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Body cameras’ impact on law enforcement accountability
Body cameras were first presented a few years ago as a way to provide evidence when specific incidents take place. Many law enforcement agencies have since gotten onboard, but the results are mixed. Initially, there was a concern on the part of law enforcement that...
The age of consent and Texas law
The age of consent is generally defined here in the United States as the age at which individuals are mature enough to consent to sexual activity. The listed threshold varies from state to state, with ages ranging from 16 to 18 – it is 17 years old here in Texas....
Texas lawmakers consider changes to pretrial bail system
What happens after police officers arrest someone? In most cases, if the state chooses to charge the individual with a crime, the court will set bail. If the individual can afford the set bail, the officers will release the accused. If not, the accused will remain in...
Would you feel free to refuse a police request to search your phone?
When a group of study participants was asked to guess how many motorists would comply with a police request to search their cars, they estimated 65% would agree. In reality, over 90% comply -- even when they have something to hide. The truth is, you have no obligation...
Texas Senate passes bill for fairer pre-trial evidence sharing
In a criminal trial in the United States, there aren’t supposed to be any surprises. Prosecutors are legally required to turn over, to the defense, any evidence they have that tends to show the defendant could be innocent or deserves a lesser punishment. The U.S....
Prosecutors dropping child porn cases rather than reveal tool
If law enforcement had a tool that could catch people as they downloaded child pornography, wouldn’t you want to know? Transparency is one of the values of our criminal justice system. It has to be. The Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees criminal...
Texas has the highest prison rate in the nation. Can we reduce it?
America’s mass incarceration problem is taking a huge toll on individuals, families, communities and taxpayers across the nation. Texas is at the center of the problem because it incarcerates more people than any other state: 163,703 in 2016. Since about 1980, we have...
Police have no way to tell the difference between hemp and weed
Last year, the federal government legalized the possession and distribution of hemp. The plant, a relative of marijuana, contains virtually no THC, the psychoactive component of cannabis. Yet it looks similar and smells the same -- and drug dogs will alert on both....
Report: Federal white collar crime prosecutions at all-time low
Justice Department data collected and analyzed by Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse indicate something surprising: federal prosecutions for white collar crime are down 35.7 percent over five years ago. While not all so-called white...
SCOTUS: Do supervised release violations require jury trials?
Supervised release in the federal system is roughly comparable to parole in a state system, with one big difference. In parole, the defendant is being offered a benefit. If they comply with the terms of their parole, they get to serve part of their sentence in the...
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