing monetary and/or service restitution and performing community service. The defendant must also choose conferencing, as he waives his right to trial and appeal. Some 89 percent agreements are met, but if not, the case is prosecuted. Research shows this approach increases restitution collections, enhances victim satisfaction and reduces recidivism, as offenders come to understand they did not just violate the words of a statute but hurt other individuals. It also conserves judicial, prosecutorial and indigent defense resources.
Furthermore, lawmakers must continue recent progress in driving down both the juvenile crime rate and the number of youths in state lockups. This requires prioritizing funding for the Commitment Reduction Program through which counties have implemented evidence-based approaches that involve juvenile probation officers and treatment personnel coming into the home to strengthen the family’s capacity for providing discipline.
Furthermore, it’s time to overhaul ineffective zero-tolerance policies that unnecessarily remove students from school and funnel many of them into the juvenile and criminal justice systems. Each year, hundreds of thousands of students are issued criminal citations and sent to municipal courts for such routine misbehavior as making “unreasonable noise,” even though such citations don’t improve behavior. Further, under zero-tolerance policies, a principal has no choice but to suspend a high school student with an empty beer can in his car within 300 feet of the campus. Policymakers must administer a dose of common sense and local discretion to remedy these flawed policies.
Additionally, let’s rein in the number and scope of the state’s 1,700 criminal offenses, and avoid adding yet more superfluous crimes. Some 1,500 of these offenses are outside of the Penal Code where the traditional crimes are found. Most of these relate to ordinary business activities. For example, Texas has 11 felonies concerning the harvesting of oysters. In a January report, the LBB recommended that the Legislature create a sentencing commission that would regularly review the voluminous criminal laws to identify those that are unnecessary and ensure that penalties for those that are needed are commensurate with the relative gravity of the conduct. The recommendations of the commission, which would include key stakeholders such as judges, prosecutors, criminal defense lawyers and victims’ advocates, would then go to the Legislature. Unfortunately, without such a mechanism to regularly review a body of criminal laws too vast and complex to be comprehensively examined during the fast-moving legislative session, we will be stuck on auto-pilot in the grow-government mode as the Legislature adds an average of 39 new offenses each session and dozens more penalty enhancements without repealing or reining in any laws.
We also recommend adoption of the rule of lenity. This approach to interpreting criminal laws specifies that, if it is unclear whether the conduct at issue is clearly prohibited, the benefit of the doubt goes to the defendant. This concept is consistent with the conservative emphasis on strictly interpreting the law as well as the traditional formulation that a crime consists of a guilty mind combined with a bad act. To have a guilty mind, or mens rea, a person must have had fair warning that their conduct was criminal. If a statute is unclear, it by definition does not provide that fair warning.
These recommendations flow from the fundamental principles of limited government and personal responsibility and the need for policymakers to apply the same scrutiny to criminal laws and spending on corrections as other policy areas. Public safety is one of the few core roles of government, but let’s distinguish between those offenders we are afraid of and those we are simply mad at. Texas has made remarkable progress over the last several years in reducing both crime and incarceration, and there is plenty more to be done this session to take a few more bites out of crime and a few less dollars out of taxpayers.
BY MARC LEVIN
There’s plenty of good news on criminal justice in Texas, but now is not the time to stop the presses. Instead, Texas lawmakers must build on recent achievements that have enabled Texas to realize its lowest crime rate since 1973 and a double-digit percent drop in both the state’s crime and incarceration rates since 2005. By better aligning policies with research, policymakers can continue the progress in driving down the crime rate without being too tough on taxpayers.
Building on recent successes requires understanding the factors that contributed to it. Two key budgetary strategies adopted in 2005 and 2007 enabled Texas to avoid building more than 17,000 new prison beds, which the Legislative Budget Board (LBB) had projected would be needed by 2012. Such beds would have cost $2 billion to build and operate over five years.
The first strategy involved appropriating $55 million in 2005 for probation departments that agreed to seek a 10 percent reduction in the number of probationers returned to prison, and that agreed to implement graduated sanctions. Such sanctions involve imposing issuing swift, sure and commensurate measures (more required meetings, extended probation terms, electronic monitoring and weekends in jail, for example) for rules violations such as missed appointments, rather than letting them pile up and then revoking that probationer to prison. Most of the funding went toward reducing caseloads, which facilitated closer supervision and the consistent application of both sanctions and incentives. Participating probation departments have reduced revocations, avoiding $226 million in incarceration costs.
The second strategy was the 2007 appropriation of $241 million for prison alternatives. This included more intermediate sanctions and substance abuse treatment beds, drug courts, and substance abuse and mental illness treatment slots. Capacity was also created to clear the backlog of parolees not being released because of waiting lists for in-prison treatment programs that must be completed as a condition of release, and for halfway houses (paroled inmates cannot be released without a valid home plan). The 2008-09 budget added about 7,000 beds, including treatment beds for diverting probationers and parolees from prison, halfway house beds and mental health pretrial diversion beds, as well as 3,000 outpatient drug treatment slots, all of which were maintained in subsequent budgets.
Given that nearly all felonies in Texas can result in either probation or prison, the recent drop in nonviolent offenders directly sentenced to prison may reflect the confidence that judges, juries and prosecutors have in the effectiveness of probation. Also, probation and parole revocations together account for approximately half of the annual prison intakes, and both have declined over the last several years as supervision has been strengthened. Parole offices have expanded the use of graduated sanctions, implemented instant drug testing, and hired chaplains who connect willing parolees with local religious congregations. Thus, despite there being more parolees, the number of new crimes committed by parolees has declined 11.9 percent since 2007, contributing to a sharp reduction in parole revocations.
The first step in sustaining and continuing these gains is to ensure that the upcoming budget prioritizes proven community corrections approaches that hold offenders accountable and put them on the right track at a fraction of the cost of prison. Consider that in Texas probation costs less than $3 a day, with half of that paid for by offender fees, while prison is more than $50 per day. Even if a more intensive community corrections approach like a problem-solving court or GPS is needed to safely supervise certain offenders, the cost is still a fifth of prison. Fortunately, the Texas prison population has declined from its high of nearly 156,000 just a few years ago to 151,191 as of the end of the 2012, some 4,384 fewer beds than the system’s operating capacity. Accordingly, legislators should budget for closing additional prisons and reinvest some of the savings in the proven approaches that have contributed to this surplus of beds and simultaneous drop in crime.
Lawmakers can do even more in the next budget by implementing Senate Bill 1055, which was unanimously enacted last session. This measure authorizes counties to voluntarily enter into an agreement with the state to reduce prison commitments of low-level offenders whereby the community receives a share of the state’s savings on lower prison costs, partly based on the county’s performance in reducing probationers’ recidivism rate and increasing the share of probationers who are current on their victim restitution. The next budget should implement SB 1055 by reallocating to participating counties some of the savings from prison closures achieved through the implementation of the local commitment reduction plans described in the legislation. In 2010 — the first fiscal year of Texas’ Juvenile Commitment Reduction Program — juvenile commitments to state lockups fell 36 percent, saving taxpayers at least $114 million, while juvenile crime continued to decline. Senate Bill 1055 provides that counties can use the share of the state’s savings that they receive for community-based programs, which include problem-solving courts, specialized probation caseloads, electronic monitoring and short-term use of the county jail to promote compliance.
Legislators should also establish a presumption of probation with mandatory treatment for first-time drug offenders who possessed less than 4 grams — about one-seventh of an ounce — of the outlawed substance. One version of this is Senate Bill 90. Those convicted of drug delivery are excluded, as are drug possession offenders who had a previous conviction for any other offense beyond a traffic violation.
The judge would determine whether the offender would go to a residential facility, which could be the state’s six month secure Substance Abuse Felony Punishment Facilities (SAFPFs), or day treatment, or a combination of both. If “three hots and a cot” is tough on crime, is it not tough on crime to force a drug addict to be in a program where he is tested regularly and must attend treatment and cover the cost to the extent possible, hold a job, pay child support and face jail time for repeated failures to comply?
Under this proposal, such an offender could still be initially imprisoned upon a documented judicial finding of danger to the community. Moreover, those who fail to comply face revocation to prison for up to 10 years. The LBB estimated this approach would save $500 million over five years, even considering the additional probation and drug treatment costs incurred.
Policymakers must also overhaul the state jail system, which houses those with offenses such as possessing less than a gram of drugs, writing hot checks and prostitution. It is plagued by a 60 percent recidivism rate, significantly higher than the recidivism rate of prisons that hold more serious offenders. To achieve better results, the law should be amended to return to the original model where state jail time must be a condition of probation. Accordingly, instead of being discharged without supervision after serving an average of eight months, state jail inmates would go on probation, where they would report to an officer, take drug tests and be required to attend mental health and substance abuse treatment and hold a job, while also being eligible for resources that promote reintegration into society.
Another priority is legislation allowing prosecutors to refer certain cases to victim-offender conferencing. Consider if an 8-year-old in your neighborhood stole something out of your garage. Rather than go through months of a protracted legal process, you as the victim could choose this restorative approach which typically involves the offender taking responsibility for his conduct, making an apology, providing monetary and/or service restitution and performing community service. The defendant must also choose conferencing, as he waives his right to trial and appeal. Some 89 percent agreements are met, but if not, the case is prosecuted. Research shows this approach increases restitution collections, enhances victim satisfaction and reduces recidivism, as offenders come to understand they did not just violate the words of a statute but hurt other individuals. It also conserves judicial, prosecutorial and indigent defense resources.
Furthermore, lawmakers must continue recent progress in driving down both the juvenile crime rate and the number of youths in state lockups. This requires prioritizing funding for the Commitment Reduction Program through which counties have implemented evidence-based approaches that involve juvenile probation officers and treatment personnel coming into the home to strengthen the family’s capacity for providing discipline.
Furthermore, it’s time to overhaul ineffective zero-tolerance policies that unnecessarily remove students from school and funnel many of them into the juvenile and criminal justice systems. Each year, hundreds of thousands of students are issued criminal citations and sent to municipal courts for such routine misbehavior as making “unreasonable noise,” even though such citations don’t improve behavior. Further, under zero-tolerance policies, a principal has no choice but to suspend a high school student with an empty beer can in his car within 300 feet of the campus. Policymakers must administer a dose of common sense and local discretion to remedy these flawed policies.
Additionally, let’s rein in the number and scope of the state’s 1,700 criminal offenses, and avoid adding yet more superfluous crimes. Some 1,500 of these offenses are outside of the Penal Code where the traditional crimes are found. Most of these relate to ordinary business activities. For example, Texas has 11 felonies concerning the harvesting of oysters. In a January report, the LBB recommended that the Legislature create a sentencing commission that would regularly review the voluminous criminal laws to identify those that are unnecessary and ensure that penalties for those that are needed are commensurate with the relative gravity of the conduct. The recommendations of the commission, which would include key stakeholders such as judges, prosecutors, criminal defense lawyers and victims’ advocates, would then go to the Legislature. Unfortunately, without such a mechanism to regularly review a body of criminal laws too vast and complex to be comprehensively examined during the fast-moving legislative session, we will be stuck on auto-pilot in the grow-government mode as the Legislature adds an average of 39 new offenses each session and dozens more penalty enhancements without repealing or reining in any laws.
We also recommend adoption of the rule of lenity. This approach to interpreting criminal laws specifies that, if it is unclear whether the conduct at issue is clearly prohibited, the benefit of the doubt goes to the defendant. This concept is consistent with the conservative emphasis on strictly interpreting the law as well as the traditional formulation that a crime consists of a guilty mind combined with a bad act. To have a guilty mind, or mens rea, a person must have had fair warning that their conduct was criminal. If a statute is unclear, it by definition does not provide that fair warning.
These recommendations flow from the fundamental principles of limited government and personal responsibility and the need for policymakers to apply the same scrutiny to criminal laws and spending on corrections as other policy areas. Public safety is one of the few core roles of government, but let’s distinguish between those offenders we are afraid of and those we are simply mad at. Texas has made remarkable progress over the last several years in reducing both crime and incarceration, and there is plenty more to be done this session to take a few more bites out of crime and a few less dollars out of taxpayers.
Ken Anderson court of inquiry to begin Monday
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I've got work here in Austin, but Grits expects there will be plenty of MSM reporters in Georgetown starting tomorrow to cover the court of inquiry alleging prosecutorial misconduct by then Williamson County District Attorney and now District Judge Ken Anderson in the Michael Morton case. See preview stories from the Texas Tribune and the Austin Statesman. For more background, see Pam Colloff's two-part Texas Monthly piece here and here, and Grits' interview with Colloff about the Morton case. Watch for Pam's coverage of the trial on the new Texas Monthly site.
MORE: Brandi Grissom from the Texas Tribune is liveblogging the event. AND MORE: From the Austin Statesman.
MORE: Brandi Grissom from the Texas Tribune is liveblogging the event. AND MORE: From the Austin Statesman.
Habeas fix filed, and other odds and ends
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A few odds and ends:
Whitmire files habeas fix on false scientific testimony
The Texas Tribune reported that Senate Criminal Justice Committee Chairman John Whitimire filed legislation today to expand access to habeas corpus relief for defendants convicted based on false and discredited scientific testimony, a bill that's a legislative priority of my employers at the Innocence Project of Texas. This was the chairman's first bill filed this session, FWIW, and since the Senate voted for an essentially similar bill in 2009 (it cleared the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee and Calendars but died a silent death during all the Voter ID chubbing), one hopes it will move quickly through the process this time around. Several recent, divided Court of Criminal Appeals cases, described in part by Mr. Chammah's Trib story, make this issue ripe for legislative resolution. More on this bill later.
Travis County may try "managed assigned counsel"
Under this model, first piloted in Lubbock, an independent entity operates the "wheel" that chooses counsel to assign instead of local judges. Read Jordan Smith's coverage and see a draft (pdf) of the proposal on the table. Not my preferred way, but it's better than what Houston does.
Will Texas ban drone surveillance of private property?
Perhaps, if sophomore Rep. Lance Gooden and Sen. John Whitmire have their way, reported the Texas Tribune. Here's the bill.
Why police officers lie under oath
In case you wondered.
Last rewrite of Texas Code of Criminal Procedure never got off ground
In the comments to a recent Grits post highlighting the House Special Commitee to rewrite the Code of Criminal Procedure, Texas prosecutor association lobbyist Shannon Edmonds pointed out that a blue ribbon panel was created during the George Bush governorship to rewrite the Code of Crimnal Procecure in the '90s, elaborating further on the TDCAA site. Wrote Edmonds:
So suggests a study which found that "Spending time in prison leads to increased criminal earnings. ... On average, a person can make roughly $11,000 more [illegally] from spending time in prison versus a person who does not spend time in prison."
Whitmire files habeas fix on false scientific testimony
The Texas Tribune reported that Senate Criminal Justice Committee Chairman John Whitimire filed legislation today to expand access to habeas corpus relief for defendants convicted based on false and discredited scientific testimony, a bill that's a legislative priority of my employers at the Innocence Project of Texas. This was the chairman's first bill filed this session, FWIW, and since the Senate voted for an essentially similar bill in 2009 (it cleared the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee and Calendars but died a silent death during all the Voter ID chubbing), one hopes it will move quickly through the process this time around. Several recent, divided Court of Criminal Appeals cases, described in part by Mr. Chammah's Trib story, make this issue ripe for legislative resolution. More on this bill later.
Travis County may try "managed assigned counsel"
Under this model, first piloted in Lubbock, an independent entity operates the "wheel" that chooses counsel to assign instead of local judges. Read Jordan Smith's coverage and see a draft (pdf) of the proposal on the table. Not my preferred way, but it's better than what Houston does.
Will Texas ban drone surveillance of private property?
Perhaps, if sophomore Rep. Lance Gooden and Sen. John Whitmire have their way, reported the Texas Tribune. Here's the bill.
Why police officers lie under oath
In case you wondered.
Last rewrite of Texas Code of Criminal Procedure never got off ground
In the comments to a recent Grits post highlighting the House Special Commitee to rewrite the Code of Criminal Procedure, Texas prosecutor association lobbyist Shannon Edmonds pointed out that a blue ribbon panel was created during the George Bush governorship to rewrite the Code of Crimnal Procecure in the '90s, elaborating further on the TDCAA site. Wrote Edmonds:
It remains to be seen whether this effort gets farther than the last attempt to re-write the CCP back in the mid-1990s when Governor Bush’s office formed a blue-ribbon panel of judges, prosecutors, defense lawyers, and professors to tackle the job. That effort died for lack of interest among legislators. (For a copy of that bill, which was never heard in committee, check out SB 1608 by Whitmire (75th R.S., 1997).) The lucky House members tasked with the job this time around are: Debbie Riddle (R-Houston), chair; Stefani Carter (R-Dallas), Abel Herrero (D-Robstown), Joe Moody (D-El Paso), and Tan Parker (R-Flower Mound). Beyond that, we don’t know much more at this time. Consistent with the comment we made a few weeks ago, neither TDCAA nor any prosecutors were consulted before this project was launched, but I have a feeling we’ll be taking a great interest in this two-year experiment. Won’t that be FUN?!?Does prison teach people to be better criminals?
So suggests a study which found that "Spending time in prison leads to increased criminal earnings. ... On average, a person can make roughly $11,000 more [illegally] from spending time in prison versus a person who does not spend time in prison."
3 Ocak 2013 Perşembe
Don't be surprised: Number of Texas traffic tickets declining
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The editorial board at the Austin Statesman opined yesterday that, "We were surprised to learn that the number of traffic tickets issued each fiscal year by Austin police officers has decreased sharply over the past three years, from 264,428 in 2009 to 133,852 in 2012, as reported by the American-Statesman’s Dave Harmon and Tony Plohetski." Their surprise is disappointing because the Statesman editors would have been fully informed of the trend had they been regular Grits for Breakfast readers, e.g.:
Indeed, singular focus on traffic enforcement contributes to government ignoring other factors leading to reduced accidents, like improved traffic engineering and public transportation. My own view is that within a couple of decades, perhaps sooner, we'll see traffic deaths plunge even further thanks to technological advances that reduce or eliminate driver error. If and when that happens, it will fundamentally change the role and tactics of local police, who in Austin, despite recent declines, presently spend more time writing traffic tickets, according to a consultant's 2012 staffing analysis (pdf), than on any other activity.
- Austin police gave 26% fewer traffic tickets in 2011
- Most larger Texas police departments wrote fewer traffic tickets in 2011
- Reduction in federal pork one cause of fewer Texas traffic tickets
- Why are Texas cops writing fewer traffic tickets?
Nine of the state’s 10 most populous cities had fewer traffic cases filed in municipal court in 2011 than the previous year, according to statistics from the state Office of Court Administration. (San Antonio was the lone exception, with 16 percent more traffic cases.)The paper quoted Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo insisting that "there’s a direct correlation between traffic enforcement and bad outcomes," but at least for fatalities, that doesn't jibe with the data. The newshook for the story was that Austin traffic fatalities increased this year, but statewide traffic deaths have declined in recent years despite hundreds of thousands of fewer traffic tickets being written statewide. The Statesman reported in August that:
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Even Texas Department of Public Safety troopers issued an average of 443 fewer tickets per day in 2011 than they did in 2008 on Texas highways — a 14 percent drop, although the number remained virtually the same from 2010 to 2011. The slowdown has come as the state’s population continues to grow.
In 2010, ... the state saw 3,028 traffic deaths and about 234 billion miles of driving, the audit said.
That equates to 1.29 deaths per 100 million miles driven, the formulation used by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for evaluating road safety.
In 2006, by comparison, the death rate was 1.5 deaths per 100 million miles traveled in Texas. The rate fell every year between 2006 and 2010.If Acevedo were right that there's a "direct correlation" between traffic enforcement and fatalities, then why have traffic deaths declined statewide even as police in Texas dramatically reduced the number of tickets written? That bit of conventional wisdom doesn't match the statewide data. Any correlation is at best indirect and much stronger correlations may be found, for example. between declining traffic deaths and improved medical techniques, expanded access to regional trauma centers at hospitals, and better safety equipment in the vehicles themselves.
Indeed, singular focus on traffic enforcement contributes to government ignoring other factors leading to reduced accidents, like improved traffic engineering and public transportation. My own view is that within a couple of decades, perhaps sooner, we'll see traffic deaths plunge even further thanks to technological advances that reduce or eliminate driver error. If and when that happens, it will fundamentally change the role and tactics of local police, who in Austin, despite recent declines, presently spend more time writing traffic tickets, according to a consultant's 2012 staffing analysis (pdf), than on any other activity.
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